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Which raid setup is best for me?

S

sinitry23

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 24, 2004
Messages
70
Hi all!

I have an old PC lying around that I would like to turn into a file system. Please let me know which raid setup is best for my configuration and needs?

Windows 7 professional
core 2 duo 6600
ASus p5x
8gb of memory
1 WD 80gb 10000rpm (os installed on this drive)
4 WD 1 TB 7200 black drives - I would like to raid these drives

I am a photographer and I would like to store all my images on this
computer. Which raid would be best for speed and security? If one drive fails can I put a new one in and have it rebuilt? Thank you!
 
Remember that RAID is not a backup. It will prevent data loss from an unexpected drive dieing but it does not prevent a faulty raid controller/software, a virus/malware, filesystem corruption, accidental or deliberate deletion ... from destroying some or all of your data.

Secondly for windows 7 you will probably need a $300 to $500 true raid controller card to do raid. Without this you are in most cases sacrificing speed and reliability.
 
i would not trust windows to do a software RAID other then RAID 10 or 01 in your situation, even then i would have reservations if my data was extremely important. if you do not want to buy a hardware RAID controler, or use another OS, i would just setup the 4 drives as individual drives, and then use 1 or 2 of the 4 drives for backup.

if you want HW RAID you dont need a $3-500 card, you can get a great intel card with an LSI chip for $150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117157
you also need a SFF-8087 to 4x SATA breakout cable ("forward", not reverse- youll see what i mean) for $15
 
Is that a true hardware raid card? I did not see the mention of how much cache it has and the option for a battery backup unit.
 
the box (linux) i have it in did not require a driver for the disk to be recognized, so i would say its a low end hardware raid card. i dont know off hand what the cache is.

however i stand corrected. i overlooked the fact that the card does not support raid5, which is is probably what you would want with 4x 1tb drives under windows. if you had an additional drive, the RAID-1E would be good, or if you wanted to make a mirrored 2TB array out of the 4- then go RAID 1+0 (or 0+1).
 
Thanks for your replies, I understand that raid is not a source of back up. I do have an offisite back up for my data.

My motherboard already has an integrated raid controller card. Can I just use the raid card that is onboard or do I need a dedicated raid controller card?
 
My motherboard already has an integrated raid controller card.
Click to expand...

The motherboard does not have a true hardware raid card it has a software raid with a boot bios. These fakeraid controllers can be very problematic under windows although intel has one of the better implementations. See the dozens of other threads on this.
 
I see... I didn't know that the raid controllers that came with our motherboards sucks.

My question is, I want to have about 4 TB of storage so I can drop all my files into it and just store them. At the same time I don't want so many drive letters. What can I do to make all 4 hard drive look like one large drive? I would have to raid it 0 right?

What about raid 5? Will that be a good option to use as a setup?
 
Well here's the thing: There's actually several ways to accomplish what you want:

- RAID 0
- JBOD
- RAID 5 (Using a true hardware RAID controller and if using Windows)
- WHS's drive pool
- ZFS' RAIDZ
- Linux MDADM RAID 5

The first two do not offer an ounce of data security so if one drive dies, all data is usually lost.

The third option is the most expensive but somewhat fastest option since you have to pay for a true hardware RAID controller. Those tend to cost around $300 to $600 depending on how many drives you plan on adding in the future. Window's software RAID tends to be significantly slower than other software RAID types. As such, when using a Windows OS, it's generally recommended to get a true hardware RAID controller

Linux MDADM RAID 5 is pretty much software RAID 5 since the needed requirement of a true hardware RAID controller is not present. However, unlike Windows software RAID, Linux software RAID is relatively fast

WHS's drive pool is a mixture of JBOD and RAID 1 in the sense that not all the drives have to be same size. You can have a mixture of 1TB and 2TB drives in the WHS drive pool. As for the RAID 1 part, you can selectively choose which folders you want "duplicated" where a second copy of the data within that folder is kept on another drive. More info on WHS here:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1390750

ZFS RAIDZ is the option I know least about so here's a link that better explains what it is exactly:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1500505
 
sinitry23 said:
How much slower is windows software raid is compare to a dedicated hardware raid?


Is this the right raid controller card to get?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=raid_controller-_-16-115-027-_-Product
Click to expand...
Significantly slower. We're talking close 10% of the performance of a true hardware RAID card. i.e 20Mb/s write under the best conditions IIRC.

