I don't care about speed. I do care about redundancy. I also care about convenience.
I know RAID5 is not a replacement for backups. However, it is better than nothing. When you have 20+ TB of data that is growing every day, having a complete duplicate of all this gets really expensive.
I was thinking that if I RAID5'd it then at least I have redundancy for a minimal extra cost (25% more cost instead of 100% more for double the disks).
Of course, if two drives fail on a 4 drive RAID5 then I don't lose just half of the data (if they were just a bunch of disks not RAIDed then you would lose only half because you still have two working drives), but instead because of the RAID you would experience total irreversible catastrophic data loss. So that's a concern.
Here's my situation:
About 4tb of my 20TB is irreplaceable. The remaining is recoverable, but of course doing so would be am immense project. I don't have a ton of money to go buy uber expensive $1000+ boxes just to RAID my drives, and I also don't have the money to buy double the disks for zero increase in storage space (to be used only as backup drives). The latter would be ideal, if money was no limitation. But alas, money is a limitation. Speed doesn't matter at all to me as most of the data is rarely accessed, things like backups of websites and projects and videos that are now on youtube, etc. But the data is still important. I just don't access it all that much.
What do you suggest? Is RAID5 the right way to go with this?
If so, then what is the best affordable (under $200) RAID enclosure that can hold at least 4 or 5 4TB+ drives?
Or, if not, what do you suggest to do? I am open to ideas and opinions on what to do as long as you know what you're talking about.
UPDATE: I would also be open to some sort of controller card since I have room inside my PC for many drives. I just don't know anything about controller cards which is why I was hoping an enclosure would make it all easier.
I know RAID5 is not a replacement for backups. However, it is better than nothing. When you have 20+ TB of data that is growing every day, having a complete duplicate of all this gets really expensive.
I was thinking that if I RAID5'd it then at least I have redundancy for a minimal extra cost (25% more cost instead of 100% more for double the disks).
Of course, if two drives fail on a 4 drive RAID5 then I don't lose just half of the data (if they were just a bunch of disks not RAIDed then you would lose only half because you still have two working drives), but instead because of the RAID you would experience total irreversible catastrophic data loss. So that's a concern.
Here's my situation:
About 4tb of my 20TB is irreplaceable. The remaining is recoverable, but of course doing so would be am immense project. I don't have a ton of money to go buy uber expensive $1000+ boxes just to RAID my drives, and I also don't have the money to buy double the disks for zero increase in storage space (to be used only as backup drives). The latter would be ideal, if money was no limitation. But alas, money is a limitation. Speed doesn't matter at all to me as most of the data is rarely accessed, things like backups of websites and projects and videos that are now on youtube, etc. But the data is still important. I just don't access it all that much.
What do you suggest? Is RAID5 the right way to go with this?
If so, then what is the best affordable (under $200) RAID enclosure that can hold at least 4 or 5 4TB+ drives?
Or, if not, what do you suggest to do? I am open to ideas and opinions on what to do as long as you know what you're talking about.
UPDATE: I would also be open to some sort of controller card since I have room inside my PC for many drives. I just don't know anything about controller cards which is why I was hoping an enclosure would make it all easier.
Last edited:
