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Is onboard RAID decent?

N

NleahciM

2[H]4U
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Aug 2, 2002
Messages
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So I've been put in charge of either buying or building a server for a non profit organization that I do computer support for. Their budget is pretty wide open - but I'd like to get in at around $1500 or so. Anyways - I'm trying to figure out what to do about storage. The data on this server will either be backed up daily or weekly - but still we need to be extremely careful with it. Losing data from this server could be absolutely disastorous. (it will be holding all of our medical files, employee files, e-mails, etc. - it will pretty much be running our organization). With this in mind - what kind of RAID system should I look at? Right now I'm thinking I'll probably use Western Digital Special Edition drives, or an equivalent SATA drive. We really need as much speed and redundancy as possible. I was thinking maybe something like RAID 0+1? And also - would you reccomend using an onboard raid card, or a dedicated raid card? Thanks!
 
I think picking the raptor is a good choice since your budget is pretty low.

The raid 0 + 1 is also a good idea since you will get the speed from raid 0 and the backup from raid 1.

I recommand spend the extra bucks on a raid controller card since this computer is turn on 24/7 with massive data going through everyday. You never know when the motherboard is going to break down. If you use the onboard raid that, once the mb is broken. You will lose ALL your data since the HDD is on the onboard raid system. Using other raid controller will NOT recognize the setup you made on the onboard raid systen. That is why I think you should get a separate raid controller card.

Also, getting a raid controller card means less word for cpu since the raid card is doing the thinking.

I hope it helps!
 
I would recommend using raid-5 for a server that holds important data and gets accessed alot.
 
Definately go with a hardware RAID card rather than the onboard solution. The reason being that if the system takes a dump on you, you can migrate the array to another computer with all the data intact rather than having to rebuild from your last backup.

I'd also probably run RAID 5. You'll get more storage from your drives than you will with 0+1 or 10. Four 100GB drives in RAID 5 will net you 300GB of space whereas they'll only net you 200GB in 0+1 or 10.

As to the RAID card to use, one with a XOR processor will do all the calculations on the card whereas cheaper solutions or on board solutions utilize your systems CPU.

Just a thought.
 
how much capacity is needed, and what kind of throughput?
have any historical access patterns to project growth from?

I wouldnt call Raptors "affordable" the WD special editions on the other hand are very affordable
but would suggest that if the capacity needs arent that great SCSI still holds greater reliability overall
and finding 10k SCSI drives to fit the ticket would be relatively affordable
with the advantage of superior TCQ, if its actually needed
 
"wide open budget" and you're capping yourself at $1500 for a server? Does that even include a redundant PSU?

I don't really see a point in getting Raptors for a file server; you're going to be bottlenecked by the network. They're only really any use if you've got something local that needs the fast access speed (like a database or something).

If this thing's really so critical to the operation of the organization, you're going to want hot-swappable RAID5.
 
Ice Czar said:
how much capacity is needed, and what kind of throughput?
have any historical access patterns to project growth from?

I wouldnt call Raptors "affordable" the WD special editions on the other hand are very affordable
but would suggest that if the capacity needs arent that great SCSI still holds greater reliability overall
and finding 10k SCSI drives to fit the ticket would be relatively affordable
with the advantage of superior TCQ, if its actually needed
Click to expand...

Not much capacity at all. Honestly 20GBs would be more than enough at this point. Throughput I don't know just yet. Honestly none of us know what exactly our computing needs are going to be with this system. This server is replaing our current file server which is a PII 400Mhz system with 192mb ram and is running xp pro. But this new one will also handle roaming profiles and possibly eventually Exchange.

ameoba said:
"wide open budget" and you're capping yourself at $1500 for a server? Does that even include a redundant PSU?

I don't really see a point in getting Raptors for a file server; you're going to be bottlenecked by the network. They're only really any use if you've got something local that needs the fast access speed (like a database or something).

If this thing's really so critical to the operation of the organization, you're going to want hot-swappable RAID5.
Click to expand...
I had been considering getting a Dell 400SC - then adding RAM and storage to it. I can get a fairly barebones 400SC for $300 - leaving about $1200 for RAM and storage. But then again if I can spend less than that - I would like to.
 
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