# Would raid 5 be right?



## freaksavior (Nov 9, 2009)

Im seriously considering moving my server to 4 x 1.5tb drives and using raid 5.

am i correct in thinking if a drive fails, my raid will not fail?

I am planning on using this setup for the 40+ Gb of music 40+ Gb of Photos and ALL my DVD and blu-ray disc rips.

This is a lot of data which cannot be lost. I already have 2 x 1.5tb's now but they are in different machines.

Also, would on board raid be sufficient for this? or would a raid card be better.

My server consist of

1Gb ram, P4 @ 3.6Ghz, Win server 2003 1 x 160Gb 1 x 320 Gb 1 x 750 Gb

Thanks


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## A Cheese Danish (Nov 9, 2009)

Personally, not too sure if it would be the "best" option (as I'm not much into RAID), but sounds pretty solid to me.
And yes, if one drive fails, the array won't fail. But some data could be lost if you don't get a new drive 
in its place asap.


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## Steevo (Nov 9, 2009)

I have been using RAID 5 after a array failure caused me a 14 hour rebuild stint at work.



Just get a good controller card to prevent bottlenecking for writes.  I used a Rocket Raid card, doesn't use alot of extra CPU cycles as it does have a onboard processor for the parity calculation. PCI interface is slow though. Interface and rebuild on the fly options are great, had a drive die and rebuild took about 6 hours while the array was online, used a hot spare. Get a CPIe, or if you have a server board a PCIx, even a PCIe 1X is faster thqn a PCI card. Also make sure your motherboard supports inh hooking so you can use the card to boot, most do, and some older ones might just need a BIOS update, or I have left a old disk in a system and it was a cheap workaround.

Use matched drives, you need at least three, and if this data is mission critical, then three and a hot spare is best, just make sure to use disk power management features so the spare isn't running 24/7 with the other disks.


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## Deleted member 3 (Nov 9, 2009)

I use a RAIDcore controller, dirt cheap and all the features you need. Though the company who made them went bankrupt last year, Dothill offers (at least limited) support for them now though. The catch with those controllers is that they do use the host CPU for calculations, performance is surprisingly good though. They even support advanced features like spanning across multiple controllers , using onboard ports on most Intel chipsets, online expansion, RAID level migration, etc. 
Though I'm not sure if it works as well on your P4 as it does on my quad core server.

Another good choice would be a used Perc5 from eBay. Similar pricerange, similar features.


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## freaksavior (Nov 9, 2009)

so if i run raid i should use a card not the onboard from the p35 gigabyte


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## AsRock (Nov 9, 2009)

I run 2 raid 5's on this mobo and always been able to recover them.  Worsted case was when i was overclocking and kept testing to get a better overclock were the raid 5 totally failed then after my little panic attack i got a idea to use a single drive to boot off so i could see if the failed raid 5.

I ran IMSM and it fixed it.  for 3 HDDs one is allowed to fail and with 4 HHDS 2 are allowed to fail pending on which 2 fail as i understand it..  Although never lost any data due to using raid 5 over the past 2 years or more.


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## Disparia (Nov 9, 2009)

^ You're thinking of RAID-10, and when only 4 disks are used.

RAID-5: One disk may fail, regardless of # of disks.

RAID-6: Two disks may fail, regardless of # of disks.

RAID-5E: Two disks may fail, but not simultaneously. The array must rebuild using the active spare before being protected from a second disk failure.

freaksavior, I'd say that with the given information onboard RAID-5 is fine. I use it here at home and even on a server at work (backup/archive server). Now two other servers have Adaptec 5805's in them with 8 RE3 drives and the performance is insane, but they handle a dozen VMs each. Usually a bit outside the needs of a simple home server.

For the "really important" stuff, online non-commercial storage services are available at very reasonable prices.


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## Zedicus (Nov 9, 2009)

raid 5 one drive can fail.  with any number of disks.
your onboard raid 5 is equal to all of the crappy cards people are suggesting.
i would use your onboard or splurge for a hardware RAID controller.  that will be around 300$ though.


