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Need specifics on RAID 10

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Thinking of doing RAID 10, because out of all the RAID options it seems to be the best option based on my research.

I need to know:

  • Specific hardware to get? Besides the drives obviously. Names or links appreciated
  • I want to have as many as 10 drives. Currently I have 6.
  • I have 5TB of space used up. So does this mean that I need to have a spare 5TB of space that I can't use in the array, in order to create the array (since I don't want to lose my data)?
  • Is there any such thing as Dynamic RAID, as in, can add more hard drives to the array without resetting a new array?
  • Do I need a full backup of my most important and sensitive data, separate from the RAID, if I have RAID 10?
 
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Wrigleyvillain

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While all this info is easily found with a couple Google searches (and some of your other recent threads were a bit annoying) I will go ahead and answer these to the best of my ability...maybe it's the nice formatting and all that got me. :p

RAID 10 is a combo of RAID 1 (mirroring one to another--exact "real time" copy) and RAID 0 which stripes various drives together into one larger volume(s) by working in paralell. So it's a nice way to get some of the speed boost of RAID 0 with the redundancy of RAID 1. That said, redundant RAID is not a backup and is really, in general, just further protection against drive failure mainly as relates to time to get back up and running (more important in a business etc).

Yes, I believe it is generally "dynamic" though to what degree kind of depends on level. It is designed that way in a sense--a drive dies and you physically replace it and then it rebuilds the array. And setting up the array initially reinitializes all drives so you can't set up a RAID array with data you want to keep already there. You would have to move your 5TB and then copy back.

Lastly, it changes absolutely nothing re. backing up important data. In fact, with striping it's even more important to do so.
 
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While all this info is easily found with a couple Google searches (and some of your other recent threads were a bit annoying) I will go ahead and answer these to the best of my ability...maybe it's the nice formatting and all that got me. :p

RAID 10 is a combo of RAID 1 (mirroring one to another--exact "real time" copy) and RAID 0 which stripes various drives together into one larger volume(s) by working in paralell. So it's a nice way to get some of the speed boost of RAID 0 with the redundancy of RAID 1. That said, redundant RAID is not a backup and is really, in general, just further protection against drive failure mainly as relates to time to get back up and running (more important in a business etc).

Yes, I believe it is generally "dynamic" though to what degree kind of depends on level. It is designed that way in a sense--a drive dies and you physically replace it and then it rebuilds the array. And setting up the array initially reinitializes all drives so you can't set up a RAID array with data you want to keep already there. You would have to move your 5TB and then copy back.

Lastly, it changes absolutely nothing re. backing up important data. In fact, with striping it's even more important to do so.

I already know what RAID 10 is, I googled it long ago. 1+0 yea yea that was not the question. So much for your smarta** answer "search google".
Useless answer and didn't even answer the question.
 

Aquinus

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Specific hardware to get? Besides the drives obviously. Names or links appreciated

I use WD blacks in my RAID-5. Blues or reds would be adequate. Most drives can be raided but drives with TLER are ideal but not required.

I want to have as many as 10 drives. Currently I have 6.

8-port RAID controllers tend to get pricey (>$300 USD). Even more ports could get very expensive.

I have 5TB of space used up. So does this mean that I need to have a spare 5TB of space that I can't use in the array, in order to create the array (since I don't want to lose my data)?

Correct. You would need to backup all the data on the drives so you can initialize the RAID. Then you would copy your data back. You should have a backup anyways just in case.
Is there any such thing as Dynamic RAID, as in, can add more hard drives to the array without resetting a new array?
Yes. Most RAID levels will let you add more drives after a RAID array has been created but will not let you remove them, only replace them. It also doesn't let you change what kind of array you're running or the stripe size for your RAID as these changes must be made when the array is created.
Do I need a full backup of my most important and sensitive data, separate from the RAID, if I have RAID 10?
Yes. RAID is not intended to be a backup, but rather something to prevent headache and to maximize up-time. Even though RAID does mitigate the chance of data loss due to hardware failure, it is still possible for multiple drives to fail at the same time so a backup is always wise to have handy.

I already know what RAID 10 is, I googled it long ago. 1+0 yea yea that was not the question. So much for your smarta** answer "search google".
Useless answer and didn't even answer the question.

Well, if you Googled it you would have found out that RAID isn't a replacement for a backup and most of these questions are answered in the first few results when you search RAID on Google. I think that is the point he is trying to make. All of the information I provided is easily accessible from the internet and Google makes it pretty easy to find it all.
 
