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Best raid for storage? Raid controller recommendation?

post #1 of 16
6/27/12 at 8:45am
Thread Starter 
Currently have a file storage server with two Samsung F4s, and they're getting fuller day by day What I wanted to do is to start adding more drives by raid'ing them, but I'm not sure which method is best suited for me.

Performance is not really my goal. I just wanted to be able to expand my storage size in the future easily, and won't lose the data even if any one of my drive failed.

Also, what controllers do you guys recommend for reliability? Will my data be lost if the controller failed, even if after I use the same raid method with other controllers? This is basically what I worry the most.

Any inputs will be appreciated, thanks in advance!
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post #2 of 16
6/27/12 at 10:12am
RAID 5. I'm assuming your board doesn't have an on-board RAID 5 controller? (Or enough ports?)

These days, I just buy decent motherboards ($70-80) with built-on RAID 5, and I get two of them. The other one gets used in a workstation, but in the event of failure I'm still covered. The boards are cheaper than a RAID controller, and the on-board RAID 5 performs fine for a file server.

I used to buy two used server RAID cards off ebay, but it's easier and cheaper usually to go to Microcenter and buy a mobo with RAID 5 and use the RAM/CPU that you already have. If you don't want to buy two, buy one that they sell ALOT of so you know you can get one on ebay if your board fails.

New, server-level RAID cards will be hundreds of dollars.

Also, any files that you really care about should still be backed up to another drive and kept off-site.
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post #3 of 16
6/27/12 at 10:39am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2thAche View Post

RAID 5. I'm assuming your board doesn't have an on-board RAID 5 controller? (Or enough ports?)
These days, I just buy decent motherboards ($70-80) with built-on RAID 5, and I get two of them. The other one gets used in a workstation, but in the event of failure I'm still covered. The boards are cheaper than a RAID controller, and the on-board RAID 5 performs fine for a file server.
I used to buy two ..............

Thanks for reply. I'll check out Raid 5.

I basically have everything set up except a raid controller and a few more drives. I'm not using my sig rig for this build.

Going on-board raid controller would be cheaper yes, but at the same time I don't want to waste my current motherboard so I've decided to buy a decent raid-controller.

My concern is that if my raid-controller failed on me one day, would I still be able to access my files with another model of raid-controller running the same raid method?
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post #4 of 16
6/28/12 at 7:43am
I wouldn't recommend RAID 5 for anything near 1 TB and above. I recommend at least RAID 6. My Areca card died on me, I got an RMA done, and when I got it back, all my data was there and intact. It should work like this with any real RAID card. If you want a recommendation on a card, you gotta clue us in on how many drives you will want as a max in the future. It's best to just buy as many drives now that you'll think you'll need to cut down on expanding, which is always gambling with your data. Adding one or two drives at a time is kind of pointless.
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post #5 of 16
6/29/12 at 10:18am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ramicio View Post

I wouldn't recommend RAID 5 for anything near 1 TB and above. I recommend at least RAID 6. My Areca card died on me, I got an RMA done, and when I got it back, all my data was there and intact. It should work like this with any real RAID card. If you want a recommendation on a card, you gotta clue us in on how many drives you will want as a max in the future. It's best to just buy as many drives now that you'll think you'll need to cut down on expanding, which is always gambling with your data. Adding one or two drives at a time is kind of pointless.

I'm planning on having eight 2TB drives total. I currently have two of them.

It'll be better if I can just use one drive for parity since the odds of having two failed drives at the same time, out of eight, is kind of low.

I'm planning on to start with four drives first, and add two at a time in the future.

A reliable raid-controller is very important in my opinion As the question remains, will I be able to recover/access my files with other brands of controller if they're running the same raid, in an event of controller failure?

RMA and buying the same brand/model is the best option of course. But what if such brand/model is discontinued? Or out of warranty? Then I'll have no choice but to get something else.

What do you suggest?

