Storage RAID Outdated?

[Guest]

Hi, I've been seeing a lot of people saying that RAID is outdated but to me I think that's fucking bull shit, if it is then what is wrong with it exactly, first off I don't see what's wrong with RAID 0 for performance and speed, I mean it's RAID 0 it's called that for a reason, now for the other hand the other types of RAID that do backup and very secure storage I'm still pretty confused about and these are some important things I need to know because I have plans to build/put together a data center/data server so clarifying will/would help a ton please and thank you 

[Merlorz]

I don't get it aswell to be honest

[Lolzious]

It's just not worth the hassle anymore. RAID was designed for old, slow drives. RAID 0 is unstable as all hell, and modern hard drives are already reliable enough for the everyday person, not to mention you only get half the space with RAID 1.

[Guest]

It's just not worth the hassle anymore. RAID was designed for old, slow drives. RAID 0 is unstable as all hell, and modern hard drives are already reliable enough for the everyday person, not to mention you only get half the space with RAID 1.

Sounds like you don't know all of the storage number types for RAID arrays 

[Lolzious]

Sounds like you don't know all of the storage number types for RAID arrays 

I do, however RAID 1 and RAID 0 are the most common, and you mentioned one in your post.

[Guest]

I do, however RAID 1 and RAID 0 are the most common, and you mentioned one in your post.

Okay so what about all of the other types? 

[Lolzious]

Okay so what about all of the other types? 

>_<

[guyf2010]

It's just not worth the hassle anymore. RAID was designed for old, slow drives. RAID 0 is unstable as all hell, and modern hard drives are already reliable enough for the everyday person, not to mention you only get half the space with RAID 1.

RAID 1 doesn't limit the storage space to half, it reduces it to that of a single drive. (Only half in the case of a two drive array)

I disagree that RAID was designed for old slow drives. It may have started a long time ago, but it's been used in the server industry for a long time on high performance 15,000 RPM SAS drives.

RAID 0 is not "unstable as all hell", my SSD array has been running without a single issue for over a year.

I'd also say modern hard drives are not reliable enough for the everyday person. The everyday person rarely does backups and keeps the same PC for a number of years, until drive failures are so rare that users are no longer using that machine as their main PC if at all, they are not reliable enough.

 

Just my two cents.

[Guest]

Hi, I've been seeing a lot of people saying that RAID is outdated but to me I think that's fucking bull shit, if it is then what is wrong with it exactly, first off I don't see what's wrong with RAID 0 for performance and speed, I mean it's RAID 0 it's called that for a reason, now for the other hand the other types of RAID that do backup and very secure storage I'm still pretty confused about and these are some important things I need to know because I have plans to build/put together a data center/data server so clarifying will/would help a ton please and thank you 

 

RAID has become outdated in the enterprise world because the data density has increased to a point where you're dealing with random bits flipping over time (read up on data-rot) that RAID can't deal with. In a RAID 5 or RAID 6 array where you have parity across several drives you can then run into issues where the RAID controller doesn't know which drive to trust, resulting in corrupted data being seen as "okay".

I honestly can't explain it too well, but watch the videos on TekEnterprise, they go fairly indepth and should give you a proper explanation.

[Guest]

>_<

You didn't answer the *flowers and sunshine* question. Edited April 24, 2015 by alpenwasser
added flowers and sunshine :)

[Blebekblebek]

RAID 0 is particular only boost performance on benchmark

when doing real copy/write it still limited from performance of that disk it self

 

you can do 5mnts google with RAID 0 performance, you are just wasting resources specially when u do it with SSD.

 

but still, people will do it anyway.

as for RAID1 and other type, since most RAID feature on motherboard isn't HARD raid making RAID it self not so redundant as it supposed to do, unless we are talking about RAID for Server purpose.

[Captain_WD]

Hi, I've been seeing a lot of people saying that RAID is outdated but to me I think that's fucking bull shit, if it is then what is wrong with it exactly, first off I don't see what's wrong with RAID 0 for performance and speed, I mean it's RAID 0 it's called that for a reason, now for the other hand the other types of RAID that do backup and very secure storage I'm still pretty confused about and these are some important things I need to know because I have plans to build/put together a data center/data server so clarifying will/would help a ton please and thank you 

 

 

Hey Yames,

 

First of all, I would like to put this out: RAID is not a backup. It may give you redundancy on the current machine, but it should not be considered a back up.