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1) You asked a broad question. Ten minutes on google would answer 90% of your question, and bring us all to the same page. Being angry that this was suggested isn't reasonable.

2) JBOD exist (just a bunch of drives). It functionally spans itself so that multiple physical drives appear as only one logical drive. No redundancy, no performance enhancement. There is no reason that I can currently see to have a JBOD array for a home user.

3) RAID has to rewrite each drive. You cannot just put an extra two drives in, then RAID them. Back-up your data, and be prepared for a clean drive.

4) Sweet jebus you're looking at an expensive setup. This is one of the cheapest 8 SATAII based RAID controllers I could find: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115026 If you really want that then it's your prerogative.

5) RAID =/= backup. It's been touched on already, but RAID arrays aren't a backup. They might allow a number of drives to fail catastrophically, but cannot address slow degradation. Also, remember that you're building an array of the same type of drives. If they have a design flaw then more than one is likely to fail (in rapid succession).


6) Why in Hades do you want 10? You lose half of the drive space. You get a bit of a performance boost. If you're looking at that kind of investment the solution is clear. Buy an SSD for the primary applications, run a 4 drive RAID 5 array for storage, and bite the bullet on 3TB drives. You wind up with the OS drive and 9TB of storage. A ten drive RAID 10 array only creates an additional 6 TB of data, while costing at least 3 times as much (assuming you find a RAID controller that only costs as much as two drives).


TL:DR.
Like the 3930k, if you have to ask about this topic you likely don't need it. RAID 10 in unlikely to be useful given that you want data back-up and not continuous operation reliability. You can increase your storage capacity, while decreasing cost, by using RAID 5.
 

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Like the 3930k, if you have to ask about this topic you likely don't need it. RAID 10 in unlikely to be useful given that you want data back-up and not continuous operation reliability. You can increase your storage capacity, while decreasing cost, by using RAID 5.

+1: If you want anything, it's RAID-5 for redundancy while maintaining space. Unless you're running a high volume database server or HD video editing, RAID-10 isn't going to benefit you and you'll only be wasting space. More than 8 drives also isn't realistic for RAID on a consumer machine though. Most servers I work on don't even have more than 6 drives in them (but have 8-port controllers).

First thing is first though, backup all your stuff then you can worry about RAID otherwise you'll have a RAID with nothing to put in it.
 
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Why is a RAID question in graphics card forum?
 

Wrigleyvillain

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+1: If you want anything, it's RAID-5 for redundancy while maintaining space. Unless you're running a high volume database server or HD video editing, RAID-10 isn't going to benefit you and you'll only be wasting space. More than 8 drives also isn't realistic for RAID on a consumer machine though. Most servers I work on don't even have more than 6 drives in them (but have 8-port controllers).

First thing is first though, backup all your stuff then you can worry about RAID otherwise you'll have a RAID with nothing to put in it.

You probably know more about this than me but I would not run RAID 5 on the built-in controller (or RAID 5 at all in lower-budget home scenarios). Every time you sneeze it needs a rebuild, in my (admittedly limited) experience.

Why is a RAID question in graphics card forum?

LOL. Figure with this, uh, guy. I didn't even notice...
 

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1) You asked a broad question. Ten minutes on google would answer 90% of your question, and bring us all to the same page. Being angry that this was suggested isn't reasonable.

2) JBOD exist (just a bunch of drives). It functionally spans itself so that multiple physical drives appear as only one logical drive. No redundancy, no performance enhancement. There is no reason that I can currently see to have a JBOD array for a home user.

3) RAID has to rewrite each drive. You cannot just put an extra two drives in, then RAID them. Back-up your data, and be prepared for a clean drive.

4) Sweet jebus you're looking at an expensive setup. This is one of the cheapest 8 SATAII based RAID controllers I could find: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115026 If you really want that then it's your prerogative.

5) RAID =/= backup. It's been touched on already, but RAID arrays aren't a backup. They might allow a number of drives to fail catastrophically, but cannot address slow degradation. Also, remember that you're building an array of the same type of drives. If they have a design flaw then more than one is likely to fail (in rapid succession).


6) Why in Hades do you want 10? You lose half of the drive space. You get a bit of a performance boost. If you're looking at that kind of investment the solution is clear. Buy an SSD for the primary applications, run a 4 drive RAID 5 array for storage, and bite the bullet on 3TB drives. You wind up with the OS drive and 9TB of storage. A ten drive RAID 10 array only creates an additional 6 TB of data, while costing at least 3 times as much (assuming you find a RAID controller that only costs as much as two drives).


