Please recommend a good RAID5 Controller

[thedarkwhte]

Hi guys, I'm entirely new to RAID. I landed a job in a post-prod house where the previous tech did a RAID 5 array in a windows computer, total size 13TB of storage. But the problem, and I have just known this by researching is that this type of config without a RAID card give very slow write speed, about 20mb/s. I want to be able to solve this problem and I read that the only way to go is to buy a RAID card.

 

So any help with what should I tell my boss to buy? Thanks in advance! 

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

20 is too low. You must have read that from a 15 year old forum. A modern multi-core processor should be able to handle RAID 5 better than that. You should not be making any recommendations to your boss if you don't know what you are doing. This industry has too many cowboys. Do not change anything. Do not say negative things about previous employees. Document the current system. 

26 minutes ago, thedarkwhte said:

So any help with what should I tell my boss to buy?

Tell your boss to buy into a formal data storage standard. Use this standard to ease the company into the right direction. Things that cost money come out of your potential pay rise. Things that cost super amounts of money will cause you job loss.

[Matt_98]

52 minutes ago, thedarkwhte said:

Hi guys, I'm entirely new to RAID. I landed a job in a post-prod house where the previous tech did a RAID 5 array in a windows computer, total size 13TB of storage. But the problem, and I have just known this by researching is that this type of config without a RAID card give very slow write speed, about 20mb/s. I want to be able to solve this problem and I read that the only way to go is to buy a RAID card.

 

So any help with what should I tell my boss to buy? Thanks in advance! 

 

what are the actual speeds of the array

[thedarkwhte]

16 hours ago, SCHISCHKA said:

20 is too low. You must have read that from a 15 year old forum. A modern multi-core processor should be able to handle RAID 5 better than that. You should not be making any recommendations to your boss if you don't know what you are doing. This industry has too many cowboys. Do not change anything. Do not say negative things about previous employees. Document the current system. 

Tell your boss to buy into a formal data storage standard. Use this standard to ease the company into the right direction. Things that cost money come out of your potential pay rise. Things that cost super amounts of money will cause you job loss.

I didn't say anything negative about the previous employee. I haven't said anything to anyone, not even my boss, about this RAID array because I'm still researching that's why I went here. You haven't recommended anything except you said something about modern multicore processors can handle a RAID 5 better than this, but the i7 on the machine surely isn't handling it any better. This tech thing in our office, btw is just a sideline from me, not even paid, because my main focus is on sound design. I just want to be able to help with the computers because clearly I can see that this is still just a small company who can't afford paying pros to do the tech stuff correctly as of the moment, so we make do with whatever we learn online. THAT'S WHY I'M ASKING. And you didn't answer anything, you criticized the cowboys in the industry, I'm not sure if you're including me even, which doesn't help me in my problem in any way.

[thedarkwhte]

16 hours ago, Matt_98 said:

what are the actual speeds of the array

Hi. I'll test it when I get back to work and send a screenshot to you. Thanks! 

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

 

18 hours ago, thedarkwhte said:

I want to be able to solve this problem and I read that the only way to go is to buy a RAID card.

Sorry if I come off as harsh but I spend half my day explaining to business owners why a salesman has made them spend thousands of dollars on stuff they don't need. You can do it the cowboy way and spend lots of money on things you do not need. You can go into a new job and stuff things up. Rule of thumb is if its not broken don't fix it. Please follow my advice and leave the hardware alone, instead put your effort into creating a formal backup policy. You can use that policy to guide future budgets

[thedarkwhte]

9 hours ago, SCHISCHKA said:

 

Sorry if I come off as harsh but I spend half my day explaining to business owners why a salesman has made them spend thousands of dollars on stuff they don't need. You can do it the cowboy way and spend lots of money on things you do not need. You can go into a new job and stuff things up. Rule of thumb is if its not broken don't fix it. Please follow my advice and leave the hardware alone, instead put your effort into creating a formal backup policy. You can use that policy to guide future budgets

Thank you and I really appreciate the concern about me ending up making the office buy things it doesn't need. Rest assured I will not be doing anything to this machine unless I am 100 percent sure of what I'm about to do. Including talking to experts and the previous tech of how he went about setting the computer up. Thanks again.

[thedarkwhte]

On 13/03/2017 at 4:24 PM, Matt_98 said:

what are the actual speeds of the array

Hi Matt, 

I've attached a screenshot of the CrystalDiskMark test I ran. I don't know what to read into this, all I can say is that the write speeds are too low. And I don't know if that is normal. 

For the PC specs: 

Intel Core i7 6700K Skylake

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980Ti

32 GBs DDR4 RAM 4x8GB sticks

Gigabyte GA-Z170x Gaming motherboard

[Matt_98]

23 hours ago, thedarkwhte said:

Hi Matt, 

I've attached a screenshot of the CrystalDiskMark test I ran. I don't know what to read into this, all I can say is that the write speeds are too low. And I don't know if that is normal. 

For the PC specs: 

Intel Core i7 6700K Skylake

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980Ti

32 GBs DDR4 RAM 4x8GB sticks

Gigabyte GA-Z170x Gaming motherboard

 

is it just me or are those read speeds way to fast, how many hard drives are in the raid/ what drives

[scottyseng]

On ‎3‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 6:23 AM, thedarkwhte said:

-snip-

That is quite strange. Do you know what RAID system the computer is using? Motherboard RAID? Windows Storage Spaces?

 

You should be getting performance than that even with onboard RAID (At least write speeds anyway).

 

Also second the what drives in the array / how many / what size question.

[thedarkwhte]

On 3/16/2017 at 5:40 PM, scottyseng said:

That is quite strange. Do you know what RAID system the computer is using? Motherboard RAID? Windows Storage Spaces?

 

You should be getting performance than that even with onboard RAID (At least write speeds anyway).

 

Also second the what drives in the array / how many / what size question.

Hi. Sorry it took so long for me to respond. I have been able to delete the raid array to ready it for another raid initialization. 

 

Onboard raid was used using the gigabyte bios. 5 3TB drives were used for the first Raid 5 setup. The previous tech who did the raid 5 told me there was really something wrong with the raid 5 and advised me to do it again.

 

Should i do another raid 5 and hope it gives a more acceptable write speed this time? 

[scottyseng]

1 hour ago, thedarkwhte said:

-snip-

Yeah, it does seem something was wrong with the drives. Since the array is dead now, you might plug in each drive (not in RAID, in ACHI), just to double check / verify that each drive is in working condition.

 

Also maybe consider RAID6? (Though RAID5 should still never have write speeds that low).

 

Curious what was wrong with it though.

[Jarsky]

I would really recommend against using the built in RST raid functions - theyre just troublesome.

Either use a Software solution - if you have to use Windows, then create a Storage Spaces pool; or create a Windows Software RAID5.

 

If you want to go hardware and there is a budget for a RAID card - realistically a RAID card you're looking at least $400-500 - then i'd recommend getting a dedicated NAS enclosure and separating the RAID from the "Work PC" (I assume this is a workstation that does other tasks given its Desktop hardware and a GTX 980 Ti)

Even a Drobo Unit like this would be the same price as a RAID card: https://www.amazon.com/Drobo-5N-Attached-Ethernet-DRDS4A21/dp/B00AMAJGOO

Or for a little bit more you could get a Synology DiskStation.