RAID 1 or 10

[ArcticWhitefur]

Ok so, after watching techquickie for my home server I am considering either RAID 1 or 10. Forget the speed benefit with 10, which is technically or mathematically safer in event of failure? I plan to run 6 x 2TB HDD. I can see in RAID 1 unless both the original and copy fail together the data is safe but in RAID 10 with the Striped Mirror or Mirrored Striping (not sure which is correct) which of the 6 disks would have to fail in this Array to cause entire failure to the RAID?

 

I.e so in RAID 1 if all the mirrors fail but the originals are intact shouldn't all the data remain intact and readable. But in RAID 10 with the mirroring and flipping from a diagram point of view I am having trouble working out which would need to fail to cause complete disaster.. :s

[felixbearpig]

10 is the exact same as 1 but with the speed bonus and uses more drives to acquire, if you dont care about speed then just go with 1

[ArcticWhitefur]

So statistically they both have the same chance of entire failure where I would loose all data? If so then I will go with 10 as I will be writing large files i.e hour long RAW fraps recordings of several hundred gigabytes at a time.

[felixbearpig]

you wont lose all data if that was the question because the drive will be cloned either way, but 1 is safer because in ten you still have raid 0 and if one raid 0 fails you still have another and that might fail too 

[unidentical]

For a home server I'd suggest raid 5

With a hot spare you're set.

[ArcticWhitefur]

Im just thinking in worse case scenario where in 1 both original and copy fail simultaneously. Highly unlikely I know but it has happened before im sure. I just cant wrap my head around which multiple drives in a RAID 10 would have to fail to cause disaster.

 

Ive heard in a RAID 5 if your using the onboard controller speeds can be very bad sometimes no faster than a single drive due to it not being able to handle it and RAID controllers can cost in the £300 to £400 range (on sites I trust for buying stuff) there more like to get a better one than whats already onboard. I was going to use 5 till I saw how many times the motherboard cannot handle it using the onboard controller.

 

I may benchmark a 5 with nothing on the drives just to see if it cripples the onboard. If not then I may use that if it does I may just go 1.

[Glenwing]

In a 6 drive RAID 10 array your data would be split (striped) into three parts, stored on drive A, B, and C in a RAID 0 configuration.  Each of those drives is also mirrored in a RAID 1 configuration, so you have drives A2, B2, and C2 each containing a backup of one of the 3 parts.  If drive A and A2, or B and B2, or C and C2, were to both fail together, then all data would be lost.  If A and B2 were to both fail then you would still be safe.  You would lose data only if both the original and the mirrored copy of a single part of the RAID 0 stripe were lost.