Looking For RAID Hardware/Software Advice

[Chipper]

Doesn't RAID 5 give a little more expandability?  If in the future he 
wants to add another drive on a RAID 5, he can.  I don't think he could 
do it with RAID1 or 1+0.

Craig White wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-01-19 at 07:30 -0700, Mark Phillips wrote:
>   
>> Eric
>>
>> Thanks for the summary, and thank-you to everyone for their ideas.
>>
>> Based on NewEgg prices, here is some more information:
>>
>>
>> Option A
>> Single Disk IDE Drive - 500 GB and backups, keep OS on existing drive
>> = $69.99
>> Use existing controller and just add another drive. No redundancy
>>
>>
>> Option B
>> RAID10 with 500 GB backup capacity and redundancy, keep OS on existing
>> drive = $179.97
>> 2 500 GB SATA2 Drives, new SATA2 controller
>>
>>
>> Option C
>> RAID10 with 750 GB backup capacity and redundancy, keep OS on existing
>> drive = $239.97
>> Two 750 GB SATA2 Drives, new SATA2 controller
>>
>>
>> Option D
>> RAID5 with 1,000 GB backup capacity and redundancy, keep OS on
>> existing drive = $239.97
>> Three 500 GB SATA2 Drives, new SATA2 controller
>>
>>
>> I am leaning towards Option C based on less power consumption with
>> fewer drives. However, I have to rethink my budget...
>>
>> After some more reading, I am a little confused about the debate
>> between RAID5 and RIAD10. I am interested in the group's opinions on
>> which is better - RAID 5 or RAID 10 and why? What experiences have you
>> had regarding installation, maintenance, and fixing problems? I am
>> running Debian testing.
>>     
> ----
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
>
> RAID 10 is FAR better performance than RAID 5 - so does RAID 1.
>
> RAID 10 in theory, requires 4 drives minimum. Think of RAID 10 as RAID 1
> + RAID 0 (hence the 10)
>
> RAID 5 in theory, requires 3 drives minimum. 
>
> RAID 0 = drives striped together to appear as a single drive. Logical
> sectors are interleaved between the drives
>
> RAID 1 = drives that mirror each other.
>
> Thus a RAID 10 would have at least 2 drives striped together in RAID 0,
> mirrored (RAID 1) by the same number of drives striped together.
>
> While you might be able to create RAID 10 with only 2 drives on some
> hardware, I can't think of any benefit for this over RAID 1 as the 'RAID
> 0' part of the array, being only single drives doesn't make much sense
> and just complicates things more.
>
> Don't know what RAID controllers you are looking at on NewEgg but be
> careful of fake RAID controllers as they are cheap and common but they
> don't work well...especially with Linux.
>
> Craig
>
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