RAID 5 - How?

TheDean

TheDean

TheDean

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Hi all,

I am wanting to set up a RAID 5 array using 3 x 1TB WD Hard drives in my Pc. This will be used for storing digital media on and streamed accross a wired network to the, as yet unrealeased, Popcorn Hour C-200.

I have a Gigabyte DS3 mobo which only supports RAID 0 & 1. Are there RAID cards I can buy which support RAID 5? And if so, would the array be easy to set up and share accross the network?

I have investigated NAS', and while they are significantly easier to manage and have lots of fancy features, they are pretty pricey! The ReadyNAS NV+ is £360!

Anyway, I'm looking for a solid solution which doesn't cost very much.
Cheers
 
Which DS3?

If it's an intel motherboard with the ICH8R ICH9R or ICH10R southbridge, the intel Sata ports already support RAID5.
 
Or get the PERC 5/i controller, best RAID 5 controller for the money. Obviously your PC will have to be on to be able to stream the media but it should be fairly easy to set up. A dedicated RAID 5 controller will have its own processor; using onboard SATA will use CPU resources for writing.
 
miniyazz said:
Or get the PERC 5/i controller, best RAID 5 controller for the money. Obviously your PC will have to be on to be able to stream the media but it should be fairly easy to set up. A dedicated RAID 5 controller will have its own processor; using onboard SATA will use CPU resources for writing.
Click to expand...

How much are we talking for that then? Googling that doesn't bring up much...
 
Perc 5/i is sexy as! Here's a bechy from my array:

RAID_combo.png
 
AWBbox - I'd be interested to hear your experiences setting up and maintaining the array as I'm going to be setting up a 3TB (4 x 1TB HD's) array the same as you. There is one on the bay which has a battery pack as well - should I be going for that one?

Once the array is set up, would I be best to put the os on a separate drive independant of the array?
 
Definite plus points for getting a raid card is that if you suffer a failure on your motherboard, you can move the array with the card to another box.

This could prove damm tricky if using on board raid, also, as mentioned, you will always get much better performance from a dedicated card.
 
snakefood said:
Definite plus points for getting a raid card is that if you suffer a failure on your motherboard, you can move the array with the card to another box.

This could prove damm tricky if using on board raid, also, as mentioned, you will always get much better performance from a dedicated card.
Click to expand...

Yeah. The card looks to be a must, but is proving difficult to source from within the Uk :(
 
snakefood said:
What drives are you going to be using, sata?
Click to expand...

Yeah, SATA. 4 x 1TB Western Digital Green. Not exactly sure of the model number. Think it's the WD10EADS. Would it matter if they were different drives? I take it the hard drives all have to be the same size as well?
 
Drives can be different sizes but the size of the array will be size of the smallest drive * (number of drives - 1) so any extra space on one drive will be wasted.
I don't have a BBU but if you commonly write to the array it's best to have one. You'll be lucky to get one from within the UK though!
 
BBU is Battery Backup Unit. If there is a power cut, it maintains the data in the cache for upto 3 days. You can use the card without it, by either taking a performance hit or accepting the loss of whatever data happens to be in the cache.

Be warned that most Perc 5 cards on Ebay come without the SAS to SATA cables. These can be found for approx. £10 each (one cable is enough for 4 drives).
 
SeriousPigeon said:
BBU is Battery Backup Unit. If there is a power cut, it maintains the data in the cache for upto 3 days. You can use the card without it, by either taking a performance hit or accepting the loss of whatever data happens to be in the cache.

Be warned that most Perc 5 cards on Ebay come without the SAS to SATA cables. These can be found for approx. £10 each (one cable is enough for 4 drives).
Click to expand...

So if power is lost to the array, will all data be lost?!
 
Indeed. So in other words, turning off the cache slows write speeds for moving files less than the cache size. Cache will have a lesser effect on moving larger quantities of data.
 
TheDean said:
AWBbox - I'd be interested to hear your experiences setting up and maintaining the array as I'm going to be setting up a 3TB (4 x 1TB HD's) array the same as you. There is one on the bay which has a battery pack as well - should I be going for that one?

Once the array is set up, would I be best to put the os on a separate drive independant of the array?
Click to expand...

It was all fairly straight forward really, I also use western digital (black edition) drives so we'll have pretty similar setups! When browsing on popular auction sites for this controller you should look for one with the BBU, 'breakout style' SAS cables and a PCI bracket. The Perc 5/i was originally intended to slide/clip into some variety of server case it seems and will need the backplate removing and swapping for the PCI bracket.

