Who here has a RAID5 array?

[Mattus]

Hey guys,

Some time this year I want to expand my storage capacity greatly, as I'm getting more and more video content and my 640GB is filling up fast. I was thinking of 3-4TB, but backing it up would be a major pain. It strikes me that RAID5 is a good way forward - more cost-efficient than DVD backup and much less hassle, with the bonus of better performance than standalone HDs.

To that end:

* who has RAID5? Which controller are you using?
* is it easy to set up? Does it go wrong easily? When it does, it is easily fixable?
* what kind of storage capacity are we looking at before it becomes worthwhile? Is there any point in a 3-disk RAID5?

 

[Zarf]

I'm running with a Perc 5/i controller, 6 Samsung F1 drives in RAID5.
Was very easy to set up and add extra disks into the array (online capacity expansion)
It's worthwhile at 3 disks, and just gets better as you add more.

 

[rpstewart]

* who has RAID5? Which controller are you using?

8 * WD 640Gb AAKS on a Highpoint RocketRAID 2320, originally 8 * 250Gb Hitachi T7K250s

* is it easy to set up? Does it go wrong easily? When it does, it is easily fixable?

Setup was relatively straightforward, had to flash a couple of changes onto the BIOS to get the array to be detected by Windows but nothing major. Only had one problem with it but that was due to a pair of faulty disks which I really shouldn't have used in the first place

* what kind of storage capacity are we looking at before it becomes worthwhile? Is there any point in a 3-disk RAID5?

Now that's the interesting question. Having done it I'm not sure if I would bother with RAID5 again to be honest. It works without any problems and it's blooming quick for reads but I don't really have a need for lightning fast reads on a storage drive.

Sure it's nice having a 4Tb partition but I could achieve the same with 2 individual disks now. The redundancy is nice but everythings backed up anyway so all I'm gaining is not having to restore the backups if a drive dies.

Was it worth the money as a plaything, yes probably. In a rational world would it be worth the money, I doubt it.