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RAID setup

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What would be an ideal RAID set up if my primary concern is speed and then redundancy?

CPU: P4 3.06GHz
RAM: 2GB RAMBUS
RAID card: Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A w/4 IDE Channels
HD: 4 WD 120GB 7200RPM 8MB Buffer and can add one more
OS: XP Pro
Primary software: Video editing

1). RAID 0+1?
2). RAID 5?
3). OS in HD1 and RAID 5 on other HDs?
4). Pros and cons?
5). any other ideas?

A brief set up procedure will be appreciated.

7 replies

by maxwell edison

RAID 0, also called striping, uses at least two hard drives, but treats those hard drives in the array as a single large hard drive.

Striping describes the method in which each of the hard drives in a RAID 0 setup is partitioned. Imagine stripes, or ribbon-like partitions, on each of the drives which data is written to, alternating from first one drive to the next drive. This method makes downloading and writing large amounts of data to your system faster than ever.

See this article fora detailed explanation of all the options:

http://tinyurl.com/69s5

PCMechanicic Article, "RAID: Your Guide"

http://tinyurl.com/69ry

by wcp

Thanks for your info.
I decided to go with RAID 5 and it's been working well.

by wcp

Maxwell on Answer 1,
Thanks for your info.
What is your opinion on RAID 0+1 vs RAID 5 ?
Which one would you use and why?

by timwalsh

As Maxwell mentioned, Raid 0 is striping (i.e. 1 big drive). You can stripe across more than 2 drives. This can improve performance (mileage may vary). The minimum array size is 2 drives. There is NO redundancy. If one drive fails, all data is lost.

RAID 1 is mirroring (i.e. one drive mirrors the contents of a second drive). Depending on your controller, you can get up to double the throughput of a single drive if the controller is able to simultaneously read alternate sectors of both drives. The redundancy is provided by the fact that if one drive fails, you can break the mirror and continue with the remaining drive having a full set of data. The downside is capacity. You can only use half of the potential storage capacity.You can combine RAID 0 and 1, essentially having a mirrored striped array. The downside is that the minimum array size will be 4 drives and you can only add capacity by adding 2 drives at a time. With either RAID 0 or 1 or a combination, if a drive fails, you must essentially bring your system down and spend some time to bring back to full capacity (Break mirrored set; break failed striped set; recreate striped set with new drive; recreate mirror). You would not be able to use a fifth drive by itself in the array. Your maximum capacity (based on the drives you mention) will be 240GB.

RAID 5 is also known as striping with parity check. Minimum array size is 3 drives. Additional drives can be added at any time, 1 or more at a time.The error checking information is spread across all drives in the array (because of this, you lose some potential storage capacity to this information). Because of the error checking, you do take a performance hit (although for MOST operations other than the most intense I/O operations, this will be negligible).
(continued)

by timwalsh

The upside to RAID 5 is that you do get to use most of the potential storage capacity and you get to use your fifth drive. If a drive fails, you usually need to only put in a new one and the array will regenerate itself. Usually if a drive fails, you can continue to operate until it is convenient to replace the failed drive.

Since throughput and redundancy are your primary concerns (in that order?), I would go with the RAID 0 + 1 combination. Just be aware that increasing capacity could get expensive.

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