Raid 5 configuration

[blnswamy]

hello,

i am trying to set up a raid 5 array in my PC using the existing drives. I have two 3TB drives and one 5TB drive. i am unable to figure out how much usable space i will have. 

Would it be a good idea to get another 5TB drive. 

please help. 

My mobo is the Gigabyte Z170 D3h version 1.0, which supports Raid 0 , Raid 1, Raid 5 and Raid 10. 

 

[GrandNebSmada]

2 minutes ago, blnswamy said:

hello,

i am trying to set up a raid 5 array in my PC using the existing drives. I have two 3TB drives and one 5TB drive. i am unable to figure out how much usable space i will have. 

Would it be a good idea to get another 5TB drive. 

please help. 

My mobo is the Gigabyte Z170 D3h version 1.0, which supports Raid 0 , Raid 1, Raid 5 and Raid 10. 

 

you will only have a total of 6TB of storage because in raid the drive of lowest capacity sets the "capacity" of the other drives and in raid 5 you get the capacity of 2 out of 3 drives if you have 3 and 3 out of 4 and so on

[Streetguru]

9 minutes ago, blnswamy said:

 

Do not use software RAID

[blnswamy]

1 hour ago, Streetguru said:

Do not use software RAID

got it. 

[blnswamy]

1 hour ago, 5Beans6 said:

you will only have a total of 6TB of storage because in raid the drive of lowest capacity sets the "capacity" of the other drives and in raid 5 you get the capacity of 2 out of 3 drives if you have 3 and 3 out of 4 and so on

so it essentially means, that i have 2Tb of 5Tb unused. 

[Streetguru]

4 minutes ago, blnswamy said:

so it essentially means, that i have 2Tb of 5Tb unused. 

http://www.raid-calculator.com/default.aspx

But ya, it might be time for you to get a FreeNAS box up and running, ZFS doesn't require hardware raid controllers, software raid is far too unreliable for anything.

Level 1 has a lot of videos on this

 

 

[blnswamy]

4 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

http://www.raid-calculator.com/default.aspx

But ya, it might be time for you to get a FreeNAS box up and running, ZFS doesn't require hardware raid controllers, software raid is far too unreliable for anything.

Level 1 has a lot of videos on this

 

 

this is fancy stuff.. but unnecessary for me.. i will stick to a simple raid setup , and may be get a Synology DS 418 play box sometime in the future. 

[Streetguru]

Just now, blnswamy said:

this is fancy stuff.. but unnecessary for me.. i will stick to a simple raid setup , and may be get a Synology DS 418 play box sometime in the future. 

FreeNAS is not difficult, you just get a box with a good amount of RAM and you have a nice home server, your software RAID set up is being far too dangerous with your data, especially having it in your daily driver machine.

Like you can use basically any old PC for freeNAS so long as it has a lot of RAM, about 1GB per 1TB, preferably more. Highly suggest you make a freeNAS box

 

[seagate_surfer]

When it comes to RAID, the general rule-of-thumb is to stick with drives that have as much of the same specs as possible, not because it wouldn't work otherwise, but typically the drive with the lowest "something" value holds back any other drive that is faster/better in that spec, so a 5,400 RPM drive in RAID with a 7,200 RPM drive would run at 5,400 RPM, or the 5TB drive you mentioned would be held to the capacity of the lower drives, etc. 

One of the most convenient and user-friendly ways I've seen for playing with different RAID configs is actually the RAID Calculator Tool on Synology's website.