...and would it be a problem?
The motherboard i'm gonna get for my new system includes the Silicon Image SATA RAID controller which supports multiple RAID.
So I was thinking 2 sets of 2 drives mirrored (RAID 1) combined into a striped superset (RAID 0) - in other words a RAID 1+0, or RAID 10 config*.
That would give me all the advantages of 320gb of super-fast storage, with none of the disadvantages of using only RAID 0 (ie. losing all 320gb of it if a single drive was to fail).
However, if it's going to sound like there's a screaming banshee stuck in my box then forget it! Just after input, especially from people who own these drives.
Thanks!
*For those technically minded among you, RAID 1+0 is superior to RAID 0+1 in that if a single drive in a RAID 1+0 subset fails, the other drive in the subset continues and the superset stays intact. This allows a failure of a single drive in EACH subset while still allowing the array to function.
In RAID 0+1, if a single drive fails the entire subset goes offline thus taking down a perfectly healthy disk drive, and requiring a lot more data to be remirrored (2 drive's worth instead of 1).
How much noise would 4 Samsung Spinpoint 160gb drives make..
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meglamaniac
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My drive (SP1614N, IDE not SATA) sitting on foam doesn't make any noise I can hear. I would think your first fight would be against heat, not against noise.
Off-topic: why not just run all 4 drives in a single RAID array (3 data disks, 1 parity)? That way you end up with 480GB of storage, with striping performance benefits as well as parity data protection. Or does a single disk failure in that case render the whole array unavailable until you get a new replacement drive? Or does your controller just not support that? It seems like a waste to dedicate 2 disks to data protection when you theoretically should only have to dedicate 1 ...
Off-topic: why not just run all 4 drives in a single RAID array (3 data disks, 1 parity)? That way you end up with 480GB of storage, with striping performance benefits as well as parity data protection. Or does a single disk failure in that case render the whole array unavailable until you get a new replacement drive? Or does your controller just not support that? It seems like a waste to dedicate 2 disks to data protection when you theoretically should only have to dedicate 1 ...
I have 4 SP1614Ns (the PATA versions), and I have a server with five drives in it. The server only has a single SP1614N, coupled with a Seagate U6 and 3 older Samsung's. All activly cooled. Can I hear anything? Not usually, because it's muffled by things in the way. But getting close there's some whining going on, but it could be a number of things. From my experiences with the other SP1614Ns, it's not them.
My server uses RAID5 for the drives, if I had 4 160GB (I actually use 5 80GB partitions) that would make close to 480GB, able to withstand a single drive failure. But then your controller may not be able to do that. Can it even do your RAID10?
My server uses RAID5 for the drives, if I had 4 160GB (I actually use 5 80GB partitions) that would make close to 480GB, able to withstand a single drive failure. But then your controller may not be able to do that. Can it even do your RAID10?
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meglamaniac
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I haven't seen any mobo-integrated RAID5 SATA controllers. Glancing through newegg, they are somewhat pricey (US$200+). So price will be a consideration here (if it is at all), assuming $100/disk. For two disks' worth of data, you can either spend $400 for 4 disks at RAID10 and max out your storage, or $500 for 3 disks + a RAID5 controller, with the option to increase your storage ...
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meglamaniac
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The 3114 supports RAID 5, but only in software through the drivers.
Even on a brand new Athlon 64 system thats probably a bad idea, because of the overheads of calculating the parity all the time.
Also as it's software windows driver only support that means i can't set it up before I install windows, which means windows couldn't be on the array - pointless imo.
Choices choices...
Even on a brand new Athlon 64 system thats probably a bad idea, because of the overheads of calculating the parity all the time.
Also as it's software windows driver only support that means i can't set it up before I install windows, which means windows couldn't be on the array - pointless imo.
Choices choices...
Just a quick question...
I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm genuinely interested in how you guys with several hundred GB's of storage actually backup your data. I know this thread is talking about providing redundancy from hardware failure, but RAID is not a backup.
What happens if your PC is stollen, your house burns down, you get a virus or an application just crashes and corrupts files on its way down?
Or are these several hundred GB's just for game installs, ripping DVD's etc... where you have the original media to fall back on.
I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm genuinely interested in how you guys with several hundred GB's of storage actually backup your data. I know this thread is talking about providing redundancy from hardware failure, but RAID is not a backup.
