tosca925 Posted January 30, 2007 Posted January 30, 2007 We are currently looking to buy a new server and would like opinions on our raid options. The servers will be a web server hosting sites/blogs/etc and possible streaming videos at a later date. We are looking at the Dell 2950 which will hold 6 discs. Our dilemma is what to do. We thought of having 2 73gb 1500rpm discs mirrored for the OS and 4 300gb SAS disc in a Raid 5 config set as full 4 disc raid or have a hot swap drive and loose a bit of storage. We cant quite decide what to do. Given the sample sec above what would you suggest for the best?
mattx Posted January 30, 2007 Posted January 30, 2007 Personal Choice - but I would opt for a RAID 5. I take it you are talking about using a hardware controller for this ? A software RAID 5 with your large disks may cause a general slowlness of data - something you don't want if you are going to be streaming video. You could be flash and go for a multiple nested RAID if the controller supported it.....
john Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 RAID 5 for me as well, based on a good hardware controller as has been said already.
Teth Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 Yea raid 5 for your setup. To gain from more "exotic" forms of raid like 10 you need to be working with twice as many discs than you are. 5 on a good hardware controller with SAS drives will be plenty fast for your needs.
ajbritton Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 If you do RAID 5, make sure you get a battery backup on the RAID controller. This protects the write cache in the event of a disk or power failure. We have been sold a couple of servers with RAID 5 on which the write cache was disabled due to lack of a battery module. This slows down write performance considerably.
plexer Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 Poweredge 2800 with 6 x 136gb drives I think they are. What are you going to do about backup? sure raid5 protects you from drive failure but not from corruption however caused. Ben
Face-Man Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 I agree Raid 1 for OS disk and depending on support either other 4 Raid 5 with 4 hour response or 3 Raid 5 and hot swap if you have less support
Mr_T Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 I have the x 4 Dell 2900's with 2 disk mirrored OS and and 3 disk RAID 5 and there all sweet as a nut. Nice bits of kit IMO
wesleyw Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 I went a bit overkill with this and with the 4 drives had two sets of two combined as a stripe array then mirrored one set of two to the other backups are of course made using Veritas and Quantum LTO3 drive. I think I have about 8 slots for HDDs spare in the DAS unit. Wes
Ch3rub Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 Hello to everyone (my first post here ) Personally would go with mirror for system and RAID 5 for data + get one spare drive, test it and put on a shelf. If something ever goes wrong you don't have to panic for replacement (that's if budget will allow for this).
tosca925 Posted January 31, 2007 Author Posted January 31, 2007 Cheers for opinions, I'll let you know what we order.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now