RAID 10 + SSD Boot

[11tmaste]

Hi guys!

I'm looking to do a build with a SSD that will be used as my boot drive and will have all my games, music, and documents on it as well. I also am going to have 5 HDDs in RAID 10 for extra files and backups. I have watched the LTT video on setting up RAID and it appears that part of setting up RAID includes installing Windows on the RAID array. My question is, how do I setup RAID while also having my boot drive NOT be a part of my RAID array?

[Edelrat]

2 minutes ago, 11tmaste said:

Hi guys!

I'm looking to do a build with a SSD that will be used as my boot drive and will have all my games, music, and documents on it as well. I also am going to have 5 HDDs in RAID 10 for extra files and backups. I have watched the LTT video on setting up RAID and it appears that part of setting up RAID includes installing Windows on the RAID array. My question is, how do I setup RAID while also having my boot drive NOT be a part of my RAID array?

First off: How do you want to do a RAID10 with 5 drives?

--

You can install windows onto your SSD by selecting it during windows installation.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, 11tmaste said:

5 HDDs in RAID 10

Normally you need a even number of drives.

 

Id stay away from using mobo raid. Use storage space or a hardware raid card.

[Electronics Wizardy]

ALso id suggest just using raid 5 if you can.

[11tmaste]

14 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Normally you need a even number of drives.

 

Id stay away from using mobo raid. Use storage space or a hardware raid card.

Thanks, I didn't realize you needed an even number. Does that apply for RAID 5 as well? Didn't know about windows storage space either. Sounds like that is a good option. 

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, 11tmaste said:

Thanks, I didn't realize you needed an even number. Does that apply for RAID 5 as well? Didn't know about windows storage space either. Sounds like that is a good option. 

You need an even number with RAID10 because RAID10 is actually RAID1 + RAID0.

 

RAID1 is a mirror - so you can have 2 (or more) drives all mirroring each other.

 

RAID0 is striping - taking multiple drives and simply combining them together.

 

The effect of RAID10 is that it needs an equal number of drives, because you're mirroring drives together and then striping them:

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/10/raid10-vs-raid01

 

This article also talks about RAID01, which is a very uncommon alternative.

 

Windows Storage Spaces is built into Windows 8+, and it is basically software level RAID. It's evolved quite a bit since it first came out, and seems to be pretty good now.

 

You could choose other RAID levels, like RAID5. RAID5 can be any number of drives (odd or even), with a minimum drive count of 3 (Though RAID5 w/ 4 drives minimum is pretty common).

 

You can also do RAID6, which has 4-drives minimum.

 

Total usable disk space is also determined by what RAID level you use (N = the total number of drives in the array):

RAID10 = n/2 (Eg: 6x 3TB drives = 9TB of usable space)

RAID5 = n-1 (Eg: 6x 3TB drives = 15TB of usable space)

RAID6 = n-2 (Eg: 6x 3TB drives = 12TB of usable space)

 

With RAID 10, you can lose (in theory) up to half your array, and not lose any files. In practice, it does matter very strictly which of those drives fail.

With RAID 5, you can lose any one drive. With RAID 6, you can lose any two drives.

 

Obviously you have to replace failed drives and rebuilt the array (Which can take some time, but many systems can do this "live", meaning you can still access the system while it's rebuilding, with a huge performance hit).

[11tmaste]

33 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You need an even number with RAID10 because RAID10 is actually RAID1 + RAID0.

 

RAID1 is a mirror - so you can have 2 (or more) drives all mirroring each other.

 

RAID0 is striping - taking multiple drives and simply combining them together.

 

The effect of RAID10 is that it needs an equal number of drives, because you're mirroring drives together and then striping them:

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/10/raid10-vs-raid01

 

This article also talks about RAID01, which is a very uncommon alternative.

 

Windows Storage Spaces is built into Windows 8+, and it is basically software level RAID. It's evolved quite a bit since it first came out, and seems to be pretty good now.

 

You could choose other RAID levels, like RAID5. RAID5 can be any number of drives (odd or even), with a minimum drive count of 3 (Though RAID5 w/ 4 drives minimum is pretty common).

