Raid 5 or Raid 10?

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

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So,
new HP microserver has 4 bays, my dilemma is:
4 x 1tb WD reds in raid 5 = 3072Gb of usable storage
4 x 1tb WD reds in raid 10 = 2048Gb of usable storage.

2046Gb isn't enough really, so i may have to pay more for the 2Tb reds to give 4096Gb of storage in raid 10.

What would you guys do?

a) if you only had 4 x 1tb drives, raid 5 for more storage or raid 10 for less storage but better performance etc?

Thanks for any input.
 
I put 4 2TB drives in mine and went Raid5 in the end. Gives me "6TB" usable.

Performance of the server and storage is fine.

What are you going to be using it for? Mine is just a file store so doesn't need to be particularly fast.
 
A couple of points:

- You still have a network bottleneck: 1 Gbps or roughly 100 MegaBytes/second. Each hard drive is capable of at least 100 MBps, so right there your network is the weakest link.
- RAID 5 with 4 disks may actually give you higher READ performance (depending on the RAID 5 and RAID 0 implementations). RAID 0 will be quicker WRITING, but you have caching etc. to cover a lot of the impact of the RAID 5 WRITE performance hit.

With Windows 2012 R2 (due out in a few weeks, or now if you have Technet) you can use an SSD for caching, which should get rid of any argument about performance between the various RAID modes.
 
Well.....ideally i want to load the host hyper-v 2012 onto a 512gb ssd,
then have 3 x 2tb wd reds in raid 5 which would still give me 4Tb usable storage.
I will hyper-v WHS2011, and whatever else i fancy as testbed or otherwise.
 
Do you have a hardware RAID controller? If not, how are you planning on presenting the 4TB to the VM(s).

To answer your original question: would I use RAID 5 or RAID 10? Answer: neither, RAID is an additional layer of complexity that I'd rather not deal with at home. I currently have 2 x 3 TB Reds: one stores all my data, and the second one is the backup drive, using the built-in Windows 2012 backup every night.

If you sold each 1 TB Red drive for £35 (they are £55 new), you'd have £140 -- which you could put towards buying 2 x 3 TB drives, and end up with 50% more storage and a much simpler setup (that consumes less power and generates less noise and heat). I know that's a lot of hassle, but it's what I'd do. If you can't afford any changes, then stick with RAID 5 (I assume you mean software RAID), you may be pleasantly surprised by the performance.
 
I'm not new to raid, i'd prefer it on a server for sure.
The new microserver has hardware raid controller.
Raid is pretty easy to setup imho.

I ended buying the kit in post #4, that'll do fine for me. :)
 
Unless your running some kind of SQL instance that requires the performance and redundancy of raid 10 you may as well go raid 5 and have the extra space for a little performance drop.
 
rotor said:
The Gen8 MicroServer can do hardware RAID 5?
Click to expand...

Not according to HP's QuickSpecs:

HP Dynamic Smart Array B120i Controller
NOTE: HDD bays 1 and 2 support 6.0Gb/s SATA. HDD bays 3 and 4 support 3.0Gb/s SATA.
NOTE: Supports RAID 0/1/10 only. No FBWC support. For FBWC, a standup Smart Array Controller card must be configured.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, you're right, which i think is a bit dumb of HP tbh.
So....been trying to find out if my RS2WC040 from my NL36 will work in this one, but haven't found any resources to say yay or ney.
Anyone know?
If not, what about the 'P' series of fully 6Gbit controllers?
Any recommendations?
 
i've just set up software RAID5 on my NL40, 3x3TB drives. Read speeds are fine, write speeds aren't great (but that's Ok for what I use it for, it's 90% read). Resynchronising of the drives takes an age.. mine took about 2.5 days, then 24 hours later I lost a drive.. plus point is all my data in intact, minus point is I' now running on 2 drives until the replacement turns up.

I'm running Server 2012 and messed with the storage pools a bit but the performance was worse than just using a disk manager RAID setup. I hear that R2 helps with this performance issue, but it's too late to go back and re-configure everything.
 
Si. said:
i've just set up software RAID5 on my NL40, 3x3TB drives. Read speeds are fine, write speeds aren't great (but that's Ok for what I use it for, it's 90% read). Resynchronising of the drives takes an age.. mine took about 2.5 days, then 24 hours later I lost a drive.. plus point is all my data in intact, minus point is I' now running on 2 drives until the replacement turns up.

I'm running Server 2012 and messed with the storage pools a bit but the performance was worse than just using a disk manager RAID setup. I hear that R2 helps with this performance issue, but it's too late to go back and re-configure everything.
Click to expand...

One of the major down sides of Raid 5 using large drives is the rebuild time!
 
Why not try using something like Stablebit Drivepool less hassle and has very good integration with Windows Server, they have a 30 day trial to see if you like it then it's only $19.99-£13.

I am currently using this with WHS on my n36l.
 
I also used Drivepool and liked it quite a bit. So much I paid for it.

Personally I would not use raid 5 on anything without a cache and BBU. I personally use ZFS for my home storage but have multiple machines so it is a bit easier. On a single machine I would ditch raid 5 and stick with something like drivepool.

One big potential issue with raid 5 is the raid 5 write hole which can result in your rebuild data not being quite what you expected. Have a Google. You may not consider it important enough to worry you but it is better to be aware than not.

RB
 
I would choose neither and go with RAID6. Safer than RAID5, safer than RAID10 and the performance with Linux software raid is more than enough to saturate 2x gigabit NIC.

RAID5 isn't great for large drives as there is a high chance of the rebuild failing.

SW raid6:

Timing buffered disk reads: 1210 MB in 3.00 seconds = 403.29 MB/sec
 
what about unraid?

Think RAID4 (dedicated parity) with rest of the drives having data.

Each drive is in EXT4 format (so each drive can still be accessed if another drive fails)

Biggest drive to be the parity
Running low on disk space, get a bigger drive put it in , it will then expand on the fly.
 
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