Yay Raid!!

Gargamel · 01-07-11, 03:34 PM

So i built this machine few years ago, and made a 500GB RAID 0 drive as my primary, 2 250GB drives. This past november, I picked up a 750 GB drive for cheap to use a backup drive.

Installed it, booted up the machine, and my Nvidia mobo software popups asking if I would like to add the new drive to my array, and then convert it to RAID 5. Why yes I would! Lost 500gb of usable space, (as each drive can't be over 250g), but the RAID 5 makes using a backup drive a moot point.

Well 2 days ago, one of the 250g drives failed. This has forced me to order 3 1 TB drives to replace them all, but the computer is still running, and I can easily migrate each drive into the array, albeit slowly.

Yay 2 TB RAID 5 FTW!!!

longam · 01-07-11, 03:53 PM

Raid is a wonderful thing for reliability and up time

But remember to have a plan for disaster recovery...

Jan Kyster · 01-07-11, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gargamel

...the RAID 5 makes using a backup drive a moot point.

I'm not sure how to understand that bit

but if you mean backup is now a thing of the past, I would say you're heading for disaster.

One day... Murphy's law... lightning... self!...

But as said - not sure what the quoted phrase means.

Gargamel · 01-07-11, 11:08 PM

Ahh...

I bought the 750g drive to be used as a backup drive, in case one of the 2 250's failed, but since it easily incorporated the 750 into the raid, converting the RAID 0 into a RAID 5, it made MY need for a separate backup drive moot. Obviously there are instances where separate independent drives are needed, but I'm not one of them.

When I get the 2 TB drive up and running, I will use the 750gb drive as a back up of my important files and such.

Jan Kyster · 01-08-11, 01:10 AM

Phew! Thank you!

I'm too easily worried on others behalf...

Gargamel · 01-08-11, 01:32 AM

Just noticed that i ordered 3 SATA2 drives, since the standard is supposed to be backwards compatible, and I'm throttled in other areas anyways, I shouldn't see a huge performance hit should I?

Arclight · 01-08-11, 03:42 AM

Performance hit? Mechanical drives are completely incapable of saturating sata2.

Might wanna make sure you have sata3 board and drives if you go SSD though.

Gargamel · 01-08-11, 05:14 PM

IF I could afford 3 1 TB SSD's, I would.

Arclight · 01-09-11, 03:53 AM

I bet.

Not like you really need it though. To be honest, if i might make a suggestion; maybe get a little faster drives. Don't think the 1TB ones are particularly fast.

Gargamel · 01-09-11, 04:41 AM

budget budget budget. This was a steal at 3 tb for $120. Open box from newegg.

Tessa · 01-09-11, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Ahh...

I bought the 750g drive to be used as a backup drive, in case one of the 2 250's failed, but since it easily incorporated the 750 into the raid, converting the RAID 0 into a RAID 5, it made MY need for a separate backup drive moot. Obviously there are instances where separate independent drives are needed, but I'm not one of them.

When I get the 2 TB drive up and running, I will use the 750gb drive as a back up of my important files and such.

RAID 5 is by design fault tolerant and its own backup. Unless you have an instance where 2 drives either fail simultaneously, or the second one fails before you have a chance to replace the first you data is pretty safe. I would love to be able to backup my SAN to tape, but tapes are still plain too expensive in large sizes.

From the sounds of things it looks like you're using the RAID controller on the motherboard? If so, be carefull that if your board dies you'll need to get the exact same one, or one with the same exact chipset so the new controller can read the disk indexes to figure out the disk mapping.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arclight

I bet.

Not like you really need it though. To be honest, if i might make a suggestion; maybe get a little faster drives. Don't think the 1TB ones are particularly fast.

On my Raid array I only have 500 gb drives, I wouldn't consider using TB drives on a Raid 5, it'll wear em down too fast and they aren't fast unless you shell out the money for a enterprise class one.