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## freaksavior (Nov 9, 2009)

Not gonna spend that much lol.

I just need to make sure that if one drive fails (hopefully not multiple) then my data will still be safe. the only really important info is all the pictures.


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## AsRock (Nov 9, 2009)

Jizzler said:


> ^ *You're thinking of RAID-10, and when only 4 disks are used.*
> 
> RAID-5: One disk may fail, regardless of # of disks.
> 
> ...



Yep sure am....

Rebuilding is a pain but has worked 100% for me in the past.  Thats why i made 2 Raid 5's so if one did go down i could use the other without issue.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 9, 2009)

freaksavior said:


> so if i run raid i should use a card not the onboard from the p35 gigabyte



I would use an dedicated card.  Like Steevo, I use a RocketRAID card for my RAID5 setup.

The onboard would be fine performance wise, similar or the same to a cheap dedicated card.  However, for critical data that I can't loose, I don't trust onboard.  With a dedicated card, if the motherboard dies, you can just pull the card and put it in another machine and have access to all your data.  With onboard, if the motherboard dies, sometimes you can put the drives in another machine and recover the array, but sometimes you can't.  I've experienced both situations.  I don't like that risk.

And if you really want to be secure, don't think RAID5 makes up for a decent backup.  Personally, my entire RAID5 array is backed-up to the RAID0 array in another machine twice a day.  Though I'm probably a little more paranoid than most, but I just can't loose 800GB of DVD rips and TV shows again...


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## Steevo (Nov 9, 2009)

RAID 0 has a much higher chance of failure than RAID 5. I have used both, adn the migration of data reason is whi I chose a almost 300 card that was on sale at the egg for $159. backup to RAID 0 is worse than a backup to just a single hard drive.



So far as the onboard being as good as, there are reasons these cards are made, if you think the performance, reliability, uptime, features, and serviceability of your onboard is just as good I pity you. I use onboard at home, but not in mission critical applications.


If the RAID 5 array ever experiences a error I get a e-mail, and a phone call from the card. That alone was worth the upgrade for me, since I can fix things before they become bigger issues.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 9, 2009)

Steevo said:


> RAID 0 has a much higher chance of failure than RAID 5. I have used both, adn the migration of data reason is whi I chose a almost 300 card that was on sale at the egg for $159. backup to RAID 0 is worse than a backup to just a single hard drive.



Well of course RAID0 has a higher chance of failure than RAID5, that is by design.  It has a higher failure rate than a single drive also, but it is just a backup.  It is unlikely that the RAID5 array will fail completely(2 drives die), it is even more unlikely that the RAID5 array will fail AND the RAID0 will fail at the same time.  Backing-up to a single drive would be safer than backing-up to a RAID0 array, but backing-up to a RAID0 array is safer than not backing-up at all. And they don't make 3TB single drives.  When they do, and the drives don't cost an arm and a leg, I'll ditch the RAID0.


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## freaksavior (Nov 10, 2009)

I'm sorry but y'all are confusing me 

What do I need ? What raid setup?


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## AsRock (Nov 10, 2009)

Raid 5. I've been just fine with Raid 5. Although been thinking about trying Raid 10 as much as i have Raid 5. JUst that i have so much crap to move to try it again.


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## freaksavior (Nov 10, 2009)

okay. raid 5. 

if i get a raid card what card.

has to be pci or pci-e 1x

this is my board

http://www.xpcgear.com/gap35ds3r.html

would 3 x 1.5tb be fine? or should i do 4?


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## Steevo (Nov 10, 2009)

How much do you want to spend?


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## freaksavior (Nov 10, 2009)

to wear my 1000+ gb or movies doesn't fail. neither do my photo's and music


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## Steevo (Nov 10, 2009)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115053

Cheap and reliable, uses the CPU as a host controller throught driver. Supports four disks, and advanced functions. If you use a driver based host for disk control, either don't overclock, or make sure your OC is 110% stable, as corruption of the data during handling will cause faults in your array.

Or a PCI card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115030


Go for the PCIe if you get one as the PCI bus is limited to 133MBps, slower than your array will be.


