Question

RAID SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE

Asked by: cheshirepcrepairs

ANY HELP ON THE BENIFITS / ADVANTAGES OF THE RAID HARDWARE V'S RAID SOFTWARE PITFALLS COMMON MISTAKES

WHICH IS THE BETTER WAY TO GO SMALL COMPANY'S MAINLY WANT'S DATA PROTECTING IN CASE OF CRASH
REDUNDANCY ISSUES ANY HELP THANK YOU

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Asked On
2009-05-11 at 18:44:15ID24399951
Tags

MICROSOFT

Topics

General Business & Productivity Software

,

Miscellaneous Hardware

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5
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Answers

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2009-05-11 at 18:53:41ID: 24360581

 

by: rettif9Posted on 2009-05-11 at 19:03:18ID: 24360621

One thing not mentioned in Punky's link is the importance of a good quality UPS designed for use with a server. Just worked with a customer who had a power event on a hardware RAID 1 Array. The RAID controller failed and all data on both drives was unrecoverable. A RAID Array is just part of a disaster recovery plan.

 

by: jhyieslaPosted on 2009-05-11 at 19:56:02ID: 24360800

IMHO, hardware-based RAID is always the only way to go.  It's not that a controller can't fail or some piece of the subsystem take a dive, but overall the hardware is going to be way more robust than any software solution.

 

by: leewPosted on 2009-05-11 at 20:26:05ID: 24360901

Another important point - RAID is NOT BACKUP!!!! I cannot emphasize that enough.  RAID is REDUNDANCY.  It protects data from ONE kind of failure - Disk failure.  It does not protect against corruption, deletion, viruses and other malware, theft of the server, destruction of the server, or any other failure.  RAID is HIGHLY advisable because Hard Drives WILL fail - it's not a question of if, it's a question of WHEN.  Most will last several years, but they CAN fail before installation, a day after they are installed, or 10 years later - you just don't know.

 

by: inbox788Posted on 2009-05-11 at 20:43:09ID: 24360958

I'll reiterate what leew said!

"SMALL COMPANY'S MAINLY WANT'S DATA PROTECTING IN CASE OF CRASH"

You need BACKUP, not RAID.

RAID is for fast recovery after a crash, not data protection.

Now, after you've solved the off-site Backup situation (i.e. in case the building goes on fire), and still want to institute RAID, my rule of thumb is go with hardware solution and be done with it.


 

by: cheshirepcrepairsPosted on 2009-05-17 at 15:43:35ID: 24408160

Thanks to all for comments a little bit more info needed what would you all recommend is the best raid type Im inclined to go for raid 0 + 1
its mainly  for backing up a file server also please clarify on the tutorial links provided it stated use multiple raid controllers per disk am i reading that correctly thanks jonathan

 

by: inbox788Posted on 2009-05-17 at 20:21:34ID: 24408850

Raid 0 or 0+1 is primarily for performance. If you're backing up a fileserver, two points. Raid 5 should be sufficient as performance isn't a major factor. More importantly, what's the RAID or performance on the primary file server? Seems illogical to me to RAID the backup but not the primary.

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