A Few Questions Regarding RAID 5

J

JMcQueen

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 27, 2008
Messages
146
Im getting to the point were I have sufficient data to be concerned about losing it! Im considering adding a few new drives and building a RAID 5 array. At the moment, four 1tb drives would be sufficient, given that you lose one of the drives storage in return for ensuring data preservation in the event of a failure.

I say four drives would be sufficient but I'd like to factor in future expansion so would be looking at a 8 port card but I was wondering, as the 4 drive array became full, is it as simple as just plugging in a new drive and including it into the array or would the array have to be rebuilt from scratch thus meansing I'd need somewhere to transfer the data to whilst I rebuilt the array? I've only ever built 1 or 0 arrays in the past so not totally in the know with the other options.

I thought about getting a four port card and then just gradually replacing the 1tb drives with 2tb drives but if I remember correctly, the array only sees the capacity of the smallest drive used. Therefore I would have to replace all four drives before any increase in capacity would be seen. Is this correct?

Also, can anyone recommend a good card for the task?
 
The array only sees the smallest drive it was made of.
Remember expanding such a large array by adding more drives will take LOOOONG time. weeks even...
Build the whole array now... build a new one when 2TB enterprise grade drives emerge...
 
Also remember that RAID is more of a data availability solution not a "backup" solution. If you loose a 2nd drive while the array is rebuilding the 1st your hosed. And you still have the problem of accidental deletes, etc, etc.
 
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