raid setups
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- kinetic
ive been looking at a few raid setups for a server here at the office.
im wondering which is the best config...so far it seems like raid 5 is the best because it offers striping and parity checking, but i also read that raid 5 is used when performance is not critical and when few write operations need to be performed.
also...wondering if anyone has setup raid on win XP and how it runs.
thanks :)
- frankbb0
I have been running Raid on XP for one plus years, no problems.
I would recomend getting a Hardware raid card that doesn't use the cpu. You will know if its hardware raid because it cost £500+
Make sure you get the same hardrives as well. With the best seek time and rpm, other wise it aint worth it! Backing up wise RAID 5 is your best bet, If you see a card that say 1+0 stripe, this is like raid 5,but uses the cpu to back up. on to your other discs.
How many disc you thinking of getting?? 4 plus obviously if doing raid 5..
I would say Raid with scsi as they are faster, normally have bigger buffer memory, I have both SCSI and IDE devices raid, and there is that much in them for performance wise.
Best bet go to http://www.tomshardware.com and read up on there
- kinetic0
cool thanks man
hey, how does the raid with scsi drives work
you need a scsi controller for the scsi drives, where does the raid controller come into play?
- frankbb0
They are one and the same, the scsi controller hsa another chip onboard that backs up on the other scsi drive(well it does on mine).
You can as well get away with scsi using just a controller card, what I mean buy this is that you could get your os to the work. But you can't run XP from the raided drives, when it is totally software driven.
IDE is where it becomes a pain, not that it is or anything, its just not as fast, plus more expensive to get a hardware raid[cheaper than scsi though!].
You will find that most [£100+]motherboards that are new come with two/four extra IDE ports, these are for raid, they have a controller chip, but the operating system has to do some of the donkey work. I currently am using this type of setup for my dads server. Its been up and running for ages now with out a problem. This is set up as 1+0, like I said before you do notice a bigger hit on the os when its trying to write to the four drives, but its not performance we are looking for.
You could get a lacie raid thingy going, but thats a bit over kill..
Best bet, is to go with adaptec, promise or high point- do a search in google- these are the well know and most reliable ones.
Do remeber serial ATA is here and they are fast, and can be raid'ed, but the drives are not yet in the public market, but are equally match and better than scsi models.
- kinetic0
awesome, thanks frankbb!
- Q0