Making disk raid array as fast as SSDs

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, TheNuzziNuzz said:

I have Cat5e throughout my house, I have a 10gig switch and network cards.

What version of windows server? 

 

What server hardware? How many drives can you fit? 

Budget? 

 

If you got the money, get drives like wd golds, if you want cheaper get seagate ironwolfs or wd reds. Then make a mirror in storage spaces and set collums right and boom raid 10. Add a cache if you want.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, TheNuzziNuzz said:

Okay. How will that effect reliability?

About the same raid 5 can handle one failure, 6 can handle 2. But parity raids are much hardware on disks and the total io during a rebuild.

 

Also keep backups if you care about your data. Raid is for uptime, backups are for keeping data safe.

[TheNuzziNuzz]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

About the same raid 5 can handle one failure, 6 can handle 2. But parity raids are much hardware on disks and the total io during a rebuild.

 

Also keep backups if you care about your data. Raid is for uptime, backups are for keeping data safe.

Yes I understand that, I do have other backups physically elsewhere. Tbh i don't think ill have to worry about more than one disk failing at a time. So now I am leaning towards raid 5.

 

What do you mean "Parity raids are muich hardware on disks"?

 

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What version of windows server? 

 

What server hardware? How many drives can you fit? 

Budget? 

 

If you got the money, get drives like wd golds, if you want cheaper get seagate ironwolfs or wd reds. Then make a mirror in storage spaces and set collums right and boom raid 10. Add a cache if you want.

Windows server 2012. I don't know the hardware for sure yet because I may be receiving a used server from a company. The server is mine, the company just doesnt need it anymore, long story.

 

If I don't get that server ill be buying a new one that fits my needs so I am not worrying about how many drives I can fit. Budget is as much as a need, but not overkill.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, TheNuzziNuzz said:

What do you mean "Parity raids are muich hardware on disks"?

Much harder on the drives. 

 

So if a drive railes in raid 10, one drive is used to copy the data back in the rebuild. If 1 drives failes in raid 5 all drives are needed to rebuild the array. This means raid 5 has a higher chance of causing anouther disk to fail during a rebuild.

 

7 hours ago, TheNuzziNuzz said:

Windows server 2012. I don't know the hardware for sure yet because I may be receiving a used server from a company. The server is mine, the company just doesnt need it anymore, long story.

 

Go 2016 if you can.

 

If if has a hardware raid card, use that, otherwise storage spaces.

[TheNuzziNuzz]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Much harder on the drives. 

 

So if a drive railes in raid 10, one drive is used to copy the data back in the rebuild. If 1 drives failes in raid 5 all drives are needed to rebuild the array. This means raid 5 has a higher chance of causing anouther disk to fail during a rebuild.

 

Go 2016 if you can.

 

If if has a hardware raid card, use that, otherwise storage spaces.

The free server has 2012, what would the benefit of buying 2016 be?

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, TheNuzziNuzz said:

The free server has 2012, what would the benefit of buying 2016 be?

2016's storage spaces is better, and overall 2016 is a nicer os to use.

 

But if you get 2012 for free, use it, its fine.

[Helly]

ill add my 2 cents here... First off, understand that with RAID10, you always lose half the hdd space you have. No matter how many drives you use. Also, yes RAID10 can lose 2 drives and continue working, however that is only if the failed drives are not in the same array. (RAID10 is 2 RAID1 arrays you put in RAID0). If 2 drives fail in the same array, all your data is gone. So the more drives you use the higher the chance of 2 drives failing in the same array.

 

RAID6 uses 2 parity drives and allows any 2 drives to fail and can continue working. But RAID6 has the already mentioned downside of needing all drives to rebuild. RAID6 however does give you more drive space with more drives (total - 2).

 

I use RAID6 myself in 2 servers. Both with 8 drives(2TB reds and 5TB reds) and both can handle 900MB/s+. So with a good RAID card you should be fine with 5 or 6 drives. If you have backups and are not to worried about drive failures i'd just go with RAID5 in that case. With more drives, go with RAID6. IMHO RAID10 is only good for 4 drives, not more.