Hello,
I currently have a HP MicroServer N54L with 6GB of ECC ram, I have four 2TB WD Red drives and I'm wondering what's the best and safest RAID Level. I have heard scary stories about RAID 5 and issues with performance so if anyone has any comments that could help me look at RAID 5 in a different light I would appreciate them. Due to my set-up I think my only other option is RAID 10? But please feel free to throw in any suggestions or recommendations for me.
Thanks for reading.
Raid 5, 6, 10, 0+1 are the options you have.
All i can say is that i use Raid 5 (one disk parity) but on hardwareraid level. I get 500mb/s on a testing situation, both read and write.
If you want real security you should go with Raid 6 (two disk parity). There you have the security that even two drives could fail, and you still have an working array.
For the Security of 10 and 0+1 i cannot tell much, as i don't know them very well.
Greetings
David
PS: i would recommend Raid5, even with software Raid you should get sufficient speeds. But others maybe can tell you more about it ;).
PPS: Don't forget, you should also remember to backup your files.
Thanks for replying, Hardware RAID is out of the question, The N54L only supports a semi hardware RAID 0/1 which is useless because I have the modified BIOS. I am also fully aware that RAID is not a backup method and I will be taking constant backups of the important stuff.
Please keep the suggestions coming though.
Thanks
I would never use raid from bios. I have raid 10 on two systems with no issues. Technically, raid 10 can lose two drives but only if they are the right two. Raid 6 can always lose two. I run raid 5 on most of my systems now. If you have good backups and you content doesn't change that much, I would go raid 5.
Well the only data changing on the array would be a weekly backup from the computers in the house and maybe the odd steam game installation. Photos/Movies/Music would only be added occasionally.
I think you really want Greyhole.
- fast enough for backups
- not raid = no syncing
- can specify multiple copies of more important files across multiple disks
- could lose three drives without losing everything (still lose some but not all)
Unfortunately, the plugin only works with omv 0.3 for now. I still have a 0.3 server running so if you setup doesn't change, it would hurt anything (the OS is still updated meaning security issues are fixed).
I would rather use RAID than Grayhole but I will look into it.
Anyone else got any input?
Thanks
HP P410 are working very well with HP Microservers (go figure).
Make sure to use the latest Firmware (v6.00 atm).
You can grab some on Ebay kind of cheap (>150€).
Without some addon license it can't do Raid6. If you'd grab the correct LSI (or rebranded LSI and flash it with LSI firmware) controller you can get Raid6 without a hassle.
I am not sure about compatibility of LSI controllers and HP servers, but I can look into it. If you are interested I can provide you with some good sources about LSI controllers, corresponding OEM (rebranded) controllers and whatnot.
For your use case: Raid5 is more than sufficient. Raid6 the next best option.
Deciding about a raid level isn't that hard. Take three points into consideration: cost effectiveness (money/amount of storage), reliability, performance.
You clearly do not need much performance, but the other two (because it's a backup system). So you have to decide between Raid5 and 6. Then chose whats more important to you: reliability or cost effectiveness.
Edit: Totally necroed that thread. Fuck me.
I am using Raid6. It may be a bit slower than other levels of raid. I have several times experienced disk crashes just two weeks ago i missed two Seagate 1.5Tb disks. Due to my raid6 level everything kept working albeit at a slower pace.
Remember that if you have disks from the same batch there is a great possibility that several of them will fail within a short timeframe of each other. If it is possible I allways buy disks in pairs from different shops and with a week between each order. This ensures me that the disks does not come from the same batch and thus are less prone to fail at the same time.
My Seagate 1.5Tb disks seems to follow that pattern. I had one drive failing. I bought two new WD RED 3Tb disks and inserted one o start rebuilding tha raid. During the rebuid of the raid the other seagate 1.5 Tb disk from the same batch as the failing also failed. If this was a level 5 raid i would have to build a new raid and restore data from my backup. By running level 6 raid I could keep running the NAS services without interruption while rebuilding one disk at a time.
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