4 raptors in a raid?

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Okay, good choice on your mobo and CPU. RAID 5 only requires 3 drives instead of 4. It works differently from RAID 1+0. RAID 0'ing won't really give you much of a performance increase either. And you don't need data mirroring on a Raptor. Just do a backup every night or so. It only takes about an hour.

 

[Mr Bob]

"Just do a backup every night or so. It only takes about an hour."
- My time is worth more than $160 to do a backup every night. I wanted the raid setup I was talking about so I could have MIRRORED data. I also wanted more space, because 74gb just isn't enough, so I have to spend an additional $320 to have the raid setup where my data is always mirrored. I'll be having 2 250 gb drives as well,which I will use for backups and storage.

If I do raid 5, I save $160, and still might end up losing drive, thus losing all my data. For $160, I can ensure I have an up to date mirror of all my data.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

No, if you lose 1 drive, no data is lost if your drives are in RAID 5... Why not just buy a single Raptor and mirror them, then buy 2 large drives and mirror them?

 

[Mr Bob]

Does raid5 make 3 raptors = 74x2 storage?

I thought the only benefit of raid5 was that you could take out a drive and still have things running.

"Why not just buy a single Raptor and mirror them, then buy 2 large drives and mirror them?"
- I am already down to <1gb of space left on my current raptor, which is why I wanted to do 4, so I could have two together (140gb), and then have them mirrored.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Yes, RAID 5 makes 3 Raptors have a total space of 148GB with redudancy.

Just buy another Raptor for mirroring, then buy 2 large like 250GB drives and mirror those.

 

[Mr Bob]

So I can do a raid 5, and have 148 total space, and my raptors will be mirrored in case a drive dies?

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Mr Bob
So I can do a raid 5, and have 148 total space, and my raptors will be mirrored in case a drive dies?

not mirrored, but you will have 148GB - Raid 5

 

[Mr Bob]

"148GB with redudancy"
- Doesn't this mean the data is redundant aka mirrored?

The entire point of doing a raid, is to ensure my data is secure in case a hard drive dies. That's why I don't understand why a raid 5 would be wise.

The reason why I wanted the raid setup the way I suggested, was in the first post "Also, I want to put the raptors in an array so that the space will be 74gb X 2, and they will be mirrored."

I also said "[...] if my drives were in the raid setup, I would have to have two drives fail before I lose data. Some poeple need to have the added security of their data."

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

RAID 5 wouldn't be mirrored, but it would be fault tolerant, so one drive could go down, and you would still be operational, allowing you to put in another hard drive, and it would rebuild the array, all without having to take down the system. Just happened to me.
Tas.

 

[Mr Bob]

So then it isn't reduntant! If you look at my first post, I said I wanted the data mirrored, doing a raid 5 with the 3 drives, wouldn't provide that redundancy.

Someone mentioned earlier that by having a raid card, I will be able to take a huge load off my CPU, as much as 15%. Is this really true? Even if I have an x2 3800+,would this still make sense?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Yes, it does! RAID 5 does provide redundancy. Fault tollerant = redundancy. The benefits of RAID 5 is that your drive space = N - 1, as opposed to RAID 1 which is drive space = N / 2. The bad thing about RAID 5 is that you have to have atleast 3 drives.

Yes, it is always best to have a RAID card to take the load off of the CPU. The bad thing is that you have to buy it. But yes, it will definitely give you better results.
Tas.

 

[Mr Bob]

Just wanted to make sure I have the definition correct, redundant means "Repeated or duplicated unnecessarily." Redundancy is the act of having your data "Repeated or duplicated" meaning it is a mirror.

I don't understand how you can have a mirror of 140gb, when the drives equal 210gb.

And to quote someone defining the raid I am talking about "RAID levels 0+1 and 1+0 ("RAID 10"), employ mirroring for redundancy" where redundancy = mirror

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Mr Bob
Just wanted to make sure I have the definition correct, redundant means "Repeated or duplicated unnecessarily." Redundancy is the act of having your data "Repeated or duplicated" meaning it is a mirror.

I don't understand how you can have a mirror of 140gb, when the drives equal 210gb.

And to quote someone defining the raid I am talking about "RAID levels 0+1 and 1+0 ("RAID 10"), employ mirroring for redundancy" where redundancy = mirror

Raid 5

 

[Mr Bob]

Newegg has this one for $115 > http://www.promise.com/product/product_...g.asp?segment=undefined&product_id=127

"Raid 5"
- I just looked, it doesn't mention anything about redundancy.

 

[Mr Bob]

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Trust me. I have a RAID 5 array with 5 Hitachi 250gb hard drives. I had one drive fail on me, and the array was still operational. If you want to use two drives, do RAID 1. If you want to use more than that, go with RAID 5. If you have four 100gb disks (for ease of arguement), and you do RAID 10 (or 0+1), you will have 200gb useable space. If you do RAID 5, you will have 300gb useable space.
Tas.

