Best RAID setup for following Drives and storage need
Hey everyone, I got a seemingly simple question...but the more I search on it....the more I'm losing my way in the fog....
I have a system in need of a large storage drive...
We have the OS's broken off on different drives, and then have 4 500GB drives that we want to make into a big share.....
Seems that we just use Striping (RAID 0) and span data over all the drives...but what if one dies.....don't want to lose all that data either.....so maybe we make two spans...one with drives 1 and 2....and the other with drives 3 and 4 and then mirror 1&2 onto 3&4 to protect the data on the span....which would be (before formatting) 1TB of storage which is just about perfect.
So if I'm going to be running a dual RAID like that I'm going to want to run RAID 10 or RAID 0+1...and my system supports the following RAID's just so that everyone knows:
Controller 1
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, and JBOD
Controller 2
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5, and JBOD
......but here’s the part were I'm getting lost.
I'm reading that there are Pro's and Con's with 0+1 and 10 and from what I can tell one is where you span the first parts of the drives and then Mirror the spans.....where as the other is two mirrors that are then spanned
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#Nested_RAID_Levels
Now here’s the meat and potatoes of this whole question....if I want these 4 drives to be fault tolerant and also be one big drive....what’s the best option.......also I might want to break this raid apart, and try to keep the data on the disks and increases the RAID at a later time....but who knows what RAID systems will be out by the time I need to step up from a TB or storage.
Thanks you very much,
Derek......thoroughly confused and lost in the fog....
I've gave this 300 points just because of the amount of customization of the question.
PS: I included the RAIDs that are supported because perhaps 0+1 or 10 aren’t necessarily the best way to put together this storage container. If out of the available RAID types there is a better option, let me know.
I have a system in need of a large storage drive...
We have the OS's broken off on different drives, and then have 4 500GB drives that we want to make into a big share.....
Seems that we just use Striping (RAID 0) and span data over all the drives...but what if one dies.....don't want to lose all that data either.....so maybe we make two spans...one with drives 1 and 2....and the other with drives 3 and 4 and then mirror 1&2 onto 3&4 to protect the data on the span....which would be (before formatting) 1TB of storage which is just about perfect.
So if I'm going to be running a dual RAID like that I'm going to want to run RAID 10 or RAID 0+1...and my system supports the following RAID's just so that everyone knows:
Controller 1
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, and JBOD
Controller 2
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5, and JBOD
......but here’s the part were I'm getting lost.
I'm reading that there are Pro's and Con's with 0+1 and 10 and from what I can tell one is where you span the first parts of the drives and then Mirror the spans.....where as the other is two mirrors that are then spanned
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#Nested_RAID_Levels
Now here’s the meat and potatoes of this whole question....if I want these 4 drives to be fault tolerant and also be one big drive....what’s the best option.......also I might want to break this raid apart, and try to keep the data on the disks and increases the RAID at a later time....but who knows what RAID systems will be out by the time I need to step up from a TB or storage.
Thanks you very much,
Derek......thoroughly confused and lost in the fog....
I've gave this 300 points just because of the amount of customization of the question.
PS: I included the RAIDs that are supported because perhaps 0+1 or 10 aren’t necessarily the best way to put together this storage container. If out of the available RAID types there is a better option, let me know.
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You're trying to tell whether your controller stripes before it mirrors or mirrors before it stripes? Pretty hard to tell without looking at the manufacturers documentation, for example Compaq Proliant RAID controllers do RAID 0+1 and HP Proliant RAID controllers do RAID 1+0 yet they run the same algorithm. How can that be? HP use different terminology than Compaq and went through the paperwork PDFs etc when they bought Compaq and edited the documents.
ASKER
"How many users for this disc? And what sort of data will be stored on it?"
60% of the time......just my self.
It really is mostly just for storage of large files I don't want on my desktop anymore. But I am also on a LAN at home and .....*rolls eyes* keep all my MP3's on the current version of this drive and share it with my wife. And yes these are both SATA controllers with 4 - 7200RPM 16MB Buff SATA drives.
Its sounding like Raid 5 might be the way to go if my SATA RAID supported more then 4 drives for growth; and swapping out the RAID controller down the line would most likely destroy the RAID container, correct?
So being that I no longer need to worry about any growth using a 0+1 or 10 system would give me 1TB usable and 1TB reserved for data protection
but using a RAID 5 would give me 1.5TB? If thats true I think thats the way I'll do this system......only question I have now......is How bad does RAID 5 and SATA suck meyersd? Is it going to bad to copy large Digital Video to? Just copy to the drive, as for the capturing I'll use my two 10,000 RPM OS Drives for that....but for storage of video and Music and streaming to local host and with one or two other users on a 10/100 LAN......should be okay....right?
Thats really my last question....../how/ bad is RAID 5 and SATA?
Thanks guys...
60% of the time......just my self.
It really is mostly just for storage of large files I don't want on my desktop anymore. But I am also on a LAN at home and .....*rolls eyes* keep all my MP3's on the current version of this drive and share it with my wife. And yes these are both SATA controllers with 4 - 7200RPM 16MB Buff SATA drives.
Its sounding like Raid 5 might be the way to go if my SATA RAID supported more then 4 drives for growth; and swapping out the RAID controller down the line would most likely destroy the RAID container, correct?
So being that I no longer need to worry about any growth using a 0+1 or 10 system would give me 1TB usable and 1TB reserved for data protection
but using a RAID 5 would give me 1.5TB? If thats true I think thats the way I'll do this system......only question I have now......is How bad does RAID 5 and SATA suck meyersd? Is it going to bad to copy large Digital Video to? Just copy to the drive, as for the capturing I'll use my two 10,000 RPM OS Drives for that....but for storage of video and Music and streaming to local host and with one or two other users on a 10/100 LAN......should be okay....right?
Thats really my last question....../how/ bad is RAID 5 and SATA?
Thanks guys...
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ASKER
Thanks much guys......awesome amount of info on RAID 5's!!
How many users for this disc? And what sort of data will be stored on it?