 

You can also do RAID6, which has 4-drives minimum.

 

Total usable disk space is also determined by what RAID level you use (N = the total number of drives in the array):

RAID10 = n/2 (Eg: 6x 3TB drives = 9TB of usable space)

RAID5 = n-1 (Eg: 6x 3TB drives = 15TB of usable space)

RAID6 = n-2 (Eg: 6x 3TB drives = 12TB of usable space)

 

With RAID 10, you can lose (in theory) up to half your array, and not lose any files. In practice, it does matter very strictly which of those drives fail.

With RAID 5, you can lose any one drive. With RAID 6, you can lose any two drives.

 

Obviously you have to replace failed drives and rebuilt the array (Which can take some time, but many systems can do this "live", meaning you can still access the system while it's rebuilding, with a huge performance hit).

Thanks mate. That was very helpful. I think I will go with RAID 5 and stick with 5 drives. Are there other ways to setup RAID 5 besides doing it through the BIOS? If so, what is the easiest way? What would you recommend?

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, 11tmaste said:

Thanks mate. That was very helpful. I think I will go with RAID 5 and stick with 5 drives. Are there other ways to setup RAID 5 besides doing it through the BIOS? If so, what is the easiest way? What would you recommend?

There are... let's see.. 3 different ways to configure RAID (in general):

1. BIOS (Known as "motherboard" RAID) - this is pseudo "hardware" RAID. It runs independently of the Operating System, and the OS just sees a "drive", just like any other actual disk drive. The downside here is that the CPU processes all the RAID calculations, meaning it'll eat into your CPU usage (though generally very minor performance hits).

2. Hardware - this is using a true Hardware RAID card, with a RAID Processor chip (modern ones are low power dual core chips running around 2GHz). Same benefits as above, with the added benefit of not taking away processing power from the CPU, and the ability to add a backup battery pack. Hardware RAID cards have onboard RAM to hold writes in a cache (For performance and optimization reasons). If the power is cut, whatever is in the cache is lost, which can lead to data loss and array corruption. The Battery keeps the data in the cache alive until the system can reboot and write the data to disk.

3. Software RAID - this is a very broad category, as it encompasses everything from ZFS to Windows Storage Spaces to FlexRAID, etc. In this type of RAID, the OS is aware of the physical disk drive itself, and the OS (or a software layer on top of the OS) is responsible for creating the array and the virtual drive itself. It has the same downside as BIOS raid. Software RAID can (but not always) have the benefit of better Data Rot and Corruption detection, prevention, and repair. ZFS is a good example of this.

 

For you, I'd recommend using Storage Spaces, if you're going to run this on Windows. It'll be the easiest way I think to manage the array. RAID5 w/ 5 disks is fine too.

[KuJoe]

If you're going with RAID5 I would look for a dedicated RAID card that has a built in CPU to handle the parity bit calculations during write and rebuild, this would avoid taxing your CPU. There are plenty of sub-$100 cards that can do this.

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

If you're going with RAID5 I would look for a dedicated RAID card that has a built in CPU to handle the parity bit calculations during write and rebuild, this would avoid taxing your CPU. There are plenty of sub-$100 cards that can do this.

Careful - a lot of the sub-$100 RAID cards don't have an onboard RAID Processor - they're essentially glorified motherboard RAID stuck onto it's own card. Used ones from eBay (Like the IBM one) are good, but you just need to be careful. Not every "RAID" card is a true one.

[KuJoe]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Careful - a lot of the sub-$100 RAID cards don't have an onboard RAID Processor - they're essentially glorified motherboard RAID stuck onto it's own card. Used ones from eBay (Like the IBM one) are good, but you just need to be careful. Not every "RAID" card is a true one.

I would really hope the OP did some research before buying any RAID card but yes, not all of them have it so be sure it does before buying it. Either way, avoid FakeRAID (motherboard RAID) at all costs, there are no benefits to it and nothing but downsides compared to hardware and software RAID.