Adding to a raid array

Septh

Septh

Septh

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Southampton, UK
Hi guys,

I'm just wondering if I have a Raid5 array of say 3 disks, can I add to that array another disk or 2 without losing any data?
I've been trying to find this out for ages but no guides seem to say if u can...
So is it just a matter of adding in the disks in the setup wen booting or does it lose all data as it has to stripe them all again (or *** eva it does lol).

Thanx,
Mac
 
Depends on the controller, what kind you using?

I've no idea about the like of nVRAID software controllers but most of the hardware RAID controllers I've come across (SATA and SCSI) support online capacity expansion which is exactly what you're looking for.
 
I beleive nVRAID can do this through media shield. Make sure you have the latest nVRAID BIOS 5.50 and then run windows > mediashield, then convert array.

I've never done this but I believe this is possible.
 
I take it from the above that you've not created the array yet?

I would seriously reconsider any plan to use an onboard RAID controller for RAID5, they don't have any hardware support for the XOR calculations used by the parity creation and have to hand these off to the main CPU. This results in write speeds which can be as low as 15Mb/s as opposed to the 50Mb/s or so you'll get from a single drive.
 
rpstewart said:
I take it from the above that you've not created the array yet?

I would seriously reconsider any plan to use an onboard RAID controller for RAID5, they don't have any hardware support for the XOR calculations used by the parity creation and have to hand these off to the main CPU. This results in write speeds which can be as low as 15Mb/s as opposed to the 50Mb/s or so you'll get from a single drive.
Click to expand...
But then again it depends on usage. If you are creating Video files etc then writes shouldn't really be too performance effecting as disks are used much more for read than writes - make sure you have another drive for the pagefile though!
 
Baiscly its just for a file server, I run outta space quick wen I'm at uni, cuz of the filesharing within the network.
I currently have a 200gb ide and a 300gb sata both maxed with documents and documents backups and media, and I'm getting annoyed with shifting it all between them all the time, so I wanted so sovle my problem and go raid5, cuz that has built in backups as well.

Would b getting 3 of these babies...
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache Hard Drive

Then using my 300gb sata for windows etc etc (thats currently on a noisy, old 40gb drive) so the page file would be held on the boot drive (good plan? or not?) then the 200gb will b given to my gf I expect, unless I need it??

So people are saying to get a controller card... care to suggest one which will perform well? I have some pci-e *1 and *4 slots on my mobo I beleive (its a Asus K8N4-e deluxe, or something like that)


Cheers for all the help guys :D
 
Onboard would be fine for that IMO - others will disagree. All you want is decent storage but one that can be accessed by others too and is redundant. Why spend money on a controller just to do XOR calculations - cheapest would be the Highpoint RocketRAID 2320 IIRC (8 port) at about £160 or 2310 (4 port) PCI-E at about £90 but then again PCI cards are very cheap even for RAID5 and might be as low as about £50. Be aware you will get some CPU usage when writing as the parity calc's need to be done by the CPU but I don't see you writing too much after the initial transfer to the array - you will be writing as fast as you can D/L or if installing a game on there for fast loading (RAID5 is a fast reader) it might be slowish but really not enough to fork out for a controller card.

As I say, this is just my opinion but certainly I wouldn't spend extra for that.
 
Cheers for the reply, I'd be running all my games etc off the 300gb drive
So speed isnt really a massive issue to me, as long as it works, wen the hdd's break I don't lose my data and I can add to the array if I fill it (doubtful lol)

I'l probably use the onboard controllers then, would the sis one be best?
 
Motherboard is a Asus K8N4-e deluxe
and it has a Nvidia raid controller, nf4 and a Silicon Image raid controler on it, I'm guessing that the Silcon image one will be best as its dedicated?
I'm at work atm so I cant get you the proper model numbers of it
 
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