how many hdd's to run raid 5

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Nov 8, 2010
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i'm almost set getting my raid 5 set up i presume

i have a total of now 8tb hdd's 4x2tb and now i need a controller.

but do i need 4 hdd's to run raid 5? or should i keep the 2tb's all seperated and not run any raid. not trying to use onboard raid controller. dont trust marvell
 
ok so thats not a problem.

now just gotta find a controller for 4 ports 6mbps sata III controller. thanks dan
 
Will you backup the array ?

Do you need a controller ? Onboard RAID5 can be an option.

You don't need SATA3 for hard drives.

A good RAID5 controller has a CPU, memory, and a battery, that comes at a price, too steep in my opinion for only 4 drives.
 
yeah that is true.

but right now i have 2 raid 0 WD blackts 1tb so thats 4tb's

but i'm going to break those down and use the hdd's seperately till i have more drivers or a controller. one or the other

so i'll have a complete 4tb array raid 0 of wd blacks and 2 2tb hitcachis on the side non-raided

i need to check up on one of my WD blacks cause it suddenly disconnects and i have to set it normal again but it keeps happening is there any way i can fix it? or what should i do?
 
Make sure you backup all of your data from that RAID0 array!

You could do RAID10 with those drives and still have the same read speeds as a RAID0 array, optionally.

I run three HDDs in a RAID0 array on my desktop, but nothing of value is ever left on it.
I've had RAID0 arrays fail before, make sure you have a backup. ;)
 
A good RAID5 controller has a CPU, memory, and a battery,

You also probably need a BBU for fast writes unless you understand and accept the risks of enabling wright back cache without a BBU.


that comes at a price, too steep in my opinion for only 4 drives.

I agree. A good controller + BBU will cost $400 or so new and will give you an extra 1 drive worth of data over a raid 10 setup (considering a 4 drive array). To me this is pretty expensive for an extra drive worth of space.. Although I do admit you can get some used hardware raid cards on eBay cheap but even then the BBU may not be so cheap.
 
i need to check up on one of my WD blacks cause it suddenly disconnects and i have to set it normal again but it keeps happening is there any way i can fix it? or what should i do?

It sounds like your drive might be starting to go bad.

What happens is the on board error correction is fixing a problem. That can take as long as 2 minutes. If the controller times out before the error correction can complete, the drive can get dropped from the array. When you go back and test the drive, it will test fine because the error correction has fixed the problem.

Don
 
i need to check up on one of my WD blacks cause it suddenly disconnects and i have to set it normal again but it keeps happening is there any way i can fix it? or what should i do?

See what CrystalDiskInfo says about the drive. Like the other poster said it could be that the drive is spending time recovering undreadable sectors.
 
There's little point to RAID5 with 4 disks, and there's little point to not using RAID6 if you're going with sufficient disks(6-8 or so) to make RAID5 worthwhile. In short, there's little point to RAID5.

If this is a dedicated file server, look into ZFS. If it's a desktop, go with RAID1, or RAID 0+1, or the like.

A "good" hardware raid 5/6 controller with sufficient cache, and a BBU will cost a lot more than the few disks you'll be saving. But then again disks are expensive these days... but that shouldn't last more than a year or so.

If you need a cheap SAS/SATA controller for 2tb or smaller HDDs, find a BR10i on ebay in the $20-$40 range. If you need support for larger HDDs find a M1015 for $60-$80. You'll also likely need 1-2 forward SAS to SATA breakout cables, which you can find for ~10-15 dollars each.
 
okay i ran HD Tuener on one of the HD blacks and i got 1 block error.

obviously i have to RMA but what are the chances that i will get back a WD 1tb black again?

this is a total bummer to see that the flood is affecting not only them but us also and when the whole technology world starts to go bad while this is going on, what company is going to dish out extra cash to get that going again? its a hefty risk... now what?

also thanks fella's for the input on controller cards. definitely will look into a controller card with a BBU.

i was looking @ raid's last night and see'ing how they work and its pretty fascinating. i guess since i have 3 drives instaed of due to the dead block one i can try and run raid 5 for fun. keep my 4tb non-raid seperate. (horror of putting files in the exact folder sure takes time)
 
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