Now, on the topic, RAID is still widely used and is very useful for certain things. It does make much more sense with HDDs compared to SSDs. For example RAID0 gives you very a good speed boost but with every drive in the array you increase the chance of failure and data loss. RAID0 offers zero redundancy and if either of the drives in it fails, drops out or goes out of synchronization you would lose all data on the whole array. RAID0 offers great speed boost but actually increases the cold booting time (the RAID needs to be initialized first) and involves a larger chance of data loss, due to its nature. Using HDDs in RAID makes more sense than using SSDs. Here's an example: games rely on storage only for their loading times and FPS and graphics will not be affected at all. Here's an example of the speed boost when using SSDs and HDDs: The jump in load times from HDD to SSD is like 10s to 1s. RAID 0 effectively (theoretically) halves the load time. So if you were to RAID 0 mechanical drives, it's 10s to 5s. You derive 5s of benefit. If you were to RAID 0 SSDs instead, its like 1s to 0.5s. You derive 0.5s of benefit.

RAID is very important when you are working in harsher and more intensive environments where drive failures are more probable. Using RAID5, RAID6, RAID10, RAID60, etc. is very popular (among other types) when you are managing a larger drive pools. It gives you pretty good speed boosts and some drive failure tolerance, but still a separate backup on storage drive that are not connected to the system is strongly advised. 

 

I would suggest first considering how much usable space you would need, how much drive failure tolerance (redundancy) you would like to have, how many drive would you like to manage and how much speed you would need and then decide on the RAID type. I would also  strongly suggest that you use NAS/RAID type drives in such arrays as they work much smoother and much more stable compared to regular drives and you would reduce the chance of a drive dropout.

 

Feel free to ask if you happen to have any questions,

 

Captain_WD.

[alpenwasser]

- snip -

What ^he said.

RAID has been declared "dead" a few times now, especially RAID5 (e.g. see here and here).

But for many people it still works fine (admittedly, I also think many people just don't

see the risks because they are clueless about how probability and statistics work, but

I'm honestly not well versed enough in those subjects at the moment to really delve into

that, I'm merely aware that I'm very rusty ). As with many other things, the question

is not really whether RAID is bad or not, it's whether it is suited for your use case.

The best tool in the world is no good if you use it for something for which it was not intended.

I use RAID (well, ZFS in RAIDZ2) in my file server and it has been working very well so

far (knock on wood). But still, I make backups of the important bits onto external drives

and other computers, because as the Captain has said, RAID is not a backup. It increases

availability of your data in case of a drive failure, but it cannot protect against many

other things (malware, user error, software bugs leading to data loss, failure of your entire

machine at once, for example due to a severe power surge, etc.).

@Yames.

[guyf2010]

There are some good points made in this topic, but there is still one thing that is missing. The OP asked if RAID was outdated/obsolete. Regardless of whether RAID is a good idea or not, for something to be outdated, that means there is a newer version/replacement. A number of people have said that RAID 5 shouldn't be used, but don't suggest an alternative. I would very much like to see the logic in thinking a 4TB drive is more reliable that 5 1TB drives in RAID 5. Not to mention the performance increases of RAID. The OP said he wanted to create a data center, as far as I know the majority of data centers use RAID.

 

I would be happy to know of an improved replacement for RAID, if there is one. But running single drives is not the solution.