What happens if your PC is stollen, your house burns down, you get a virus or an application just crashes and corrupts files on its way down?
Or are these several hundred GB's just for game installs, ripping DVD's etc... where you have the original media to fall back on.
Cactus - I believe you are mistaken that all motherboard RAID is software RAID. If that were true - you wouldn't be able to boot from a RAID drive on a mb controller because the operating system would already have to be running. I think most motherboard RAID controllers are (slightly) simplified versions of the same controllers sold as add-on boards. Software RAID per se doesn't even require a special controller. The RAID software drives the I/O through existing ATA (or SCSI) interfaces. I run two Seagate 250 Gb drives in a RAID1 configuration using the Highpoint controller on my Soyo MB. It works very well.
I don't. I only backup critical items such as project files, documents, email, etc. For the most part, I consider everything else disposible data.... nice to have but it won't hurt me to lose it.alock wrote:Just a quick question...
I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm genuinely interested in how you guys with several hundred GB's of storage actually backup your data. I know this thread is talking about providing redundancy from hardware failure, but RAID is not a backup.
What happens if your PC is stollen, your house burns down, you get a virus or an application just crashes and corrupts files on its way down?
Or are these several hundred GB's just for game installs, ripping DVD's etc... where you have the original media to fall back on.
I did recently lose a hard drive full of mp3s to data corruption. Lucky my brother had a near exact copy of the drive. Will proably start backup up mp3s to a 2nd drive stashed somewhere. Music is one my few remaining vices.
I am in the same boat as a few people on this thread, so I thought I'd share my experience.
- Anyone who has had at home or at work a large number of disks has experienced regular failures. Disk failures are a reality and they are very annoying if nothing is done to prepare for it.
- I've been running RAID1 on my home machine for years now and it served me well since I lost 3 disks in 5 years. Some due to heat I think, but still... I use RAID1 as an "easy" fault tolerance mechanism (no data lost, messy backups...).
- For the catastrophic situations (theft, fire...), I do have a separate backup (these days a USB 200GB drive), which lives most of the time in my drawer at work. This backup can be only partial for the unreplaceable data (documents, pictures...) since the probability is much much lower than a disk failure. So I protect myself from disk failures with RAID1 and catastrophic events with manual backups.
- I am looking around for a larger storage (~500GB) for mostly music and video. RAID5 seems to be the ideal solution, except that RAID5 controllers are not cheap. The alternative (which I might take) is to run software RAID5. Windows server has that built-in, so as long as you don't boot on this, it's a nice and cheap solution (if you don't need to purchase the software of course).
- As far as motherboard RAID controllers and software, I don't think they run in software. The fact that you boot from them shows that they are entirely capable of dealing with themselves. They will need sofwtare for complicated things like rebuild (RAID1) or online extensions, conversion... but they pretty much all need that except some very high-end ones that have enough processor horsepower on-chip. In any case, there isn't much that a RAID0/1 controller needs to do. There is no processing involved in either of these, and that's why people put them on motherboards (not much extra logic required). On the other hand, things like RAID5 require a fast XOR engine, which is much more costly. That explains why motherboard RAIDs don't support RAID5 and also why RAID5 controllers are more expensive. Of course, it has a lot to do with market segmentation too, but...
Laurent
- Anyone who has had at home or at work a large number of disks has experienced regular failures. Disk failures are a reality and they are very annoying if nothing is done to prepare for it.
- I've been running RAID1 on my home machine for years now and it served me well since I lost 3 disks in 5 years. Some due to heat I think, but still... I use RAID1 as an "easy" fault tolerance mechanism (no data lost, messy backups...).
- For the catastrophic situations (theft, fire...), I do have a separate backup (these days a USB 200GB drive), which lives most of the time in my drawer at work. This backup can be only partial for the unreplaceable data (documents, pictures...) since the probability is much much lower than a disk failure. So I protect myself from disk failures with RAID1 and catastrophic events with manual backups.
- I am looking around for a larger storage (~500GB) for mostly music and video. RAID5 seems to be the ideal solution, except that RAID5 controllers are not cheap. The alternative (which I might take) is to run software RAID5. Windows server has that built-in, so as long as you don't boot on this, it's a nice and cheap solution (if you don't need to purchase the software of course).
