Sata Raid 1 Vs. SCSI Raid 5??

B

BricRoth

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 22, 2002
Messages
196
Short story. I have a 4.5 year old 100 gb (4x36 gig hd's) raid 5 server. This server is used in a large photography studio and has been trusted with critical data for these 4 years. I have had 3 drives fail in this array in the past 18 months and regenerated and restored normally. An affiliate studio had an array hickup yesterday and after they regenerated all data is showing normal but due to index problems is unreadable. This studio has been told by microsoft as well as highpoint that this index problem is not all that uncommon. I am losing confidence in an array that is striped vs. a mirrored array. I am looking for opinions. This server has dual intel 800's in it. I am considering doing away with the scsi's and installing 4 200 gig satas in 2 differant mirrored arrays. I am planning on using 2 escalade (processors on card) pci cards in hopes of easing the demand on the dual 800 cpu's. My hope is that by running the array thru 2 channel I may ease any bottle neck vs. using 1 card.

Will I notice a big differance in read and write speeds to these arrays? Am I wrong in thinking that my data will be more secure and retrivable on mirrored Sata's vs. a striped array.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Bric
 
It seems to me that your question is Escalade versus Highpoint,
not RAID1 versus RAID5.
The question of performance really depends on what you're
doing. What size files, how many users, what kind of LAN,
etc. How hard are you pushing the existing system?
 
I'll make a somewhat broad statement, but SCSI RAID5 will beat the living crap out of any other RAID array in performance. RAID5 is the absolute best to use....performance and redundancy. I see no reason to go away from that, especially if you already have it. There's a reason why enterprise servers still use SCSI RAID5 and nothing else.
 
File sizes are generally in the 10-20 meg area. (12 M-pixel raws) 2-5 computers reading data at the sames time intermitantly. We capture about 15-20 gig of data on the average day. This data is at times left on the server for 2-4 days without being proccesed then archived. I understand "feeling" that Raid5 will "beat the crap" out of Raid1 but I cannot accept ever losing data due to and "indexing miscue" As these scsi hd's age I'm sure I can only expect more failures and at what point will my indexes go away?

My current cpu use runs way up (80%-90%) during most file transfers. I am hoping that using "smart" pci raid cards will effect this. I am really not comparing brand as I know highpoint as well as 3 ware has processing cards. I just notice a real drag on our current system while uploading I gig cards and laptops to it now. If the ratings on the hd's differ by differ by 15-20% will I suffer more than this?

I am really sorry if this sound incoherent, but I am trying to weigh performance loss versus safety.
 
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