[KirbyTech]

Hi, I've been seeing a lot of people saying that RAID is outdated but to me I think that's fucking bull shit, if it is then what is wrong with it exactly, first off I don't see what's wrong with RAID 0 for performance and speed, I mean it's RAID 0 it's called that for a reason, now for the other hand the other types of RAID that do backup and very secure storage I'm still pretty confused about and these are some important things I need to know because I have plans to build/put together a data center/data server so clarifying will/would help a ton please and thank you 

It is because RAID is not error correcting fully it also have some trust issues. If you are rebuilding after a drive failure and have bit rot then you can lose some files, or if you had a read head mess up a few times or the drive did not write correctly for what ever reason. RAID is not dead totally just is for critical data. ZFS is the new standard and is the one I recommend running if you are setting up a file server. While RAID is not a backup only keeps your data more available to you, neither is ZFS. In a data center expect to see 6-8 TB of data per 1 TB of data. Meaning for every 1 TB you store you need 6-8 TB of drives. This includes ZFS, on site backup and off site backup. If you want to see the risks of single drive look here http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/354186-screwed-up-a-drive/#entry4813201I have also had RAID mess up before but that was when I was dealing with racks of drives, it was well over 500 TB and we had about a total of 1 TB of lost data, back up saved us at that point but it was after that the company moved to a better system.

 

RAID has been declared "dead" a few times now, especially RAID5 (e.g. see here and here).

But for many people it still works fine (admittedly, I also think many people just don't

see the risks because they are clueless about how probability and statistics work, but

I'm honestly not well versed enough in those subjects at the moment to really delve into

that, I'm merely aware that I'm very rusty ). As with many other things, the question

is not really whether RAID is bad or not, it's whether it is suited for your use case.

The best tool in the world is no good if you use it for something for which it was not intended.

I use RAID (well, ZFS in RAIDZ2) in my file server and it has been working very well so

far (knock on wood). But still, I make backups of the important bits onto external drives

and other computers, because as the Captain has said, RAID is not a backup. It increases

availability of your data in case of a drive failure, but it cannot protect against many

other things (malware, user error, software bugs leading to data loss, failure of your entire

machine at once, for example due to a severe power surge, etc.).

@Yames.

[unijab]

RAID is not dead and will always have a use, unless something else comes along that can replace it entirely.

[dalekphalm]

There is some argument that Hardware RAID might be dying - That is, a RAID Array controlled by a Dedicated Hardware RAID Card with an onboard RAID processor.

 

The reason is Bitrot (Also known as Datarot). The random flipping of bits, that naturally occurs in any magnetic storage medium. This can lead to Data Corruption.

 

There are methods which aim to solve that - namely: ZFS filesystem and associated Software RAID - RAIDZ. They implement a "scrubbing" feature which periodically tests for Data Corruption, and if found - repairs or restores the corrupted data.

 

Hardware RAID certainly has it's uses, and has the potential for higher performance compared to Software RAID systems (They use a dedicated processor on the RAID Card, which takes the load off the CPU). But whether that even matters, depends on the particular implementation, and the specific hardware and load. The increased CPU load might not even have an impact if your system is capable enough.

[Guest]

 

Hey Yames,

 

First of all, I would like to put this out: RAID is not a backup. It may give you redundancy on the current machine, but it should not be considered a back up.

Now, on the topic, RAID is still widely used and is very useful for certain things. It does make much more sense with HDDs compared to SSDs. For example RAID0 gives you very a good speed boost but with every drive in the array you increase the chance of failure and data loss. RAID0 offers zero redundancy and if either of the drives in it fails, drops out or goes out of synchronization you would lose all data on the whole array. RAID0 offers great speed boost but actually increases the cold booting time (the RAID needs to be initialized first) and involves a larger chance of data loss, due to its nature. Using HDDs in RAID makes more sense than using SSDs. Here's an example: games rely on storage only for their loading times and FPS and graphics will not be affected at all. Here's an example of the speed boost when using SSDs and HDDs: The jump in load times from HDD to SSD is like 10s to 1s. RAID 0 effectively (theoretically) halves the load time. So if you were to RAID 0 mechanical drives, it's 10s to 5s. You derive 5s of benefit. If you were to RAID 0 SSDs instead, its like 1s to 0.5s. You derive 0.5s of benefit.

RAID is very important when you are working in harsher and more intensive environments where drive failures are more probable. Using RAID5, RAID6, RAID10, RAID60, etc. is very popular (among other types) when you are managing a larger drive pools. It gives you pretty good speed boosts and some drive failure tolerance, but still a separate backup on storage drive that are not connected to the system is strongly advised. 

