raid z vs raid 5

[jathor]

i have a raid 5 areca card and am in the process of building a home server. I recently heard of raid z and how it is supposed to have data integrity verification or something along those lines which the raid 5 does not have. I was wondering should i use the controller for raid 5 or should i have it set up as a jbod and use raid z (using zfs on freebsd).

 

thanks for your help guys

 

p.s. the system im going to build on will be a core 2 duo e7200, 4gb 800mhz ram, amd 5450, 2 x 160 gb hdd for os (raid 1 or image drive "just in case" also up for debate, tell me what you think) and 4 x 1tb hdd for the actual server drives.

 

also, keep in mind i have no clue wtf raid z or zfs is, i just found out about it.

[ejm_110]

I am also in research regarding ZFS. One thing I know is that, you need ECC capable RAMs. Too bad I already bought my NAS before I encountered the word ZFS, if not I would likely to build my own raid server instead of a NAS. I already requested on the techquickie channel to have 'as fast as possible' episode on file systems including ZFS.

 

These are good reads, I haven't read it yet, ya know TLDR-later maybe...

http://wiki.illumos.org/download/attachments/1146951/zfs_last.pdf

http://www.therealnicaragua.com/vb/forums/showthread.php?t=9443

[alpenwasser]

A little while back somebody asked about ZFS in this thread.

I am also in research regarding ZFS. One thing I know is that, you need ECC capable RAMs.

It is easily possibly to run ZFS on a non-ECC capable system, in fact I'm doing it right now.

However, had I not had half of my components from a previous system before deciding to go with

ZFS I do agree that I would have bought ECC RAM, it is definitely a sound recommendation.

I haven't really been able to find any reliable information on how important ECC RAM actually

is for ZFS. Some people claim that a random bit-flip in your RAM during a scrubbing operation

(evaluating the file system for errors and correcting them when found) can render all of your

data useless while others claim that only the specific file being checked during that bit-flip

will be affected. Nobody really seems to know, or those who do know haven't said anything yet.

As for the original question: I really like ZFS, even in a non-ECC system. Makes managing

storage space very convenient IMO.

[txus.palacios]

I recommend this video to understand the basics of ZFS.

You do not need ECC but, of course, for a server environment it is always recommended for security reasons.

[alpenwasser]

I recommend this video to understand the basics of ZFS.

Man, I think I've watched that presentation about three times by now. :D