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## freaksavior (Nov 10, 2009)

So would you do 3 x 1.5tb and raid it like that or?


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## Steevo (Nov 10, 2009)

freaksavior said:


> So would you do 3 x 1.5tb and raid it like that or?



Sure, are you goingn for max storage, or speed, or....... unless you will be serving off high data rates and multiple streams then really any disk will do, if your want lowest cost of storage the egg had a discount code for Seagate 1.5TB drives for $94, plus they are fast. And the firmware issues are fixed.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 10, 2009)

I really can't say it better than Steevo.  I use the RocketRAID 2300, but the 2640 seems to be damn good for the price.  The only thing I think the 2300 has over the 2640 is that the 2300 does its own parity calculations instead of using the CPU, so as Steevo said, make sure any overclocks are rock solid if you go with the 2640.

And 3x1.5TB is the same setup I have, the seagate drives are great. The three I have in my main rig were all affected by the firmware issue, but after I flashed them with the fixed firmware all has been good*knocks on wood*.  If you want to save a little money you can go with the LP drives.  Even though they are only 5900RPM, they are still plenty fast, and would save you about $30...


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## freaksavior (Nov 10, 2009)

Steevo said:


> Sure, are you goingn for max storage, or speed, or....... unless you will be serving off high data rates and multiple streams then really any disk will do, if your want lowest cost of storage the egg had a discount code for Seagate 1.5TB drives for $94, plus they are fast. And the firmware issues are fixed.




I have 2 x 1.5 7200rpm drives now.



newtekie1 said:


> I really can't say it better than Steevo.  I use the RocketRAID 2300, but the 2640 seems to be damn good for the price.  The only thing I think the 2300 has over the 2640 is that the 2300 does its own parity calculations instead of using the CPU, so as Steevo said, make sure any overclocks are rock solid if you go with the 2640.
> 
> And 3x1.5TB is the same setup I have, the seagate drives are great. The three I have in my main rig were all affected by the firmware issue, but after I flashed them with the fixed firmware all has been good*knocks on wood*.  If you want to save a little money you can go with the LP drives.  Even though they are only 5900RPM, they are still plenty fast, and would save you about $30...



My data is not criticle but i do not want to have to redo the ripping of all my dvd's and blu rays. I know usually hdd's last a long time with no power spikes or bad firmware issues.


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## freaksavior (Nov 19, 2009)

got my setup finished. Rocketraid 2640x1 and 3 x 1.5Tb's 

Im afraid im going to run out already (yes, i know thats 3 tb of useable data) 

So can i simply plug in a 4th 1.5Tb and add it into the array?


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## Disparia (Nov 19, 2009)

> Supported RAID Feature
> 
> RAID Levels 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD
> Multiple RAID support
> ...



Yup!


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## freaksavior (Nov 19, 2009)

So if i do add another just plug it in and ?


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## newtekie1 (Nov 19, 2009)

You have to go through the control panel and add the drive to the array.  You'll then have to extend the partition to use the unallocated space or create a new partition.


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## Steevo (Nov 19, 2009)

can we get some HDtach performance tests?


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## niko084 (Nov 19, 2009)

It's more of a choice of options.

My server at home runs Raid 5 with 5x 1TB drives, I built a media server for a guy did the same thing, he had a drive die, plugged in a new drive, it started rebuilding.

Remember "Raid is NOT a backup" It's designed for up time, although better than a single drive generally, it's still not a backup.

Personally I feel very safe with enterprise level drives in raid 5 for personal data that is realistically replaceable worst case scenario.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 19, 2009)

niko084 said:


> It's more of a choice of options.
> 
> My server at home runs Raid 5 with 5x 1TB drives, I built a media server for a guy did the same thing, he had a drive die, plugged in a new drive, it started rebuilding.
> 
> ...



I agree that RAID is not a replacement for a proper backup.  Howerver, RAID was not designed for up-time, it was designed for redundancy.  It is a middle ground between no backup at all, and properly backing up.


