RAID solution suggestions

[steven4264]

I have built a home server and changed it numerous times, nothing seems to completely satisfy my needs.  I have 6x3tb WD RED drives I would like in either raid 6 or 10.  In the past I used freeNAS but the software and jails capabilities aren't flexible and hard to work with, although I did like the performance that it gave me.  Current configuration I am using windows 10 with the 6 reds in Intel rapid storage raid 5 (I know this isn't ideal rebuild times are horrible); what I dislike most about this set up is the write speeds are absolutely awful. 

Can anyone suggest a hardware raid card that would give me around 100 MB/s write speeds without breaking the bank (sub $250usd)?  I don't mind if its used off fleabay or wherever as long as it a reliable manufacture.

[Trey222]

I am not the best with RAID cards bu this one seems like a nice one ans LSI is a somewhat know brand. It is also very reasonably priced. http://www.ebay.com/itm/One-New-LSI-MegaRAID-9261-8i-8-port-PCI-E-6Gb-s-SATA-SAS-RAID-Controller-Card-/201269508659?hash=item2edc98fa33:g:q6IAAOxyuR5TataA

[scottyseng]

Yeah, I would look at used Dell PERC or LSI's previous gen cards on ebay (92xx series).

Though what speeds are you getting right now? 100MB/s should be easily doable on software RAID. I have RAID10 on six 4TB Reds and they push out 500MB/s read write for sequential stuff. Please make sure you get the appropriate battery pack for the hardware RAID card you end up buying.

[awponder]

Cons: - VERY slow sustained write speeds. Even slower than a single drive alone. Seeing right around 70MB/sec sustained writes (without caching on with no BBU).
- VERY slow migration to add drives to the array. Longest one took 97 hours using bios-level migration.
- External server email support is NOT in the windows version of the LSI software. Shawn Matthewson from LSI Customer Service said: "I am currently working on a way to use MSM with web based mail." on 7, April. But I have not heard since. To use SMTP email right now, you need your own, 'local' SMTP server.
- Software far more complicated then it needs to be.
- All of the best features require another license. The FastPath, etc. RAID 6 did work without the license though but... Alarms don't. For this price, that should all be included... Bad enough the BBU is extra.
- Without a fan, gets VERY HOT! Good ventilation is REQUIRED.

 

that is review of the card trey222 suggested.

[steven4264]

On RAID5 which is slower than RAID10 (my motherboard wont do RAID10 with 6 drives) I'll get 100MB/s now for the first ~2gb that I am writing to the RAID (I see my ram spike up 2gb worth) then it drops to ~27MB/s till the transfer is finished.

I have an APC backup battery on that computer already.

[scottyseng]

25 minutes ago, steven4264 said:

On RAID5 which is slower than RAID10 (my motherboard wont do RAID10 with 6 drives) I'll get 100MB/s now for the first ~2gb that I am writing to the RAID (I see my ram spike up 2gb worth) then it drops to ~27MB/s till the transfer is finished.

I have an APC backup battery on that computer already.

Oh wow, that's pretty unexpected. I didn't think the RAID5 on a motherboard RAID was that bad. I find it kind of weird your motherboard will do RAID5 but not RAID 10 across all six drives, but I guess that's because I've never touched motherboard RAID in a long time.

Ah, RAID cards need a battery back up on the RAID card itself. If something happens to the PC where it crashes and you need to force shut it off, you need that on card backup or you risk corrupting your array. In my case, my AX860i power supply went nuts (stuck in a restart loop / would randomly shut down...got it RMA'd already) and without that on card backup, I probably would've gotten a lot of corrupt data.

[steven4264]

7 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Ah, RAID cards need a battery back up on the RAID card itself. If something happens to the PC where it crashes and you need to force shut it off, you need that on card backup or you risk corrupting your array. In my case, my AX860i power supply went nuts (stuck in a restart loop / would randomly shut down...got it RMA'd already) and without that on card backup, I probably would've gotten a lot of corrupt data.

Makes sense, thanks for the suggestion.  I knew to get the APC for the software raid at least.

[scottyseng]

9 minutes ago, steven4264 said:

Makes sense, thanks for the suggestion.  I knew to get the APC for the software raid at least.

Yeah, I'm saving up for my own APC unit as well (I need a fairly large one since my server sucks down a fair bit of power).