- As far as motherboard RAID controllers and software, I don't think they run in software. The fact that you boot from them shows that they are entirely capable of dealing with themselves. They will need sofwtare for complicated things like rebuild (RAID1) or online extensions, conversion... but they pretty much all need that except some very high-end ones that have enough processor horsepower on-chip. In any case, there isn't much that a RAID0/1 controller needs to do. There is no processing involved in either of these, and that's why people put them on motherboards (not much extra logic required). On the other hand, things like RAID5 require a fast XOR engine, which is much more costly. That explains why motherboard RAIDs don't support RAID5 and also why RAID5 controllers are more expensive. Of course, it has a lot to do with market segmentation too, but...
Laurent
Laurent - my experiences are similar to yours. I had two hard drive failures over a few years and each time it cost me a great deal of lost time to rebuild the system. Disk drives are cheap enough that RAID 1 is very affordable. I do not care about the 20% or so performance improvement offered by RAID 0. RAID1 protects me of course from a drive failure. It doesn't protect me from a software problem or other corruption. So I periodically back up my photos to DVD and back up other important files to another (old Dell) PC on my LAN.
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meglamaniac
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- Joined: Thu Jul 15, 2004 12:44 pm
- Location: UK
In answer to alock:
"What happens if your PC is stolen" - I'm screwed, but tbh I'd be more worried about just having lost over £1000 worth of hardware.
"Your house burns down" - Backups to elsewhere on the lan wouldn't prevent data loss if that happened, so its a bit of a null point.
"You get a virus" - Antivirus software is one of the few applications worth the prices asked for it IMO. I use NAV professional, auto-update the signitures daily, and upgrade the application as new versions come out. I've never once been infected in 10 years of using the product.
"an application just crashes and corrupts files on its way down" - I've been using NTFS since NT4 was out, and have never had a crash corrupt the filesystem. What I did have happen about a year ago on XP was a defrag app went crazy (Disk-keeper 7 - i've never used it since) and mucked up the MFT. When windows rebooted after the defrag it realised what had happened and rebuilt the MFT from the spare. Took it about 20 minutes, and out of 20,000 entries affected only 3 were unrecoverable. Luckily they were nothing important.
However, to anyone out there still on FAT/FAT32 then yes this is a major problem!
As to software RAID accusations, the point i'd make has already been raised: how could you boot from the array if it was implimented in software?
As I already said, the board I'm looking at getting does RAID 5 in software - the rest are hardware.
Anyway, I seem to be approaching this from the other direction from most people here. I've never worried that much about data integrety since I've never had anything that important (although this is starting to change as I'm developing VC++ .NET apps for work at home). I'm more interested in the performance gain of RAID 0. With storage prices as cheap as they've ever been, and with the extra throughput capacity of SATA, RAID 0 offers SCSI performance without the SCSI pricetag.
However, when a single failure can knock out 320gb of data, THEN data redundency starts to look attractive. Hence my plans to use RAID 10 (although RAID 01 would do - the chances of 2 simultaneous drive failures out of 4 drives is pretty damn small).
I might start backing up my VC++ projects and other docs etc over the lan though, as it's only 20gb and wouldn't take that long over our 100Mbit network (just over half an hour).
"What happens if your PC is stolen" - I'm screwed, but tbh I'd be more worried about just having lost over £1000 worth of hardware.
"Your house burns down" - Backups to elsewhere on the lan wouldn't prevent data loss if that happened, so its a bit of a null point.
"You get a virus" - Antivirus software is one of the few applications worth the prices asked for it IMO. I use NAV professional, auto-update the signitures daily, and upgrade the application as new versions come out. I've never once been infected in 10 years of using the product.
"an application just crashes and corrupts files on its way down" - I've been using NTFS since NT4 was out, and have never had a crash corrupt the filesystem. What I did have happen about a year ago on XP was a defrag app went crazy (Disk-keeper 7 - i've never used it since) and mucked up the MFT. When windows rebooted after the defrag it realised what had happened and rebuilt the MFT from the spare. Took it about 20 minutes, and out of 20,000 entries affected only 3 were unrecoverable. Luckily they were nothing important.
However, to anyone out there still on FAT/FAT32 then yes this is a major problem!
As to software RAID accusations, the point i'd make has already been raised: how could you boot from the array if it was implimented in software?