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## Deleted member 3 (Nov 19, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> RAID was not designed for up-time, it was designed for redundancy..



And why would one make things redundant? Mostly availability = uptime. Data safety is another reason.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 19, 2009)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> And why would one make things redundant? Mostly availability = uptime. Data safety is another reason.



Data saftey was the main reason.  Most of the "uptime" features were added over the years, and aren't really requirements on RAID.  The old days of RAID didn't even let you rebuild an array online, and early RAID controllers would automatically take the RAID array offline if a drive failed.

The uptime benefits came over time, and there are plenty of people that go RAID for uptime I know, but RAID was never intended for uptime.  It was a data protection mechanism.


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## Deleted member 3 (Nov 19, 2009)

So because the uptime benefits came later they're less important. Nowadays uptime is very and possibly more important as everything relies on computers. Downtime is expensive. Besides, I wasn't specifically talking about RAID, I'm just stating the main reason to make things redundant is to guarantee uptime. Pointing out that redundancy basically is the same as uptime in many cases.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 19, 2009)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> So because the uptime benefits came later they're less important. Nowadays uptime is very and possibly more important as everything relies on computers. Downtime is expensive. Besides, I wasn't specifically talking about RAID, I'm just stating the main reason to make things redundant is to guarantee uptime. Pointing out that redundancy basically is the same as uptime in many cases.



No, becuase they came later, and weren't considered when RAID was developed "RAID was not designed for uptime".  How is that a hard concept to understand?  Uptime wasn't a consideration when RAID was designed, hence RAID was not designed for uptime.  Uptime came later, through other features related to RAID, but not specifically due to RAID.

Yes, it is an important feature, I never said it wasn't, I don't know where you are pulling that from.  What extra features are available and important in todays RAID controllers has nothing to do with what RAID was designed to do initially.


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## freaksavior (Nov 19, 2009)

I don't plan on backing this up considering i've used half the storage already. and i fear that once my blu ray rips are done I will be nearly full. 

here is the hd tach

8Mb Bench 



32Mb Bench


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## Deleted member 3 (Nov 19, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> No, becuase they came later, and weren't considered when RAID was developed "RAID was not designed for uptime".  How is that a hard concept to understand?  Uptime wasn't a consideration when RAID was designed, hence RAID was not designed for uptime.  Uptime came later, through other features related to RAID, but not specifically due to RAID.
> 
> Yes, it is an important feature, I never said it wasn't, I don't know where you are pulling that from.  What extra features are available and important in todays RAID controllers has nothing to do with what RAID was designed to do initially.



They never developed the internet for us either, still modern society relies on it. Do you wish to claim it's still some military project? RAID changed its focus the same way, as do many things in life.
Instead of asking me how hard things are to understand you should attempt to read better. I never said you denied anything, though you can read that in my previous posts, repeating it would be _redundant_.


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## Steevo (Nov 19, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> No, because they came later, and weren't considered when RAID was developed "RAID was not designed for uptime".  How is that a hard concept to understand?  Uptime wasn't a consideration when RAID was designed, hence RAID was not designed for uptime.  Uptime came later, through other features related to RAID, but not specifically due to RAID.
> 
> Yes, it is an important feature, I never said it wasn't, I don't know where you are pulling that from.  What extra features are available and important in todays RAID controllers has nothing to do with what RAID was designed to do initially.



Arguing logistics and definitions about words that have multiple meanings and uses is a fallacy.


I have a backup of data on a DVD. DVD's were never created as a backup media, but as a media content delivery system, so is it wrong? Nope, it works for the intended purpose.

Backup on floppies back in the day, that was a joke. So was it still a backup? Yes.

Backup on tape, I still have a couple travan 2.5GB tapes aroudn here tha have my backup of a old Proliant Server. They are probably corrupt from unuse and demagnitization of the media, so is it a backup?


RAID5 works as a redundant data backup and delivery system the same as a older CD towers used to deliver data, the same as old tape drives, the same as backing up to a single enclosed hard drive.

It is just the acceptable level of risk VS cost and needs.