 

[Mr Bob]

"If you have four 100gb disks (for ease of arguement), and you do RAID 10 (or 0+1), you will have 200gb useable space. If you do RAID 5, you will have 300gb useable space"
- If I do the 10 or 0+1, I would not only have 200gb useable space, but they would be mirrored. According to my first post, I wanted the data mirrored.

Have anything to say about the sata controller card? For $300 extra, why wouldn't I just upgrade my CPU another $300 to make up the difference?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

If you explicitly want it mirrored, then there is no arguement at all, since you have to do either RAID 1, RAID 0+1, or RAID 10.

If you want your RAID array to be fault tolerant, and be able to withstand a drive going down, you can use RAID 3, 5, 6, 50, 10n, 50n, etc.

Tas.

 

[Mr Bob]

I want my data mirrored, like I said in my first post... :/

If a drive goes down in a raid 0+1 or 10, I can simply take the dead drive out of the raid 0+1 or 10, and then remove the cooresponding drive (that was next to the dead one), and then configure the raid so it doesn't mirror. That way I will still be able to use the drives,and while I wait until the next drive comes, I will just hope that another drive doesn't die. Right?

Also, what are your thoughts about the sata raid controller card I posted above? I checked and the for sale forum here, haven't seen anything that looks half decent.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

RAID 5 is a better way to provide redudanct than RAID 1. The MSI Neo4 Platinum comes with an onboard SATA controller with RAID 5.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Well, usually people say one thing, but they are getting the general connotation over. I took that as fault tolerant, and I apoligize.

As far as pulling the drives out of the array and everything, bad idea. Unless you know specifically which drive is mirrored, and which is stripped. It's best just to leave everything where it is, and hope nothing goes down until you replace the drive. The system will still operate under those conditions.

Yea, that SATA RAID card will work. I had a Promise SX6000 IDE RAID controller for a while. Good solid card, although not the best performance. But it will defintely work for your needs.
Tas.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
RAID 5 is a better way to provide redudanct than RAID 1. The MSI Neo4 Platinum comes with an onboard SATA controller with RAID 5.

Agreed, but he literally wants to do RAID 1 or a variant... He wants to mirror his array.
Tas.

 

[Mr Bob]

lmao, I just saw that tasburrfoot78362 isn't the same person as t3h l337 n3wb. I looked at the pic, and saw a bunch of #s, just thought it was the same

"RAID 5 is a better way to provide redudanct than RAID 1. The MSI Neo4 Platinum comes with an onboard SATA controller with RAID 5."
- In order to have what I want (detailed in my first post), I would need 5 drives for the raid 5, right? Raid 5's main benefit is that if a drive dies, I can still run my setup without issues.

"As far as pulling the drives out of the array and everything, bad idea. Unless you know specifically which drive is mirrored, and which is stripped. It's best just to leave everything where it is, and hope nothing goes down until you replace the drive. The system will still operate under those conditions. "
- Well, I would have 4 drives, 2 stripped and 2 mirrored. When one dies, I just need to remove it (by listning to which isn't making noise, and then look at the raid array to determine which drive that was working with. When I setup the raid, I can see the 1, 2, 3, 4 drives. Basically if I can setup the drives in the correct order, I will always know which one to swap outl.

"Yea, that SATA RAID card will work. I had a Promise SX6000 IDE RAID controller for a while."
- Not only will it work, but it will show a huge performance improvement too right?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Ugh, the quotes are hard to read, sorry.

You can't mirror with RAID 5. You can make it fault tolerant, so that if a drive goes down, it is still operational, but it will not mirror. It uses a rotating parity bit to achieve this. And no, you don't need 5 drives, you need a minimum of 3.

The RAID controller will tell you what disk went down. Find out which disk is connected to that port, and pull out the drive, order the replacement, and carry on.

Huge performance improvement? Well, that is an extremely relative thing. What exacty are you looking for? Without proper use (IE video editing, etc), you won't notice. I have people pushing 6 disk RAID 5 arrays, and yes, they load their game levels faster than anyone else on the map they are playing with, but that all depends upon what you are doing with your RAID array.

Tas.

 

[Mr Bob]

Tas, sorry about the quotes. I guess I am just a bit lazy, but if it really makes a difference I can use the [ q ] tag here.

Someone mentioned earlier about a 15% or so improvement. But I will be running the x2 3800+. I don't do heavy video editing, but I will do a lot of multitasking. Such as have dreamweaver, photoshop, ultraedit, cuteftp, captivate, frontpage, outlook express, zone alarm pro, norton av, msn/aim, ms word, and around 50-150 firefox tabs. Captivate is about the only one I wouldn't be running in conjunction with DW, PS, UE, and CuteFTP. These are just some of the common apps, I usually have a lot of crap open.