Thanks
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post #6 of 16
6/29/12 at 10:28am
No brand is going to just fall off the face of the earth. If that happens, it will be long after you run out of space and need to go with a different setup. Areca, LSI, Adaptec, 3ware...they're not going anywhere. Warranty, that's your problem, and has zero to do with your data's integrity. You're just as free to buy the same brand again. No, you can't just swap out controller brands and have your data there. I'd go with RAID 6 and more drives, if it's true that you're filling up space quickly. RAID 5 has a high chance of a drive dying during rebuild, then you're screwed. As far as what people like Robin Harris of CNET will tell you about URE, he's a retard (the mods will be all over that one). Even in RAID 5, it's absolutely astronomical for dead sectors to align up between drives. The danger is outright death of drives during rebuild, not the size of arrays versus URE. RAID 6 will never be invalid. As I said before, either do this with all of the drives you will ever need up front, or don't even bother with it. Just do some software thing that lets you use random disks.
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post #7 of 16
7/1/12 at 6:20am
Just do FlexRAID or UnRaid and don't worry about the controller. Both are great for file servers. If you plan on using your box for something other than a file server, i.e. folding, use FlexRAID since it will work on top of an existing OS.
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post #8 of 16
7/1/12 at 7:25am
I think your main thing is going to be finding 8 ports
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post #9 of 16
7/2/12 at 7:39am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ramicio View Post

No brand is going to just fall off the face of the earth. If that happens, it will be long after you run out of space and need to go with a different setup. Areca, LSI, Adaptec, 3ware...they're not going anywhere. Warranty, that's your problem, and has zero to do with your data's integrity. You're just as free to buy the same brand again. No, you can't just swap out controller brands and have your data there. I'd go with RAID 6 and more drives, if it's true that you're filling up space quickly. RAID 5 has a high chance of a drive dying during rebuild, then you're screwed. As far as what people like Robin Harris of CNET will tell you about URE, he's a retard (the mods will be all over that one). Even in RAID 5, it's absolutely astronomical for dead sectors to align up between drives. The danger is outright death of drives during rebuild, not the size of arrays versus URE. RAID 6 will never be invalid. As I said before, either do this with all of the drives you will ever need up front, or don't even bother with it. Just do some software thing that lets you use random disks.

I see. I'll probably go with raid6 then.

Port question. If I were to go over eight drives in the future, and have to buy another controller. Does that mean I have to do another two parity drives for the new controller? Or if there's any way I can sync the two controllers together, to avoid making more parity drives?
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post #10 of 16
7/2/12 at 8:43am
No, just get a controller of the same brand, but with more ports.
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i7-970 MSI X-58 Pro-E 8600GT 6 GB (3 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 1333 
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Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 32GB Patriot SSD Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B Ubuntu Server 
PowerCaseOtherOther
COOLMAX 700 watt modular Norco RPC-3216 Areca ARC-1222 w/ BBU 4 SFF-8087 Cables 
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CPUMotherboardRAMHard Drive
i5-2500k ASUS P8Z68-M Pro 16 GB (4 x 4GB) Mushkin Enhanced Silverline DDR... 64GB Kingston SSD 
Optical DriveCoolingOSMonitor
Blu-ray reader and DVD/CD burner combo drive Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B Windows 7 Ultimate x64 1440x900 old LG LCD with anti-glare film peeled... 
KeyboardPowerCaseMouse
Dusty old Dell PS/2 Seasonic 560 watt modular Lian-li PC-V354B Some generic one from Best Buy 
Mouse PadAudioAudio
Plain black ASUS Xonar Essence STX Bottlehead Crack w/ Speedball 
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Server & video encoder
(12 items)
 
Quiet Desktop
(15 items)
  		 
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
i7-970 MSI X-58 Pro-E 8600GT 6 GB (3 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 1333 
Hard DriveHard DriveCoolingOS
Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 32GB Patriot SSD Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B Ubuntu Server 
PowerCaseOtherOther
COOLMAX 700 watt modular Norco RPC-3216 Areca ARC-1222 w/ BBU 4 SFF-8087 Cables 
View all
CPUMotherboardRAMHard Drive
i5-2500k ASUS P8Z68-M Pro 16 GB (4 x 4GB) Mushkin Enhanced Silverline DDR... 64GB Kingston SSD 
Optical DriveCoolingOSMonitor
Blu-ray reader and DVD/CD burner combo drive Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B Windows 7 Ultimate x64 1440x900 old LG LCD with anti-glare film peeled... 
KeyboardPowerCaseMouse
Dusty old Dell PS/2 Seasonic 560 watt modular Lian-li PC-V354B Some generic one from Best Buy 
Mouse PadAudioAudio
Plain black ASUS Xonar Essence STX Bottlehead Crack w/ Speedball 
View all
  hide details  
Reply
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Overclock.net › Forums › Components › Hard Drives & Storage › RAID Controllers and Software › Best raid for storage? Raid controller recommendation?