TL:DR.
Like the 3930k, if you have to ask about this topic you likely don't need it. RAID 10 in unlikely to be useful given that you want data back-up and not continuous operation reliability. You can increase your storage capacity, while decreasing cost, by using RAID 5.

^^This.
 

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step 1) purchase a raid card that does raid 10 and has 4x mini sas. you will want at least 1024 ram on that chip.
step 2) purchase 16 2 TB enterprise class constellation drives
step 3) purchase another whole rig to do the same thing
step 4) setup rsync to copy all of the changed data from server 1 to server 2
step 5) buy 2 800 watt BBU (1 for each)

there.
 

Wrigleyvillain

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I think I detect some sarcasm...
 

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step 1) purchase a raid card that does raid 10 and has 4x mini sas. you will want at least 1024 ram on that chip.
step 2) purchase 16 2 TB enterprise class constellation drives
step 3) purchase another whole rig to do the same thing
step 4) setup rsync to copy all of the changed data from server 1 to server 2
step 5) buy 2 800 watt BBU (1 for each)

there.

Oh yeah, for what he is asking for it is going blow a gaping hole in his wallet.
You think graphics cards are expensive? Getting a 16-port RAID card makes the price on nVidia's Titan look reasonable. :p
LSI MegaRAID SAS LSI00210 (9280-16i4e) SATA/SAS 6G...

I think I detect some sarcasm...

Haha! Very funny, friend. Talking about sarcasm. The OP is says something about 10-disk RAID? Must be a common theme.
 

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Oh yeah, for what he is asking for it is going blow a gaping hole in his wallet.
You think graphics cards are expensive? Getting a 16-port RAID card makes nVidia's Titan look tempting. :p
LSI MegaRAID SAS LSI00210 (9280-16i4e) SATA/SAS 6G...

not to mention RAID 10 is the most expensive form of raid. so while he gets 16 2 TB drives he only gets to use half of that space. then because he needs a backup solution he needs to build an exact duplicate :rockout:
 

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then because he needs a backup solution he needs to build an exact duplicate

Hah! Yeah, I forgot that part. Even with RAID 6 (which is what I would do with that many drives) you're looking at 16TB to backup once you reach 10 drives. Where the heck are you going to back that up to? You don't need that much space if you're not filling it but your backup should kind of scale to your RAID.

I thought I smelled something amiss.

...Shenanigans!
 

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Just remember the more drives you add to an array the bigger the headache and you'll take a performance loss.

Oh and Easy Rhino, I think he needs to add a few UPS's to backup his BBU's as well to add to your list.. What do you think? ;) - Bad joke nobody got it.. hehehe
 
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Aquinus

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Just remember the more drives you add to an array the bigger the headache and you'll take a performance loss.

Eventually, but RAID levels that stripe data across multiple disks tend to scale pretty well and not until you start saturating the RAID card will you really run into this problem. It's rare that you'll add a drive and get worse performance than you did before. Usually it's the same or better in most cases. This really depends on the controller, but a good controller shouldn't do this with reasonable sized data. If he is filling that much space most of it must be video which typically loves sequential reads.

However a very real concern is the amount of time it will take to rebuild your RAID if anything were to happen. It would take a long time, but normally you can run the machine with it rebuilding, it just offers poor performance while it rebuilds.

With all of this said, it's going to cost well over 1000 USD for the controller plus the 4 extra drives to put him at 10, not even considering backing that puppy up.

I would rather get a Titan for that price point and when all is said and done between backups, drives, and controllers, you might be able to get two Titans. :p
 
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Try unraid or flex raid
Easy to expand without formats
no needbuy expensive controllers
Everything is done in software so it's easy to change hardware

Data is not striped so if you lose 1 drive you can recover via the parity drive and if you lose 2 you only lose data on those disks not the entire array
 

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Try unraid or flex raid
Easy to expand without formats
no needbuy expensive controllers
Everything is done in software so it's easy to change hardware

Data is not striped so if you lose 1 drive you can recover via the parity drive and if you lose 2 you only lose data on those disks not the entire array

You still need to have the ports and if you cheap out on controllers (which will be slower,) and rely on software (which uses CPU resources and is also slower,) your performance will be terrible and you could easily use a good chunk of your CPU power just to do I/O.

Somehow with that many drives I trust LSI a lot more than any bit of software RAID.
 