 

I would suggest first considering how much usable space you would need, how much drive failure tolerance (redundancy) you would like to have, how many drive would you like to manage and how much speed you would need and then decide on the RAID type. I would also  strongly suggest that you use NAS/RAID type drives in such arrays as they work much smoother and much more stable compared to regular drives and you would reduce the chance of a drive dropout.

 

Feel free to ask if you happen to have any questions,

 

Captain_WD.

 

aye aye captain, okay so then what do people move onto then like what's the next thing after RAID? 

[AllstaRawR]

RAID 1 doesn't limit the storage space to half, it reduces it to that of a single drive. (Only half in the case of a two drive array)

I disagree that RAID was designed for old slow drives. It may have started a long time ago, but it's been used in the server industry for a long time on high performance 15,000 RPM SAS drives.

RAID 0 is not "unstable as all hell", my SSD array has been running without a single issue for over a year.

I'd also say modern hard drives are not reliable enough for the everyday person. The everyday person rarely does backups and keeps the same PC for a number of years, until drive failures are so rare that users are no longer using that machine as their main PC if at all, they are not reliable enough.

 

Just my two cents.

 

Yeah, my RAID1 of WD Reds just saved me from losing all of my data... and Reds are pretty decently reliable. My RAID0 for SSDs has also been running just fine since February of 2014.

[mr moose]

aye aye captain, okay so then what do people move onto then like what's the next thing after RAID? 

 

I believe most people say raid is dead because ssd's have simply made them less necessary (especially domestically).  So I would say what we move onto are large ssd's. 

[guyf2010]

I believe most people say raid is dead because ssd's have simply made them less necessary (especially domestically).  So I would say what we move onto are large ssd's. 

There will always be a need to make a system faster. People are currently considering SSDs extremely quick compared to hard drives, eventually that will pass and people will want it to go faster. Also, that means no redundancy at all, as well as the fact that data recovery from a failed SSD is more difficult than spinning disk.

[Dabombinable]

I personally have had no issues with my RAID 0 array on ym 20GB HDD, sure I've only gotten an overall boost of about 10-15MB/sec sequential, but when I'm able to transfer 4KB files at over 2MB/sec, instead of about 400-500KB/sec, it makes a huge difference. The true RAID configs however just aren't that practical the larger arrays get due to the associated problems.

[Captain_WD]

aye aye captain, okay so then what do people move onto then like what's the next thing after RAID? 

 

As @mr moose pointed out, with SSDs becoming cheaper, I would think people would prefer single larger SSDs as they are pretty fast and are more than enough for consumer usage. I don't believe there is a viable replacement so far for RAID on consumer or enterprise levels in terms of redundancy. I would think SSDs will slowly replace HDDs as primary drives for most files and programs as they become cheaper, but I wouldn't throw HDDs out of the game yet.

 

Captain_WD.

[mr moose]

There will always be a need to make a system faster. People are currently considering SSDs extremely quick compared to hard drives, eventually that will pass and people will want it to go faster. Also, that means no redundancy at all, as well as the fact that data recovery from a failed SSD is more difficult than spinning disk.

 

Be that as it may, speed advantage of raid 0 on ssd's is not usually big enough to warrant the extra cost, and  heightened probability of failure.   For domestic use redundancy is redundant, because like everyone says raid does not equal a back up and everyone should be backing up.   

[mr moose]

 

As @mr moose pointed out, with SSDs becoming cheaper, I would think people would prefer single larger SSDs as they are pretty fast and are more than enough for consumer usage. I don't believe there is a viable replacement so far for RAID on consumer or enterprise levels in terms of redundancy. I would think SSDs will slowly replace HDDs as primary drives for most files and programs as they become cheaper, but I wouldn't throw HDDs out of the game yet.

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

Absolutely,

 

Like most people I have an SSD for my OS and the programs I use the most, After that I have an everyday hard drive for mass storage and less used programs.  It's simple, cheap gives me terrabytes of space and 90% of what I do is ssd fast enough to not piss me off. 

 

I was considering ssd's in raid earlier on but now in my next build I am going straight to onboard m.2 or a PCIe drive.   Unless there is some major advance in raid controller in the near future, for what most domestic users do it's basically becoming less attractive.