As I already said, the board I'm looking at getting does RAID 5 in software - the rest are hardware.
Anyway, I seem to be approaching this from the other direction from most people here. I've never worried that much about data integrety since I've never had anything that important (although this is starting to change as I'm developing VC++ .NET apps for work at home). I'm more interested in the performance gain of RAID 0. With storage prices as cheap as they've ever been, and with the extra throughput capacity of SATA, RAID 0 offers SCSI performance without the SCSI pricetag.
However, when a single failure can knock out 320gb of data, THEN data redundency starts to look attractive. Hence my plans to use RAID 10 (although RAID 01 would do - the chances of 2 simultaneous drive failures out of 4 drives is pretty damn small).
I might start backing up my VC++ projects and other docs etc over the lan though, as it's only 20gb and wouldn't take that long over our 100Mbit network (just over half an hour).
Well meglamaniac, I've lost so many hard disks over the years I am very paranoid and probably go on and on and on and on about backup far too much. I'm sure I drive everyone I know mad 
When I shut down my PC, I run a script which performs a backup of my live data over my home LAN to a mini itx box. The mini itx box runs a script at 2:00am everyday which does a backup to a server in Telehouse in London.
When data is no longer live, I place it in a read-only directory on my PC and a copy on the mini itx box. I also create two copies on CD, one goes to the other side of my house, the other goes to my place of work (26 miles away)
All of this is only possible because I can keep my working set to below 500MB (the size of my user space in Telehouse and also convieniently smaller than a CD). My nerves couldn't copy if I had 100's of GBs of live data to backup.
By the way, the term "an application just crashes and corrupts files on its way down" was my way of saying that occasionally I make mistakes as a programmer. Once, when developing one of my backup scripts in VB, I accidentally deleted the whole of 'My Documents'
When I shut down my PC, I run a script which performs a backup of my live data over my home LAN to a mini itx box. The mini itx box runs a script at 2:00am everyday which does a backup to a server in Telehouse in London.
When data is no longer live, I place it in a read-only directory on my PC and a copy on the mini itx box. I also create two copies on CD, one goes to the other side of my house, the other goes to my place of work (26 miles away)
All of this is only possible because I can keep my working set to below 500MB (the size of my user space in Telehouse and also convieniently smaller than a CD). My nerves couldn't copy if I had 100's of GBs of live data to backup.
By the way, the term "an application just crashes and corrupts files on its way down" was my way of saying that occasionally I make mistakes as a programmer. Once, when developing one of my backup scripts in VB, I accidentally deleted the whole of 'My Documents'
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meglamaniac
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Just because a motherboard RAID controller has its own chip (and can be booted from), doesn't mean it won't take up CPU cycles. I don't fully understand their implementation, but what I do know is that complicated RAID setups will slow the machine.
In some cases, 2 drives striped or mirrored, has little hit on CPU usage (compared to a single drive). But in every review I can remember seeing, RAID configurations with 4 drives in level 0 have a huge CPU usage (~20% or more). I suspect the level 01 or 10 will not be any better.
Plus, unless things have changed in recent years, using IDE drives always has a CPU hit (heavier than that of something like SCSI). 4 drives will definately be worse.
In some cases, 2 drives striped or mirrored, has little hit on CPU usage (compared to a single drive). But in every review I can remember seeing, RAID configurations with 4 drives in level 0 have a huge CPU usage (~20% or more). I suspect the level 01 or 10 will not be any better.
Plus, unless things have changed in recent years, using IDE drives always has a CPU hit (heavier than that of something like SCSI). 4 drives will definately be worse.
meglamaniac: RAID0 does not simply offer SCSI performance at IDE prices, it only improves transfer rates, and that only helps in a limited number of situations (DV Editing, High-res Photoshop). Apologies if this is stuff you know and you have a good reason for the RAID0, and I don't mean to start another RAID0 flame war, but I would highly suggest a look at the RAID0 FAQ at storagereview.com
Motherboard RAID chips come with driver software in the BIOS that allows Windows to boot from the array. The chip may have some minimal support for RAID 1 in hardware (writing to two disks with a single command) but it's still essentially software RAID.hofffam wrote:I believe you are mistaken that all motherboard RAID is software RAID. If that were true - you wouldn't be able to boot from a RAID drive on a mb controller because the operating system would already have to be running.