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## Steevo (Nov 19, 2009)

freaksavior said:


> I don't plan on backing this up considering i've used half the storage already. and i fear that once my blu ray rips are done I will be nearly full.
> 
> here is the hd tach
> 
> ...



Good linear read speeds. Low seek times for the data.


Is this on a PCIe 1.0 slot?


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## freaksavior (Nov 19, 2009)

Its on a p35 board in a 1x slot

temps are reading about 110F from the web raid management. this seems a bit warm to me.


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## Steevo (Nov 19, 2009)

Low temps kill drives faster than high temps.


Don't be worried by those temps at all.


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## freaksavior (Nov 19, 2009)

thanks.

Okay well i think all my questions are answered. 

Thanks for alll the info you guys shared.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 19, 2009)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> They never developed the internet for us either, still modern society relies on it. Do you wish to claim it's still some military project? RAID changed its focus the same way, as do many things in life.
> Instead of asking me how hard things are to understand you should attempt to read better. I never said you denied anything, though you can read that in my previous posts, repeating it would be _redundant_.





Steevo said:


> Arguing logistics and definitions about words that have multiple meanings and uses is a fallacy.
> 
> 
> I have a backup of data on a DVD. DVD's were never created as a backup media, but as a media content delivery system, so is it wrong? Nope, it works for the intended purpose.
> ...



Again, I'm not arguing what people use RAID for today.  Look back at the original statement that I responded to.  RAID was not designed for uptime!  You are arguing about what it is used for today, I'm not arguing, or even suggesting, that uptime isn't a reason for RAID use today.

The original statement would be just as wrong as saying DVDs were designed for data storage.  They weren't, they are used for that today, but that wasn't what they were designed for.

Now if the original statement was RAID is used for uptime, I wouldn't have argued with it, as that would be correct.  However, the original statement was wrong, RAID was not designed for uptime.  It was designed for data redundancy/security.



Steevo said:


> Good linear read speeds. Low seek times for the data.
> 
> 
> Is this on a PCIe 1.0 slot?



I get almost identical results with my RR 2300.  I would almost bet it is because of the PCI-E x1 slot.


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## niko084 (Nov 19, 2009)

Semantics...

Either case we can all agree it's a better idea to have a backup vs just a raid if your data is really important.


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## suraswami (Nov 19, 2009)

freaksavior said:


> I don't plan on backing this up considering i've used half the storage already. and i fear that once my blu ray rips are done I will be nearly full.
> 
> here is the hd tach
> 
> ...





freaksavior said:


> Its on a p35 board in a 1x slot
> 
> temps are reading about 110F from the web raid management. this seems a bit warm to me.




That numbers are kind of low for a 3 disk raid.  That PCI-E 1x is seriously limiting (Go with 4x RAID card and use it on a regular PCI-E slot if you have one).  I initially went 1x route and hated it.  I am now running RAID 0 directly from my Mobo (NV chipset and it rocks).

3 x 500GB Hitachi energy efficient 7200RPM drives.  I get 350MB/s burst speed and about 170MB/s average read with 18ms seek time (those drives suck at seek time) not sure about the CPU usage.

yup when going with 1x card I got similar results like yours on a cheap $20 card with 2 x 500GB same drives.


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## Steevo (Nov 19, 2009)

PCIe X1 version 1 has about 250MBPS bandwidth 500 for version 2, the limitation is the RAID processing for parity. If he has just set it up or is migrating then it is still calculating the parity stripe for the drives. He was just asking bout adding in another drive so it is possible it is building the initial array still too. Newer cards support building on the fly so you can start installing and running a system while the drives are still building.


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## suraswami (Nov 19, 2009)

Steevo said:


> PCIe X1 version 1 has about 250MBPS bandwidth 500 for version 2, the limitation is the RAID processing for parity. If he has just set it up or is migrating then it is still calculating the parity stripe for the drives. He was just asking bout adding in another drive so it is possible it is building the initial array still too. Newer cards support building on the fly so you can start installing and running a system while the drives are still building.



I thought he is all done and that score is the final full built raid?


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