How Should I Configure This Raid 5 Array?

[MartinIAm]

I have 4x6tb WD data center drives (and 1x4tb if that's important) and I was originally planning to make an array of three 6tb hard drives and then keep one in the server as a hot spare, but reading around some people say that hot spare isn't a great idea. I'm looking for good reliability while still having a good amount of storage. I am onsite 95% of the time. Should I use all four 6tb drives or should I use three and have one spare, but do I keep that spare hot or cold? Is there anything useful I can do with my 4tb drive for this single array? This array will be raid 5 and be on a Dell r720 server.

These drives are also brand new, but I'm also looking to use them for a long time and use them in a data center environment.

[PCoverclock]

Id recommend using last one for a data failure or put your most important stuff on that thing an store it away.

[Prodigy_Smit]

Personally, I would keep the drive as a hot spare. The server at my school has a hot spare that was inactive for 8 years and only recently needed to come back up so there is practically no downside to having a hot spare vs a cold one but make sure that the hot spare is setup to automatically start rebuilding data in case of a drive failure.

 

Using Raid 5 would be a good idea basically no other config needed. 

 

12 minutes ago, PCoverclock said:

put your most important stuff on that thing an store it away.

^

OP. I would suggest getting an offsite backup if the data is important and use the 4th drive as a hot spare.

[MartinIAm]

11 minutes ago, PCoverclock said:

Id recommend using last one for a data failure or put your most important stuff on that thing an store it away.

I'll probably hook it up and use zstd to make backups of important things.

8 minutes ago, Smit Devrukhkar said:

OP. I would suggest getting an offsite backup if the data is important and use the 4th drive as a hot spare.

Offsite backup is a really good idea which I'll have to get into, but meanwhile something like backing up to tape might work okay.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, MartinIAm said:

I'll probably hook it up and use zstd to make backups of important things.

Offsite backup is a really good idea which I'll have to get into, but meanwhile something like backing up to tape might work okay.

zstd is a compression programs, how to you plan to managed backups?

 

Id go with a 4x6tb raid 5, I don't see a reason to get a hot spare here personally. If uptime is super important, get a HA setup, and have good backups.

[MartinIAm]

22 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

zstd is a compression programs, how to you plan to managed backups?

Have a second server, compress all of the files, and send it to that server that has less storage on it.

22 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id go with a 4x6tb raid 5, I don't see a reason to get a hot spare here personally. If uptime is super important, get a HA setup, and have good backups.

Rethinking it, the raid 5 array with all four drives doesn't seem like a bad idea. There is a 5 year warranty plus 2 million hours MTBF. High availability sounds like a great idea which I will have to at some point implement it.

[Electronics Wizardy]

47 minutes ago, MartinIAm said:

Have a second server, compress all of the files, and send it to that server that has less storage on it.

what types of files are  you storing it? Most data won't be compressed?

 

What os is the server running? id run something liek zfs so all the files are compressed anyways on the main array.

[MartinIAm]

38 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what types of files are  you storing it? Most data won't be compressed?

 

What os is the server running? id run something liek zfs so all the files are compressed anyways on the main array.

I am storing mostly pictures and videos, both compressed, but still regular files (not zips or anything special). The server will run Ubuntu 20.04. I'm not  experienced with running zfs, so I would have to look into that.

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 hours ago, MartinIAm said:

I am storing mostly pictures and videos, both compressed, but still regular files (not zips or anything special). The server will run Ubuntu 20.04. I'm not  experienced with running zfs, so I would have to look into that.

Id use zfs on ubuntu then.has lots of nice features most raidarrays dont, and easy to setup and use. and yyou can use zfs send for backups

 

but with photos, zstd isnt compressing them, as there already compressed