The fastest IO I can get out of mine (a Dell Poweredge with a 6 port RAID 64 bit card using 5 WD RE5 500gb drives) is only sustained read or write of 65 mb/sec. Unless you use SSD, Raptor or 15k drives there's no way you'll need to worry about IO being a bottleneck as they'll never come close to their full 3 gb/sec rating. Now that the perpendicular magnetic storage is starting to trickle down to consumer level products these massive disks won't be such a liabilty to overheating or burning out prematurely.

Arclight · 01-09-11, 07:13 AM

Ya I had 2x250GB Western Digital RE drives in a RAID0 for a while. Ran out of space though, just replaced it with a fast 640GB one. Don't think the benefits to general gaming are really that pronounced, can't say I notice the difference at least.

*why RAID5 btw? I get it for the reduncancy, but you lose performance gains. Unless you're running a server, I would really suggest RAID0.

(And that you not put critical data on it, should it fail.)

** nvm, had my raid levels mixed up

Tessa · 01-09-11, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arclight

Ya I had 2x250GB Western Digital RE drives in a RAID0 for a while. Ran out of space though, just replaced it with a fast 640GB one. Don't think the benefits to general gaming are really that pronounced, can't say I notice the difference at least.

*why RAID5 btw? I get it for the reduncancy, but you lose performance gains. Unless you're running a server, I would really suggest RAID0.

(And that you not put critical data on it, should it fail.)

** nvm, had my raid levels mixed up

For my OS drives on my desktops I all use Raptor's as the system drive, then usually put in a 250gb or 200gb spare one to use as extra space. Everything is done on my server (which is a real server, not a desktop with a server OS and the server label slapped on it), right now it's got 5 out of 6 channels on my raid card used with 500gb drives. In the past have already had 1 drive fail so the parity saved my data while I got a replacement drive and rebuilt the array. If I had the money I'd switch to SAS and get all 15k drives for performance; granted it would get even louder in that room than it already is (though it has been nice this winter helping to passively warm the rest of my place up).

Data is the most important thing, and hardest to replace. A raptor with a cheap equal sized sata drive to mirror it along with the RAID 5 on the server is pretty much bullet proof. If I had a couple TB drives I would make backups onto those every few weeks, otherwise just count on the integrity of the aray to do its job and be sure to make images of my OS drives every onece in awhile in case they do take a dive.

Gargamel · 01-09-11, 07:05 PM

Why raid 5 over raid 0?

The built in back up. I'm not a performance user, I can wait a few extra seconds for something. I'm still waiting for my new drives to arrive, and if I still had my raid 0 going, this disk failure would mean I wouldnt be talking to you guys, I would be assembling allmy original disks to reinstall. As it is, the system is much slower, but still usable. The nvidia software will allow me to hot swap the new drives, all i gotta do is plug each one in and let the software do the rest.

Tessa · 01-10-11, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Why raid 5 over raid 0?

The built in back up. I'm not a performance user, I can wait a few extra seconds for something. I'm still waiting for my new drives to arrive, and if I still had my raid 0 going, this disk failure would mean I wouldnt be talking to you guys, I would be assembling allmy original disks to reinstall. As it is, the system is much slower, but still usable. The nvidia software will allow me to hot swap the new drives, all i gotta do is plug each one in and let the software do the rest.

Are sure you don't mean Raid 1? If one disk in a Raid 0 array fails you loose everything since the data is split between the two drives. Don't think I clarified this, but Raid 5 is only for the data, not the OS. The OS drive should be fast (depending on its use) I would put a raptor 10k drive in there, if I was really worried about it failing I'd mirror it with another same size drive in a Raid 1 configuration.

1 250gb 10k raptor drive is going to smoke a pair of 1 TB drives in a Raid 0 configuration. My OS drive (be it my server or my desktop) is always the fastest drive in terms of IO, all my data is kept on the Raid 5 array and just accessed via mapped drives. It's cheaper and easier to keep adding more 500gb drives to the Raid array when I need more space, put the new drive in the carriage and turn it on; expand the array and wait for it to re-write the parity and I'm good to go. Long as 2 drives don't fail simultaneously or consecutively my data is quite safe. Keep in mind my Raid array only has data on it.

