Is it worth it to raid drives in a NAS?

[DKM1129]

Hi. So I just built myself a nas currently it only has 2x 500gb drives just for testing and I'm booting open media vault off a USB . I'm planning on getting 2x 5tb WD Reds and a 60gb ssd for a boot drive.Currently the 2x 500gb aren't in any sort of raid configuration and are just shared through the home network.So is it worth me doing something like a raid 0 (and potentially shorten the life span of the drives) if I'm only going to be keeping videos and music?

[The Official Czex]

I'd suggest RAID 6 if you're not backing up data on the cloud.

[scottyseng]

Hi. So I just built myself a nas currently it only has 2x 500gb drives just for testing and I'm booting open media vault off a USB . I'm planning on getting 2x 5tb WD Reds and a 60gb ssd for a boot drive.Currently the 2x 500gb aren't in any sort of raid configuration and are just shared through the home network.So is it worth me doing something like a raid 0 (and potentially shorten the life span of the drives) if I'm only going to be keeping videos and music?

 

No, I wouldn't say it's worth it. For two 500 GB disks, it's really not worth it. RAID doesn't short the lifespan of the drives themselves, it just increases the risk of you losing your data.

 

The only RAID if you wanted to do it would be RAID1, but you'd lose quite a bit of space and your files don't seem to be too important to you on the two 500 GB drives.

 

I would maybe consider having the 500GB drives be a backup for your most critical data from the two 5TB drives (still separate). Yeah, just have all of the drives not in RAID.

 

You'd need more drives for it to be worth it. RAID 5 needs at least 3 drives, RAID 6 needs at least 4, and RAID 10 also needs 4. They all have to be the same size too.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there DKM1129,

 

As @scottyseng explained, at this point the only RAID option that would make sense is RAID1 with the two drives since it'll give you some redundancy, but you'd lose half of your space. Unless you have a gigabit network at your place, the drives can't really operate at their maximum speed due to the network bottlenecking them so RAID0 won't make much sense plus, as explained, it'll increase the risk for your data. 

I'd suggest to leave your drives as they are, get the new WD Red drives, put them in RAID1 (which will give you roughly 5TB of usable storage space) for redundancy and use the old drives for backups.

 

Captain_WD.

[DKM1129]

Hi guys thanks for the speedy replies @scottyseng makes some good points I think I will use the 500gbs as backups and I was actually thinking about raid 5 being the perfect raid for me to use as it gives me some redundancy as I didn't want to use raid 1 because of the exact same reason mentioned above and @Captain_WD I am in the process of converting my network equipment to gigabit although via cat 5e cables I already have a router that supports gigabit all I need now is a switch. Also if there's any articles or anything you guys have in mind about raid please feel free to share as I'm still specticle about what the chances of my drives failing should I have them in a raid

[scottyseng]

-snip-

 

Keep in mind with RAID 5, you will need at least 3 disks. With RAID 5, one disk can fail and you can still recover the array.

 

Also, even in RAID, the max speed you'll ever see out of your NAS will be 80-100MB/s (Theoretically the max is 125MB/s for 1Gb/s Ethernet...but there's overhead). It's just due to the limits of 1Gb/s.

 

The chances of the hard drive failing will be slightly higher (As the RAID controller does have to scan the hard drives every week for consistency checks) in RAID. Either way though, any hard drive's lifespan is pretty unpredictable. The good point about RAID5 is if one drive does die, you can insert a new one and as long as another drive in the same array doesn't die while the new drive is being rebuilt, your array will be safe again. That being said, the hard drives should last quite a while, to the point where you should probably have replaced the array already. I personally only give a drive 4 years before I buy a new one to extract the data from it. Beyond 4-5 years, hard drive life can get pretty iffy, RAID or not. Also depends on the conditions the hard drives live in.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Again, as @scottyseng explained, even a gigabit network has a limitation below the capabilities of regular HDDs (about 100MB/s) so RAID0 shouldn't be of much (if any) benefit in this case. 

Actually, Linus has some pretty good videos regarding RAID in general and RAID types in particular which you may find informative:

 

Basically RAID5 will use one of the drives for redundancy, so you'd lose it's capacity. RAID6 will take up two drives for the same reason, but it can sustain up to two drive failures at the same time without damaging any of the data. RAID1 basically creates a full mirror of the main drive, this is why it uses one drive for back up.

 

Ask away if you have further questions or need more info on this,

 

Captain_WD.

[DKM1129]

Again, as @scottyseng explained, even a gigabit network has a limitation below the capabilities of regular HDDs (about 100MB/s) so RAID0 shouldn't be of much (if any) benefit in this case.

