Plex Raid Drive

[joejoe0227]

I was looking into making a raid for the stuff i have on my plex server. I add stuff to plex very frequently and I try to put 1080p content onto plex. I currently have a 3tb external drive and roughly 75% full. After that gets fuller I was going to look into making a raid for my plex stuff so i dont have to worry about it for awhile. I was looking on PC Partpicker and it seems like the price per gigabyte is the best with 4tb drives. My first thought was use 5 of them in a raid 5 and get 16tb but after looking at this forum on other posts raid 5 seems to be a poor choice. Which raid should i use? How many drives?

[SwingLifeAway92]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Seagate-3TB-BarraCuda-Compute-ST3000DM008-3-5-HDD-WNTY-11-2018-A-Health-POH-9k/252743729994?epid=231975867&hash=item3ad8b3434a:g:eWgAAOSwnHZYi8hm These are a solid deal I used 4 of them in mine for raid 10 I mean they're used which isn't the greatest but since they're so recent I don't really mind it 

[Streetguru]

15 minutes ago, joejoe0227 said:

 

Would suggest you use FreeNAS to do your set up since it won't need hardware RAID controllers.

[seagate_surfer]

Whichever brand you decide to go with, if you're looking into using multiple hard drives and going RAID, then it is best to stick with drives rated for NAS use. Seagate's current lineup is the IronWolf & IronWolf Pro. These drives are more equipped than desktop drives to work in RAID arrays and withstand vibrational concerns of multiple hard drives working together.

As far as which RAID, if you are going to have at least 4 drives, then either RAID 6 or 10 is ideal, depending on whether you prioritize performance or protecting your data more. RAID 10 is essentially both RAID 0 and RAID 1 together, it's fast and provides a level of data protection because it both stripes and mirrors. Sometimes people misconstrue that it is on the same level as RAID 6 for protection, because technically both methods can withstand 2 drive failures and RAID 10 has the added benefit of being faster than RAID 6. The trouble comes, however, in that RAID 10 can only withstand 2 drive failures assuming both drives that fail are not the mirrors of the array. If that happens, all data is lost. With RAID 6, it doesn't perform quite as zippy, but it can withstand ANY 2 drives failing, so it is a little safer.

[joejoe0227]

13 hours ago, Streetguru said:

Would suggest you use FreeNAS to do your set up since it won't need hardware RAID controllers.

I would like to keep the raid on the same pc i use regularly for now.

 

1 hour ago, seagate_surfer said:

Whichever brand you decide to go with, if you're looking into using multiple hard drives and going RAID, then it is best to stick with drives rated for NAS use. Seagate's current lineup is the IronWolf & IronWolf Pro. These drives are more equipped than desktop drives to work in RAID arrays and withstand vibrational concerns of multiple hard drives working together.

As far as which RAID, if you are going to have at least 4 drives, then either RAID 6 or 10 is ideal, depending on whether you prioritize performance or protecting your data more. RAID 10 is essentially both RAID 0 and RAID 1 together, it's fast and provides a level of data protection because it both stripes and mirrors. Sometimes people misconstrue that it is on the same level as RAID 6 for protection, because technically both methods can withstand 2 drive failures and RAID 10 has the added benefit of being faster than RAID 6. The trouble comes, however, in that RAID 10 can only withstand 2 drive failures assuming both drives that fail are not the mirrors of the array. If that happens, all data is lost. With RAID 6, it doesn't perform quite as zippy, but it can withstand ANY 2 drives failing, so it is a little safer.

Most of the files on my plex server aren't more than 10Mb/s and most of the time its only 1 device watching content maybe 2. I've had a maximum of 4 devices at a time watching content. With RAID 6 being slower than RAID 10 but seeming safer would the drives be able to keep up with this amount of load? Also, with lets say 4tb drives how much space would I have available with 4 4tb drives on RAID 6 vs RAID 10?

[Streetguru]

Just now, joejoe0227 said:

I would like to keep the raid on the same pc i use regularly for now.

Bad idea to combine your daily use PC and your home server I'd think. The whole point is redundancy in case something goes bad isn't it?

[joejoe0227]

1 minute ago, Streetguru said:

Bad idea to combine your daily use PC and your home server I'd think. The whole point is redundancy in case something goes bad isn't it?

This would be temporary until I have the money to build a separate PC for plex and home server use.

[seagate_surfer]

1 hour ago, joejoe0227 said:

Most of the files on my plex server aren't more than 10Mb/s and most of the time its only 1 device watching content maybe 2. I've had a maximum of 4 devices at a time watching content. With RAID 6 being slower than RAID 10 but seeming safer would the drives be able to keep up with this amount of load? Also, with lets say 4tb drives how much space would I have available with 4 4tb drives on RAID 6 vs RAID 10?

It would seem RAID 6 would be sufficient, it's just not going to be quite as zippy as RAID 10 would be. Personally, I lean on the side of redundancy, but everyone has their preferences. Using 4x4TB drives in either RAID 6 or 10 would give you 8TB of available space, it's just that you'd have more redundancy on RAID 6 because you wouldn't have the same striping going on you'd see in RAID 10. There's a fun RAID Calculator tool I like to use to tinker with theoretical RAID volumes on Synology's website. Synology is one of the better known NAS enclosure vendors along with QNAP and ASUSTOR. Ignore the bar that says SHR, which stands for a proprietary Synology RAID strategy known as Synology Hybrid Raid.

[Streetguru]

2 hours ago, joejoe0227 said:

This would be temporary until I have the money to build a separate PC for plex and home server use.

Are you using RAID cards? Because Software RAID should never be used if you care about your Data

ZFS under FreeNAS has built in data protection stuff, hence why it doesn't really need Hardware RAID controllers.
 

 

[FuzzyLobster]

Have you decided on anything yet? I am in the exact situation you are in.