RAID Options?

ComproxComprox *chortle*Canada Join Date: 2002-01-23 Member: 7Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
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Hey Helpful People,

I have a server here at work which we I am taking home which has a nice big space for a RAID in it. I was going to use it to use as a central spot in my house to backup everyone's data and music collections and so forth. I had never setup a RAID before so after some research it looked like RAID 5 was the way to go. I don't need much raw read/write speed, I just want storage capacity and redundancy.

Is RAID 5 the way to go? I lose a drive worth of space doing this so I was wondering if there was a better option to maximize total storage space but still keep the redundancy if one drive happens to fail.

Thanks
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Comments

  • Draco_2kDraco_2k Evil Genius Join Date: 2009-12-09 Member: 69546Members
    edited March 2010
    If you're taking a server box home, chances are, you won't need any special protection as it should already use more robust hardware than an average PC; you could take a peek at the model numbers to make sure.

    As far as my limited knowledge of RAID goes, Raid 1 is the safest bet, but 5 will do just as well if you want some speed increase.
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  • Cereal_KillRCereal_KillR Join Date: 2002-10-31 Member: 1837Members
    It depends on how critical your data is.

    Chances of multiple drive failure usually isn't high (except of cases such as an accident, or having only drives coming from the same faulty production chain) so Raid 5 represents high enough security.

    Raid 1 represents a much higher security as the contents of the drive is copied on every disk in the array. Usually overkill, especially for a home useage.
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  • ScytheScythe Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 46NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver
    <!--quoteo(post=1759488:date=Mar 16 2010, 06:25 AM:name=Draco_2k)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Draco_2k @ Mar 16 2010, 06:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1759488"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Raid 1 is the safest bet, but 5 will do just as well if you want some speed increase.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    RAID5 is slower, much slower, than RAID1 in almost every case.

    Compy, I think RAID5 is probably your best option. I bought four 750 GB drives, staggered two months apart, to build the backup array in my server. Haven't actually set it up yet. Still wrangling with software RAID under linux. It's not quite an out-of-the-box solution.

    In the unlikely event you're not looking at software RAID, make sure you don't buy a cheap ###### RAID controller. Also, buy two in case the first one fails so you don't lose all your datas.

    --Scythe--
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  • spellman23spellman23 NS1 Theorycraft Expert Join Date: 2007-05-17 Member: 60920Members
    edited March 2010
    It also depends on how much room you have.

    RAID 1 is raw copying. So, you only get 50% efficiency of your storage. However, it's cheap and simple (only need 2 drives!)

    RAID 5 I believe is the stripped parity system, right? 3 disks hold numbers (actual data), 4th is parity, but which disk is parity is distributed amongst the 4 drives giving you way better write loading instead of bottlenecking the 4 disks that want to write and only 1 can handle the parity write. Reads are the same speed as RAID4. But, since you don't overload 1 disk for all your parity writes, it's much better on average for writes. 75% efficiency of storage, but you now need at least 4 disks sitting around.

    Yay being an Electrical Engineer and knowing about computers....
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  • Draco_2kDraco_2k Evil Genius Join Date: 2009-12-09 Member: 69546Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1759507:date=Mar 16 2010, 01:11 AM:name=Scythe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Scythe @ Mar 16 2010, 01:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1759507"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->RAID5 is slower, much slower, than RAID1 in almost every case.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    I should really give up trying to understand these "computer" things.
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  • ComproxComprox *chortle* Canada Join Date: 2002-01-23 Member: 7Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
    Ok, thanks for the info guys. Thankfully this puppy came with a hardware raid controller, but I'll have to look at grabbing another one. And it looks like I shall stick with my plan of raid 5. It seems to offer the best balance of size and security for me. Yet it's still speedy enough to stream around the house if need be. Good luck on making yours work Scythe!
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  • JazzXJazzX cl_labelmaps ∞ Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9285Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester
    Assuming you aren't planning on running a Database on it, RAID5 is probably fine. But as Scythe said its going to be slow (slower than IDE drives, even).

    And this is going to seem dumb, but one thing to keep in mind is that conceptually RAID1 (and its cousins: 1+0 and 0+1) is a lot simpler than RAID5. For me I know my odds of recovery are way higher if I actually understand what the thing is, and how it works.

    Of course given the price of hard disks what you should really do is overcharge everyone for rent one month (say your heating bill was extra high, due to the harsh Canadian winter) and go 1+0. That way you have redundancy and performance, at only double the cost!
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  • ScytheScythe Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 46NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver
    <!--quoteo(post=1759508:date=Mar 16 2010, 08:13 AM:name=spellman23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (spellman23 @ Mar 16 2010, 08:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1759508"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->RAID 1 is raw copying. So, you only get 50% efficiency of your storage. However, it's cheap and simple (only need 2 drives!)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Speed is apart from storage efficiency.

    <!--quoteo(post=1759508:date=Mar 16 2010, 08:13 AM:name=spellman23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (spellman23 @ Mar 16 2010, 08:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1759508"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->RAID 5 I believe is the stripped parity system, right? 3 disks hold numbers (actual data), 4th is parity, but which disk is parity is distributed amongst the 4 drives giving you way better write loading instead of bottlenecking the 4 disks that want to write and only 1 can handle the parity write.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    The bottleneck is usually in the controller, not the drives. It's gotta calculate the parity and stripe the data out as it writes. That and you also lose the speed advantages from large continuous writes.

    --Scythe--
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  • ZaggyZaggy NullPointerException The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-12-10 Member: 24214Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Onos, Subnautica Playtester
    And remember, RAID is a not a backup, just a way to easily replace disks, more or less.
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  • puzlpuzl The Old Firm Join Date: 2003-02-26 Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
    edited March 2010
    For home use DO NOT use hardware raid. It is overkill and most controllers require you to replace the failed drive with one with the exact geometry. Both Linux and Windows 7 do software raid now and it is much more flexible and convenient to configure, manage and recover from.

    If what you want is somewhere you can dump your photos, home movies, mp3s etc.. and all that stuff you hate to lose on a HD crash, then get to drives and put them in SW RAID 1.

    <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Thankfully this puppy came with a hardware raid controller<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Then make sure you buy server level HDs with long-life availability for replacement and a plan in place for doing a reinstall if your system drive is on a raid.
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  • spellman23spellman23 NS1 Theorycraft Expert Join Date: 2007-05-17 Member: 60920Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1759570:date=Mar 16 2010, 01:54 AM:name=Zaggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zaggy @ Mar 16 2010, 01:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1759570"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And remember, RAID is a not a backup, just a way to easily replace disks, more or less.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Well... RAID1 is....

    But yeah. It's just a way to be able to reconstruct stuff if something goes kablooey.
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  • lolfighterlolfighter Snark, Dire Join Date: 2003-04-20 Member: 15693Members
    RAID 1 isn't a backup. One careless input and you've just deleted your file(s). It doesn't matter if you have one, two or ten copies of it across the array, it's still gone. RAID 1 protects you against drive failure. Backups protect you against both drive failure and user failure.
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  • spellman23spellman23 NS1 Theorycraft Expert Join Date: 2007-05-17 Member: 60920Members
    Ah, sorry. Was working off a different definition.

    I concede.
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