Software Raid5

[Si.]

Having just lost a 3TB drive I think it's time to switch to Raid5. I dont have a suitable Raid controller so thinking of going to software Raid on my 2012 server. Does anyone use this? How reliable is it?

I appreciate that I may loose some performance but data integrity is more important than the slight loss in speed.

Also, is it possible to set the Raid up with 3 drives and add a 4th at a later date without having to recreate the volume?

 

[Si.]

I'm not bothered about logical file deletions, just drive failures.

Does Server 2012 write the volume.RAID configuration on to the drives? so a rebuild of the OS should the OS drive fail will not destroy the RAID volume?

 

[Si.]

I've been testing out storage pools on a VM and don't think it really adds anything over a standard software RAID5 setup created through disk manager. I thought it would allow me to add in a new drive should I need to but can't seem to get it to work.

It's just a shame you can't add in an additional drive to a standard RAID5 setup (or I can't find a way to do it). Reason that would be handy is I'll initially have 3 drives, but likely getting a 4th in 3 months or so but to add it I'll have to remove and re-create the RAID5 volume from scratch which will be difficult.

 

[Si.]

Well, received 2 new 3TB drives this morning and I've configured a software RAID5 using 3x3TB drives. I decided just to go with standard "Disk Manager" RAID5 rather than using storage pools.

It's currently resynching the 3 drives which I didn't expect to to do since there is nothing on them yet. I'll copy data to them once this is complete (Although I expect this will take some time).

UPDATE:

I expect the resynching to take a long time.. too long so I've dropped the RAID5 and gone for a parity storage pool instead.. still not sure which is the best option :S