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I have used hardware based RAID 5 and never had an issue, on cards that were only a hundred bucks or so, no cache obviously or battery backup, but still never had an issue.



My honest suggestion is to get someone involved and prepare to pay at least a few hundred bucks to get help configuring a system, or buy one configured from a OEM. If you are using that much storage get a NAS with RAID 5 and move you data to that, keep a set of folders you use for working with the media you are going to work on, and setup MS Sync Toy to sync the folders, once done copy or cut and past back to the storage folders. 3TB drives will give you enough storage with 4 or 5 drives, if you need more than this you may need a full file server and that will cost $$$$
 

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Why does everyone think you need an expensive controller for lots of drives? I've got a $45 Highpoint RAID card that supports 10 drives... My entire server hard drive setup that I have now supports 10 drives and cost about $310 when it was all said and done.
 
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You still need to have the ports and if you cheap out on controllers (which will be slower,) and rely on software (which uses CPU resources and is also slower,) your performance will be terrible and you could easily use a good chunk of your CPU power just to do I/O.

Somehow with that many drives I trust LSI a lot more than any bit of software RAID.

i have a pair of lsi controllers but i still run software raid because:

if something happened to the controller i just swap it out for any other sata/sas card.

something happens to the motherboard? swap it out

need to replace a drive? swap them out and still use the array while its being rebuilt with only a little downtime

need to add a drive to the array? just power down, plug it in, then add to array.

i know with software raid there is alot of overhead but thats why i have a 1tb cache drive so that i can dump files to the server and it will move them onto the array at its own pace.
 

Aquinus

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if something happened to the controller i just swap it out for any other sata/sas card.

something happens to the motherboard? swap it out

You can do the same thing with hardware RAID controllers and fake raid. You have to stick with the same kind of controller though. Lets say that my P9X79 Deluxe died and I got another X79 or C600-series based chipset, RSTe should detect the RAID configuration from the drives and it should be pretty forgiving if you put everything in the same order. Just keep like hardware with like, just like how you're keeping like software with like.

need to replace a drive? swap them out and still use the array while its being rebuilt with only a little downtime

need to add a drive to the array? just power down, plug it in, then add to array.

Sounds like normal RAID. :p

i know with software raid there is alot of overhead but thats why i have a 1tb cache drive so that i can dump files to the server and it will move them onto the array at its own pace.

Ah! Cool idea. Great for static files but not good for dynamically changing content. Are you just caching with a 7200 RPM drive or a raptor?
 
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im using a 1tb WD black for cache. i can pretty much saturate my gigabit network writing to it.

i prefer software raid for long term backup but if i was runnin an operating system from the array i would do hardware raid.

i went from a combiation of 2x sil, 2x jmb and amd onboard sata ports to my IBM M1015 and dell 6i all i had to do was update unraid to handle the new controllers and away it went.
 

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How is the speed writing from the cache to the RAID though? You can't cache all file transfers to a RAID, even more so if you're storing something that changes a lot like a VM drive.
 

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Eventually, but RAID levels that stripe data across multiple disks tend to scale pretty well and not until you start saturating the RAID card will you really run into this problem. It's rare that you'll add a drive and get worse performance than you did before. Usually it's the same or better in most cases. This really depends on the controller, but a good controller shouldn't do this with reasonable sized data. If he is filling that much space most of it must be video which typically loves sequential reads.

However a very real concern is the amount of time it will take to rebuild your RAID if anything were to happen. It would take a long time, but normally you can run the machine with it rebuilding, it just offers poor performance while it rebuilds.

With all of this said, it's going to cost well over 1000 USD for the controller plus the 4 extra drives to put him at 10, not even considering backing that puppy up.

I would rather get a Titan for that price point and when all is said and done between backups, drives, and controllers, you might be able to get two Titans. :p

I should have noted using software RAID or a crappy hardware controller, but headache wise I still say the less drives the easier/better... and sure, using a higher end hardware controller card he wouldn't have any issues, but that will cost him a lot of money like you said. Plus, I wouldn't setup a RAID 5 or 10 with out using a BBU, and that's even more money.

I've got around $800 bucks in one of my hardware RAID Arrays. It's a LSI 3ware 9650SE 4-port (about $650) and I bought a BBU (around $110) and that's not including the Harddrives which were around $220 ea using enterprise drives. So, sinking money into just a 4-port RAID Array can get costly quick. At the moment I'm running 9 Hardware RAID Arrays.
 
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