RAID 5 Questions

[makwy2]

Alrighty,

For all you RAID Experts ( ) this one should be pretty easy:

I currently have one 1.5tb 7200.11 drive in my system.

I bought another (that makes two) of the exact same model and I am thinking of purchasing a third and possibly a fourth 1.5tb drive.

I have two questions:

1. Is RAID 5 the best option for me? I am looking for data duplicity and a little performance boost if possible.

2. Would it be ok for me to have of the 1.5tb drives be an "Energy-efficient", "green" or 5400rpm drive? Or would that slow-down/mess up the RAID Array.

<----- My specs are up to date under my profile and I will be using the RAID controller off my board.

PS: If you have one or more 1.5tb drives... I'd like to have them, pm me.

 

[yogurt_21]

raid 5 is a good balance of performance, redundancy, and disk space. It won't be anywhere raid 10 speeds much less raid 0 but it will allow one of your disks to fail without any data loss. So if you're not looking for uber performance raid 5 would be fine. I would say that rather get a 4th disk i'd recomend gettign a raid card instead. It will typiclally outperform the onboard (even the 100$ ones) and allows you to move your raid array to another rig without having to backup the data first and re-doing the raid on the new system. Alert! raid 5 does eat cpu cycles and does take forever to rebuild after a drive failer and when in crippled mode it runs like a snail. Even still it's perfect for what you're asking.

with raid it always depends on what you're going for.

speed and capacity only - raid 0 (2 disk min, non mission critical, such as the gaming array in my system specs, allows for full capacity of all drives used)
redundancy only - raid 1 (2 disk min, mission critical but non speed critical applications, halves capacity)
some speed, decent capacity, and some redundancy - raid 5 (3 disk min, for the reasons described above, 2/3's the capacity in 3 drive mode, 3/4's in 4 drives mode, and etc)
speed and redundancy only - raid 10 (4 disk min, mission critical as it allows for up half of the drives to fail without any data loss also provides the fastest performance with redundancy out of any raid, halves the capacity)
Decent Speed, Decent Capacity, Decent redundancy - raid 50 (6 disk min, combines raid 10 with raid 5, 1/3 the array cna fail without data loss, much faster than raid 5 but slower than raid 10, 2/3's the capcity in 6 drive mode, 3/4's in 8 drive mode, and etc. not all raid controllers support it)

 

[Mussels]

yes raid 5 is what you want. no, dont mix drives. it works, but it messes with performance pretty good.


dont forget that should you lose the RAID controller (your mobo) you lose all data on the array, unless you can reconnect it to a compatible controller (read, same board, or a diff board with same SATA RAID controller)

 

[Maban]

dont forget that should you lose the RAID controller (your mobo) you lose all data on the array, unless you can reconnect it to a compatible controller (read, same board, or a diff board with same SATA RAID controller)

I had no problem going from ICH9R to ICH10R and back to ICH9R.

 

[Mussels]

I had no problem going from ICH9R to ICH10R and back to ICH9R.

because those are compatible controllers. almost nothing is changed between them. look at their specs, you'll find theres almost no difference... and they even use the same drivers.


try going ICH9 to AMD or Jmicron, and you'll understand frustration.

 

[makwy2]

Alright,

So now I'm sold on RAID 5 - Thank you mucho yogurt_21 and mussels.

About the speeds of the drives is it ok if they are all 7200's or must they all be the same brand/model? If I throw in a Green or LP drive will that cripple the system?

Any and all info you offer here is useful!

 

[Mussels]

Alright,

So now I'm sold on RAID 5 - Thank you mucho yogurt_21 and mussels.

About the speeds of the drives is it ok if they are all 7200's or must they all be the same brand/model? If I throw in a Green or LP drive will that cripple the system?

Any and all info you offer here is useful!

you want identical drives. same manufacturer, series, model. dont mix and match.