You definitely need the BBU! It enables write caching and gives you a serious performance boost (as SeriousPigeon explained). You also need to invest in some active cooling for the board itself. It was designed for a case which would have forced airflow over the stock heatsink. The kit I used was the Akasa AK-VCX-01, it was easy to mod and fix in place. See the pic below.

IMG_0180.jpg


I didn't try installing an OS on my array so I'm afraid I can't really offer much help with that. You'll probably won't need the LSI drivers but your OS will need to support GPT partitions I reckon.

Good luck with your build!
 
Have you taken a look at unRAID?

The free version allows 3 drives including one parity so would give you the same space as RAID 5 would. I use it for the same purpose currently, streaming media to an XBMC linux box. I actually have two setup and back one up to the other with around 4TB of space on each one.

Would definitely recommend trying the free version before splashing out on any hardware, I replaced a Qnap 409 Pro with mine and unRAID is better by a long distance.
 
I have that Perc 5i Card working with 7 x 1tb Samsung F1 drives in raid 5 (Raid 5 with a hot spare)

Works well. No hassles.

Couple of tips:

1/ You need:

The Perc 5i Card - £81.35
Battery Backup Unit - £12.49
Cable for Battery Backup - £16
2 x Cable sets for the unit itself - £13.72
(The ones you need are: SAS Controller 32Pin to 4 x SATA HDD Splitter Cable x 2)
(Those four items are an ebay jobby)

These heatsinks:

Zalman ZM-RHS1 Silent VGA RAM Heatsink Kit - £8.04
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-014-ZA

This fan:

Akasa AK-160 BL-S 40mm Blue LED Fan - £3.44
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-030-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=818

I just stuck the fan on top of the existing heatsink, and and seems to work well.

I put the heatsinks on the chip next to it, that also gets hot. 1 minute job.

EDITED to add in what the parts cost me in June 2009 - In my case £135.04 for the whole Perc 5i setup.

2/ You are going to also need some nail varnish to do the chip mod you will read about if you do a hunt for 'Perc 5i mod' on google and take a look at the top post. (Read that thread its gold)

Easy enough.

This stops the card from rejecting certain motherboards (it is a server card for dells)

3/ Once you have the hardware configured you need some software:

1/ The dell software to update the firmware

That lives here:

Description: Perc5/i integrated firmware 5.2.2-0072

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...&servicetag=&os=WNET&osl=en&catid=-1&impid=-1

(You will have to configure the card in the bios on bootup. Reasonably self explanatory when you get that far)

I stuck with the Dell Firmware rather then the LSI firmware. The LSI one is supposedly faster. However, when you read that thread I suggested, you will find that a lot of people have weird issues with it. Personally, I can't be arsed with the hassle. The Dell Firmware seems plenty fast to me. And that is what the card is designed for specifically (Incidentally, this Perc is on a Windows 7 - 64 Bit RC1 - Build 7100 system and works fine)

The read speeds on HD Tune Pro were:

Minimum :482.9 MB/sec
Maximum :564.4 MB/sec
Average :518.1 MB/sec
Access Time:11.9 ms
Burst Rate :282.7 MB/sec
CPU Usage :-1.0%

(Doesn't seem to want to do the 'write' test for some reason? Comes up with

'Writing is disabled. To enable writing please remove all partitions. Please check the manual for more information'

Anyone know if I am doing somnething wrong?)

2/ LSI Mega Raid Storage Manager Software (to check on the integrity of the array and make some tweaks if you so desire)

http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/internal_raid/megaraid_sas/megaraid_sas_8480e/

Right. Thats a weeks worth of research right there.

Just did this myself.

Its worth the hassle though. (And you don't even have the hassle :-) Thats seriously the steps to take. First time I have seen that little lot written in one post.

I now have a nice fast raid 5 array. I went for the hot spare option as well. So even if a drive dies, it will be rebuilt automatically while I send off for another.

I have had it running a couple of weeks and all works well.

Even simulated a blackout the other day by pulling the plug (to test out a UPC backup device), and no hassles.

I have this running on my main PC.

If you are looking for a backup solution, you may be better off doing what I did, and get a separate box, and set up windows home server. That works great. The backup is literally, set up once, and forget it forever. Mine backs up the main machine every night automatically. No need for a perc 5i card for that one, because the software takes care of that. You just add a load of hard drives of any size, and it figures it out. Windows Home Server is a nice piece of kit.
 
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