That's not the right RAID controller as it uses the PC's CPU to calculate the parity data. In other words, it's a fakeRAID card. You want to get something like this:
$400 - HighPoint RocketRAID 4320 PCI-Ex8 8 Port SATA and SAS RAID Card
 
I think I should just reformat and install Windows Home server. It seems to bee the most cost efficient way to do for now. If I add 4 1tb hard drives to my WHS setup can I configure to show like 1 hard drive?
 
sinitry23 said:
I think I should just reformat and install Windows Home server. It seems to bee the most cost efficient way to do for now. If I add 4 1tb hard drives to my WHS setup can I configure to show like 1 hard drive?
Click to expand...

RAID is not necessary for Windows Home Sever, read the FAQ so you can understand how it works.
 
Butcher9_9 said:
there is a thread on how slow Intel on board raid can be

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=879724
Click to expand...
He did not enable write caching; which would cause sequential writes to become random writes; ~10MB/s write throughput max. By enabling write caching, you can get 70MB/s+ RAID5 write speed.

You should know that Intel is the best onboard RAID there is; no other onboard RAID can do RAID5 the way Intel does; using RAM writeback. Do note that it could lead to loss of data; as crashes and power failures could corrupt the filesystem.
 
sub.mesa said:
He did not enable write caching; which would cause sequential writes to become random writes; ~10MB/s write throughput max. By enabling write caching, you can get 70MB/s+ RAID5 write speed.

You should know that Intel is the best onboard RAID there is; no other onboard RAID can do RAID5 the way Intel does; using RAM writeback. Do note that it could lead to loss of data; as crashes and power failures could corrupt the filesystem.
Click to expand...

yeah i do know that the intel one is the best, but thats just because the competition is pretty weak

i would not trust unprotected write cache
 
i would not trust unprotected write cache
Click to expand...

I do that all the time with linux. To me its about having systems that crash less than 1 time per 5 years and with those same systems having a UPS and a real backup plan.
 
Dear Sinitry23,

You are a Photographer. You have taken the resource/trouble of offsite backup. Considering all other non-stated assumptions, (valuable images, straightforward operation, simple recovery, ...)

Recommend you folow the forum member suggestion to get a real-Hardware RAID controller, with write cache battery backup unit for the RAID controller.

Regarding Hardware RAID Controller

1. Remember to check whether the 4 units of 1TB black drives can support TLER properly to prevent accidental dropouts.
2. Maybe some experience members can tell exactly what Hardware RAID cards are less troubled by the TLER issues.
3. Usual hardware RAID vendors are Areca/Adaptec/Dell/HP/LSI/Supermicro.
4. I am not voting for HP, but if you wanted absolute stability with minimal issue, HP Hardware-based Smart Array cards are in used and well tested in millions of enterprise servers 24x7 as long as you follow the correct way of using it, and with battery. They are relatively expensive and not necessary fast for the price. Must pay a lot for performance They are also particular about drives I think.
5. Dell Perc 6 series are good but you need a lot of detail work to make sure you order every accessary items to accompany the main card for 3rd party (non-Dell) use. Again battery unit.
6. A lot of Areca/Supermicro users in the forum so you can look for help when needed.
7. For minimal hassle usage, you want hot-plug drive case with LED and drives connected to ARRAY Card that will light the LED to tell you which drive has failed, so you do not need to guess. It is common on hot-plug servers but I have no exact knowledge on consumer environment. Forum members can give suggestion if this feature is needed.

I am using Linux software RAID on consumer setup. It is good, but it needs command line during recovery and sometimes users just want plug-in and forget arrangement (me included :))
 
raid 1 uses one drive for the main and one drive for a mirror (or backup) image... no speed increase, might even be slower, some raid controllers will double your read speed by reading from both drives... you need at least 2 drives to do this, always even numbers, two 1tb drives will only give you 1TB of useable space and you will have an exact back of your data

Raid 5 gives you speed and parity you will need at least 3 drives to do this... if one drive dies (out of 3) you can still use the array but you will not have increased speed or any type of backup protection... if 2 drives die you loose everything... I had 3 1.5TB drives in raid 5 and get decent speed, parity and only 2.7TB of useable hard drive space

raid 10, its basically a pair of raid 0 arrays, one is the primary and the 2nd array is the mirror (similar to the way raid 1 works), you will get the speed of a raid 0, with the backup capabilities of a raid 1, you will need at least 4 drives to do a raid 10, you will get exact mirror images of your data, you can loose up to 2 (in a 4 drive array) drives with out loosing your data (assuming they are not the same), faster read and writes however 4 1tb hard drives in a raid 10 will only give you 2tb of storage space, the remaining 2tb will be your mirror data
 
also i have used the onboard Intel raid (matrix) and I love it... enabling the writeback cache really wakes the array up... its great to say the least...

I also find that Intel raid is very very forgiving... I run Green drives in raid 5 and they take forever to wake up... however the Intel raid does nor drop them from the array.... never...
 
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