The Ideal Hard Disk, Raid configuration

[Sack]

I've been doing a lot of reading over the last few weeks and I understand the diferent raid configurations out there. What is a bit more dificult is to see some real world example setups. I'm halfway through buidling my new PC.

I haven't got the Mobo, cpu or hard-drives yet.. probably in the next few weeks. Here is what I've come up with for a disk configuration for my system. Utilising Raid-0 for games, DVD buring, scratch disks etc.. stuuf that would most likely benefit from faster read/writes and if a drive in the raid array fails I lose no real important data. Saved games etc would be backed up using some app or something I haven't sussed out yet.

I would like feedback from those who have had real world experience with thier systems.

Thanks

 

[piako]

looks good to me. even if the raid array fails xp will remake a page file on the raptor on reboot I've just read off this page. think about getting stuck writing an important doc tho if the raid array fails. basically your doubling your chance of a system failure with the page file on raid because i don't think that xp will automatically begins writing your page file to the raptor if the raid fails, you need to reboot and then it will see the raid isn't working and begin a new page file.

i personally have one huge raid 0 drive for everything. anything imporant gets put on a flash drive or burnt to a cd/dvd for storage. too bad hard drives don't last for ever. all the other raid schemes decrease performance compared to raid0 because of the parity overhead. raid1 is uber slow. check out raid 0+1, 1+0 (raid 10). Those raid 10 setups look killer but cost a lot because you have to have half of your drives give up their space. Still not very certain how they are implemented *searches.*

Sorry to jack your thread but eventually I'm gonna put a file/media server together with a highpoint card and run I think a raid 5 setup.

 

[Sack]

I've run my Pagefile on a diferent disk for ages. If that drive is not available at boot, the pagefile is automatically put on the boot drive... but like you say piako, not sure what happens if the drive fails during operation.

Good points Tekara, I guess another option (for a little extra dosh), is run 2 x 300GB drives in Raid-1 (with OS, apps, mydocs etc) and run 1 x 150GB Raptor for the data drive (DVD rips) where fault tolerence isn't an issue.

A cheaper option would be running 2 x Raid-1 arrays (4 x 300GB drives). Normal writes but faster reads with fault tolerence.

I heard somewhere that just a normal harddrive might not be able to keep up with burning a DVD at 16x speed so a raid-0 would be needed... I might have been mis-informed

 

[unhappy_mage]

I heard somewhere that just a normal harddrive might not be able to keep up with burning a DVD at 16x speed so a raid-0 would be needed... I might have been mis-informed

Bahahaha. A single-speed DVD is about 1.5 MB/s. Thus, a 16x is 24 MB/s. A single drive from 2000 would have no problem keeping up with that. So, yes.

Why do you need 4 dvd writers?

I'd tend toward your 2x300, 1x150 solution, but with the roles reversed - 150 as boot and apps drive, and the 2 300s in raid 1 as long-term storage stuff. The 150 will be much faster for most things, and media bitrates are so low that the speed of the raid 1 is a non-issue (although it will be fairly fast, don't get me wrong).

 

[Sack]

Bahahaha. A single-speed DVD is about 1.5 MB/s. Thus, a 16x is 24 MB/s. A single drive from 2000 would have no problem keeping up with that. So, yes.

Why do you need 4 dvd writers?

Heh... thanks for that, hadn't really thought about the speed

4 DVD writers? I burn a lot of educational DVD's for distro.... I burnt 50 the other weekend on my current 2 DVD writers at 4x speed and it's pretty slow gowing I figured having 4 writers and dual core would kick a$$

 

[ilkhan]

I see nothing about needing the fastest possible writes, so Id recomend what I have.
Raptor for (boot, swap, games, apps), R5 for all your data, and a big USB drive for backup of non-replaceable/critical data should the R5 fail.

Also: a fast reading array can easily saturate the PCI bus. Go for a PCI-E or PCI-X controller.

 

[general]

Use the Raptor for everything. No need to be silly and mess with RAID-0. Unless you do professional work and move around seriously large files its a waste of time. RAID-1 two discs for storage. Your games will run just fine off of one of those.

 

[Sack]

Also: a fast reading array can easily saturate the PCI bus. Go for a PCI-E or PCI-X controller.

So you'd recommend using an add-on PCI-E raid controler card than using the SATA headers on the mobo?.... or only an option if the mobo didn't have SATA headers with RAID support?

 

[unhappy_mage]

If you've got the budget for a few hundred more bucks, you can get a card that will let you expand a raid 5 array - put 3 disks in it now (and get the capacity of 2) and add more disks as need arises. The Areca 1200 series is particularly nice, but like I said, several hundred bucks. If you're thinking about a raid 1 array, onboard is plenty.

 

[ilkhan]

So you'd recommend using an add-on PCI-E raid controler card than using the SATA headers on the mobo?.... or only an option if the mobo didn't have SATA headers with RAID support?

A: IIRC most onboard controllers are attached through PCI (definently could be wrong) if its not integrated onto the N(S?)bridge.
B: add in card gives you the ability to move the array intact to another machine. Onboard...not quite.

Oh, and I just plain hate onboard components. More shit to go wrong. Almost everything is disabled on all of my boards. I have noticed lately Im using more. Sound and Gb on this build...Had an issue with my audigy when I built the A8N-E version of this build and didn't try it with the A8N-SLIp board.

 

[Sack]

Ouch! Areca (RC-1210) card here in NZ is $663

I did find a "Highpoint RocketRAID 1810A, 4 Channel, SATA RAID Controller, PCI-X" for $370 .... but yeah, comes down to dosh vs benefits .... just the 150GB Raptor alone is gonna set me back $576

 

[GoodOmens]

1810a does NOT allow raid expansion.

The 2220 does (I've got one in my box. )

However 5 hard drives in a small case makes a mess of cables :-p

 

[Sack]

Use the Raptor for everything. No need to be silly and mess with RAID-0. Unless you do professional work and move around seriously large files its a waste of time. RAID-1 two discs for storage. Your games will run just fine off of one of those.

Yeah... I'm starting to lean more to this set-up. 1 x 150GB Raptor for OS, Pagefile, Apps ..... and 2 x 300GB drives (Raid-1) for data, mydocs, etc. ... i think a good balance of speed and redundancy where it counts.

 

[ilkhan]

However 5 hard drives in a small case makes a mess of cables :-p

I can vouch for that. 4 off the raid in the lower cage, boot above them in the main cage. *Very* messy. Especially when they send you 6ft cables with the raid controller and you need maybe a foot per...