01-07-11, 03:34 PM	#1
Gargamel Lucky Sailor Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Rome Posts: 4,272 Downloads: 81 Uploads: 0	Yay Raid!! So i built this machine few years ago, and made a 500GB RAID 0 drive as my primary, 2 250GB drives. This past november, I picked up a 750 GB drive for cheap to use a backup drive. Installed it, booted up the machine, and my Nvidia mobo software popups asking if I would like to add the new drive to my array, and then convert it to RAID 5. Why yes I would! Lost 500gb of usable space, (as each drive can't be over 250g), but the RAID 5 makes using a backup drive a moot point. Well 2 days ago, one of the 250g drives failed. This has forced me to order 3 1 TB drives to replace them all, but the computer is still running, and I can easily migrate each drive into the array, albeit slowly. Yay 2 TB RAID 5 FTW!!! __________________ Luck is a residue of Design.

01-07-11, 11:08 PM	#4
Gargamel Lucky Sailor Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Rome Posts: 4,272 Downloads: 81 Uploads: 0	Ahh... I bought the 750g drive to be used as a backup drive, in case one of the 2 250's failed, but since it easily incorporated the 750 into the raid, converting the RAID 0 into a RAID 5, it made MY need for a separate backup drive moot. Obviously there are instances where separate independent drives are needed, but I'm not one of them. When I get the 2 TB drive up and running, I will use the 750gb drive as a back up of my important files and such. __________________ Luck is a residue of Design.

01-08-11, 01:32 AM	#6
Gargamel Lucky Sailor Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Rome Posts: 4,272 Downloads: 81 Uploads: 0	Just noticed that i ordered 3 SATA2 drives, since the standard is supposed to be backwards compatible, and I'm throttled in other areas anyways, I shouldn't see a huge performance hit should I? __________________ Luck is a residue of Design.

01-08-11, 03:42 AM	#7
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	Performance hit? Mechanical drives are completely incapable of saturating sata2. Might wanna make sure you have sata3 board and drives if you go SSD though. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

01-08-11, 05:14 PM	#8
Gargamel Lucky Sailor Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Rome Posts: 4,272 Downloads: 81 Uploads: 0	IF I could afford 3 1 TB SSD's, I would. __________________ Luck is a residue of Design.

01-07-11, 03:53 PM	#2
longam Admiral Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 2,014 Downloads: 26 Uploads: 0	Raid is a wonderful thing for reliability and up time But remember to have a plan for disaster recovery...

01-08-11, 01:10 AM	#5
Jan Kyster Ace of the Deep Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 1,151 Downloads: 152 Uploads: 0	Phew! Thank you! I'm too easily worried on others behalf...

01-09-11, 03:53 AM	#9
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	I bet. Not like you really need it though. To be honest, if i might make a suggestion; maybe get a little faster drives. Don't think the 1TB ones are particularly fast. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

01-09-11, 04:41 AM	#10
Gargamel Lucky Sailor Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Rome Posts: 4,272 Downloads: 81 Uploads: 0	budget budget budget. This was a steal at 3 tb for $120. Open box from newegg. __________________ Luck is a residue of Design.

01-09-11, 07:13 AM	#12
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	Ya I had 2x250GB Western Digital RE drives in a RAID0 for a while. Ran out of space though, just replaced it with a fast 640GB one. Don't think the benefits to general gaming are really that pronounced, can't say I notice the difference at least. why RAID5 btw? I get it for the reduncancy, but you lose performance gains. Unless you're running a server, I would really suggest RAID0. (And that you not put critical data on it, should it fail.) * nvm, had my raid levels mixed up __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

01-09-11, 07:05 PM	#14
Gargamel Lucky Sailor Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Rome Posts: 4,272 Downloads: 81 Uploads: 0	Why raid 5 over raid 0? The built in back up. I'm not a performance user, I can wait a few extra seconds for something. I'm still waiting for my new drives to arrive, and if I still had my raid 0 going, this disk failure would mean I wouldnt be talking to you guys, I would be assembling allmy original disks to reinstall. As it is, the system is much slower, but still usable. The nvidia software will allow me to hot swap the new drives, all i gotta do is plug each one in and let the software do the rest. __________________ Luck is a residue of Design.