Actually, Linus has some pretty good videos regarding RAID in general and RAID types in particular which you may find informative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7Bfw9lFfs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYBtmVMtH1g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuwjadbtUCY

Basically RAID5 will use one of the drives for redundancy, so you'd lose it's capacity. RAID6 will take up two drives for the same reason, but it can sustain up to two drive failures at the same time without damaging any of the data. RAID1 basically creates a full mirror of the main drive, this is why it uses one drive for back up.

Ask away if you have further questions or need more info on this,

Captain_WD.

Thanks very much appreciated. @scottyseng mentioned something about controller? Do you guys mean hardware raid? Because I was planning to just use the sata ports off the board (even though I feel like my current h61 board is getting on the years and also planning to replace that also my board has 4 sata 2 ports) I'm currently shopping around for a decent h61 replacement with 4 sata ports as well so yeah would it be OK to run a raid array with the mobo ports or in this case is it just better to run it all on its own without even a software raid?

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Motherboards do have their own RAID controllers built-in in them. When you choose one, check some feedback on its aability to run/boot/operate with drives in a RAID array. Some motherboards don't support booting from a RAID array. Others support only RAID1 or RAID0. Make sure you get as much info on the ability of the motherboard that you are getting to operate with RAID arrays as you can before purchasing it.

 

Captain_WD.

[scottyseng]

Thanks very much appreciated. @scottyseng mentioned something about controller? Do you guys mean hardware raid? Because I was planning to just use the sata ports off the board (even though I feel like my current h61 board is getting on the years and also planning to replace that also my board has 4 sata 2 ports) I'm currently shopping around for a decent h61 replacement with 4 sata ports as well so yeah would it be OK to run a raid array with the mobo ports or in this case is it just better to run it all on its own without even a software raid? I just need to end this lengthy comment with saying thanks to you guys, gave me alot to think about oh and on a side note if Raid 5 is that good I don't mind waiting a bit more and shelling out for the extra drive as it was my primary intention but decided to just go for 2 drives considering budget restraints

 

Yeah, I meant the onboard RAID controller on the motherboard. I would read on the motherboard manual you plan to buy and check out the RAID capabilities of it (Some motherboards support different RAID levels). It is perfectly fine to run a RAID from the motherboard, but please make sure to get a battery back up for your system (Power loss would suck).

 

If you can't afford another drive, there's no problem with just keeping the drives in a not RAID mode. RAID5 just gives you some protection against data loss.

[EmeraldFlame]

Thanks very much appreciated. @scottyseng mentioned something about controller? Do you guys mean hardware raid? Because I was planning to just use the sata ports off the board (even though I feel like my current h61 board is getting on the years and also planning to replace that also my board has 4 sata 2 ports) I'm currently shopping around for a decent h61 replacement with 4 sata ports as well so yeah would it be OK to run a raid array with the mobo ports or in this case is it just better to run it all on its own without even a software raid? I just need to end this lengthy comment with saying thanks to you guys, gave me alot to think about oh and on a side note if Raid 5 is that good I don't mind waiting a bit more and shelling out for the extra drive as it was my primary intention but decided to just go for 2 drives considering budget restraints

RAID 0, 1, or 10 are normally fine to run off the MoBo. However, RAID 5 and 6 are normally bad ideas to run off of a MoBo even if it does support it. RAID 5 and 6 are fairly calculation heavy because they have to create the parity bits, because of this most MoBo RIAD 5 or 6 has terrible performance compared to a dedicated RAID card.

[DKM1129]

RAID 0, 1, or 10 are normally fine to run off the MoBo. However, RAID 5 and 6 are normally bad ideas to run off of a MoBo even if it does support it. RAID 5 and 6 are fairly calculation heavy because they have to create the parity bits, because of this most MoBo RIAD 5 or 6 has terrible performance compared to a dedicated RAID card.

I'll keep that in mind, im not using the highest end CPU for this build its an Intel G470 single core with hyperthreading thanks for the advice 

[DKM1129]

Yeah, I meant the onboard RAID controller on the motherboard. I would read on the motherboard manual you plan to buy and check out the RAID capabilities of it (Some motherboards support different RAID levels). It is perfectly fine to run a RAID from the motherboard, but please make sure to get a battery back up for your system (Power loss would suck).

 

If you can't afford another drive, there's no problem with just keeping the drives in a not RAID mode. RAID5 just gives you some protection against data loss.

I checked the H61 specifications on intels website it seems as though it doesnt support raid from the chipset itself however B75 boards support RAID 0,1,5 and 10 so hopefully i'll be able to pick one up for a decent price.