SATA RAID cards for media streaming

[wpirobotbuilder]

I'm looking at RAID cards to use for streaming 1080p media to multiple computers, I was thinking of using a RAID 0 setup with WD red drives, with an offline backup. Is a RAID 0 setup really necessary to serve multiple streams?

In addition, I want to use SATA drives. What type of connectors should the card have to use them?

[Ssoele]

Never use RAID 0 to store something. Use RAID 5 or 6. As for the connectors on the RAID card, on cards with few connections, you might find SATA connectors, on cards with 4+ connectors, look for a card with SFF-8087 connectors, you can find cables to go from SFF-8087 (1) to SATA (4).

[looney]

i have few questions,

-how much storage are you looking for?

-are you planing to use a existing pc or build one dedicated to storage?

-does is have to be windows?

-will it only be for media (or at least 90% of it)

-and what kind of budget do you have?

if you could answer all those questions it would be a lot easier to give you some advice :)

[wpirobotbuilder]

Never use RAID 0 to store something. Use RAID 5 or 6. As for the connectors on the RAID card, on cards with few connections, you might find SATA connectors, on cards with 4+ connectors, look for a card with SFF-8087 connectors, you can find cables to go from SFF-8087 (1) to SATA (4).

Does RAID 5/6 read with faster speeds than a single 7200 drive?

[wpirobotbuilder]

i have few questions,

-how much storage are you looking for?

-are you planing to use a existing pc or build one dedicated to storage?

-does is have to be windows?

-will it only be for media (or at least 90% of it)

-and what kind of budget do you have?

if you could answer all those questions it would be a lot easier to give you some advice :)

I am planning to put it into my personal rig (Windows). A few years down the line, I might change that. Looking for 10+ TB, mostly media. Looking at less than $1000

[looney]

As i see it you have 2 options:

• get a expensive hardware raid card, it is faster then the other option, but imo less reliable because if the card crashes you screwed until you get a new card from the same series and brand
  
• my fav option is flexraid ($60), it is a software based snapshot raid. you can add drives on the fly. files will be stored in NTFS so when it crashes you will still have all files, even if you lose 2 drives in raid 5 you will still have most data is its not split up and stored in NTFS. a lot cheaper 2, just get a 100euro IMB M1015, and for media its diffidently fast enough (as fast a the hdd you use)
  

[looney]

Never use RAID 0 to store something. Use RAID 5 or 6. As for the connectors on the RAID card, on cards with few connections, you might find SATA connectors, on cards with 4+ connectors, look for a card with SFF-8087 connectors, you can find cables to go from SFF-8087 (1) to SATA (4).

yes read is faster as the file is split up on multiple drives, so it will be able to read from multiple drives at the same time