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Some general RAID-5 questions

J

jmroberts70

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Oct 15, 2002
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Ok, I've done a little research and come to the conclusion that I'm going to start a RAID-5 setup for my storage needs. I'm presently storing nearly 0.6TB of data and expect to grow to 1.0TB by the end of the year. I'm thinking of starting a RAID-5 fileserver but I am wondering about the ability to start it small and gradually add drives to it over time. I know I can start with 3 250GB drives to give me 0.5TB total storage (250 x 3-1) but can I add drives to the array over time without having to reformat or anything?
 
Certain Higher end raid controllers will allow you to add drives later on, just make sure they are the same size as the drives you have in the array already.
 
defakto said:
Certain Higher end raid controllers will allow you to add drives later on, just make sure they are the same size as the drives you have in the array already.
Click to expand...

That's why I'm starting out with 250GB drives. This way I know they'll be a decent size for a while -and still affordable to start with. Any suggestions for a controller? Can I combine controllers so as to handle more than the usual 4 drives?
 
3ware makes ide and sata controllers that go up to 12 drives. I know there are others, but i tend to stick with 3ware for my raid needs.
 
Yeh i vote for 3ware, they make funky conrtrollers, even if they are a little expensive. But in this case, you get what you pay for.

A good controller which alows you to add drives to the array as you go will most likely cost quite a a bit and need a PCI-X slot. Most PCI controllers are lacking except there are a few popping up with SDRAM slots and the like, the only problem is the limited bandwidth of PCI. If your going for a good setup, which operates at a nice speed, i'd suggest getting a PCI-X mobo and controller card.
 
Look for a controller that offers something to the tune of "online capacity expansion", this usually means you can add drives to an existing array.
 
if they werent so expensive a nice scsi chain would suit you well.
 
I have a Promise card in my file server and it works great for what I use it for. It's not the best performance but it will do. I can get write speed around 35-40MBps which isn't bad for RAID5 but it's not the best. The 3ware card be alot faster but it's about twice the cost. So if you don't need fast write speeds then go for the Promise if you need your write speed to be faster 3ware is the way to go.
 
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