If you do get a LSI MegaRAID controller, use MegaRAID Storage Manager to set up the RAID array. The on card BIOS for the LSI cards is pretty hideous. The MegaRAID Storage software is way more user friendly.

3Ware, Intel (Rebranded LSI for some of them), and Adaptec also make good cards.

Good luck finding a good used one on ebay though.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, steven4264 said:

I have built a home server and changed it numerous times, nothing seems to completely satisfy my needs.  I have 6x3tb WD RED drives I would like in either raid 6 or 10.  In the past I used freeNAS but the software and jails capabilities aren't flexible and hard to work with, although I did like the performance that it gave me.  Current configuration I am using windows 10 with the 6 reds in Intel rapid storage raid 5 (I know this isn't ideal rebuild times are horrible); what I dislike most about this set up is the write speeds are absolutely awful. 

Can anyone suggest a hardware raid card that would give me around 100 MB/s write speeds without breaking the bank (sub $250usd)?  I don't mind if its used off fleabay or wherever as long as it a reliable manufacture.

Two alternatives you should look at are other software RAID implementations:

1. UnRAID

2. FlexRAID

I use FlexRAID on my server. Write speeds aren't amazing, but I'm also using a mish-mash of HDD sizes (With FlexRAID, you can combine multiple smaller HDD's into a larger "virtual" drive, then combine that with drives of the same size to do a RAID array) - I have 2x 3TB HDD's, a couple 2TB drives, a 1TB drive, and 2x 500GB drives. As you can see, a mish-mash. So my write speeds are awful. But you should experience much better write speeds with 6x identical drives. How much better? I really cannot say.

Linus has also had a lot of luck with UnRAID recently.

[wpirobotbuilder]

1 hour ago, steven4264 said:

I have built a home server and changed it numerous times, nothing seems to completely satisfy my needs.  I have 6x3tb WD RED drives I would like in either raid 6 or 10.  In the past I used freeNAS but the software and jails capabilities aren't flexible and hard to work with, although I did like the performance that it gave me.  Current configuration I am using windows 10 with the 6 reds in Intel rapid storage raid 5 (I know this isn't ideal rebuild times are horrible); what I dislike most about this set up is the write speeds are absolutely awful. 

Can anyone suggest a hardware raid card that would give me around 100 MB/s write speeds without breaking the bank (sub $250usd)?  I don't mind if its used off fleabay or wherever as long as it a reliable manufacture.

An IBM m1015 or LSI 9211-8i are both good, and you can find them all over e-bay for cheap. You will also need SFF-8087 forward breakout cables (this is VERY important) to connect the card to your drives, like you can see here.

[leadeater]

40 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Yeah, I'm saving up for my own APC unit as well (I need a fairly large one since my server sucks down a fair bit of power).

If you do get a LSI MegaRAID controller, use MegaRAID Storage Manager to set up the RAID array. The on card BIOS for the LSI cards is pretty hideous. The MegaRAID Storage software is way more user friendly.

3Ware, Intel (Rebranded LSI for some of them), and Adaptec also make good cards.

Good luck finding a good used one on ebay though.

Have a look at Eaton UPS's also, much better than APC and can even be cheaper. Price may vary depending on country of course.

[steven4264]

Used the suggest raid card LSI 9261-8i and got excellent speeds.  Thanks for the suggestion!

[e2001]

I would like to know if I can use FlexRAID  RAID-F  with a 5 bay external disk enclosure that is connected via USB 3.0

 

my enclosure is not always connected, just when I need to access the disks , typically 3-6 hours every other day

but I would like to create a pool + RAID using RAID-F for those 5 disks 

 

I guess what i am asking is , would RAID-F work with JBOD in an external enclosure that is not always online ( connected )  ? 

 

thanks E 

@looney   

 

 

[dalekphalm]

20 hours ago, e2001 said:

I would like to know if I can use FlexRAID  RAID-F  with a 5 bay external disk enclosure that is connected via USB 3.0

 

my enclosure is not always connected, just when I need to access the disks , typically 3-6 hours every other day

but I would like to create a pool + RAID using RAID-F for those 5 disks 

 

I guess what i am asking is , would RAID-F work with JBOD in an external enclosure that is not always online ( connected )  ? 

 

thanks E 

@looney   

 

 

I believe that this should work. It will just note that the pool is offline until the disk array is turned on. I have not tested this though.