Think I should use a RAID 5 setup on a 4x750gig hdd system?

[Cyber Akuma]

I hate the fact that I would be losing 750 gigs of space in order to add some security for my data (I don't care about it being seen as one large drive), but having four 750 gig harddrives with no protection is just asking for trouble.

I am planning to buy a motherboard that supports RAID 5. Would this be better than using a PCI card?

What if I decided to add more harddrives later? Since I would be out of ports I would need to use an add-on card, I am assuming there is no possible way my motherboard and the PCI RAID card can work together to make one giant RAID5 array?

Think I should do this? It seems like the best way to protect my data while losing the least amount of space, but its still a lot of space lost to parity information.

And, while a RAID 5 will protect me if a drive fails, what would be the chances of TWO drives failing at once? Would it be better to buy drives from different manufacturers or woudl that be a stupid idea? Can you mix sizes or do they all have to be the smae size? Can you add another drive later or would you need to backup all data, format, and re-build the array to add another drive?

[MrKuro]

i personally use raid5 quite a bit .. i like that extra level of redundancy.

i also have a 4x750gb raid5 setup in one of my media servers, works great (mine are all identical, from the same manufacturer)

[shakey_snake]

I am planning to buy a motherboard that supports RAID 5. Would this be better than using a PCI card?

If say you get a motherboard with a south bridge chip that does the XOR processing, then yes.

What if I decided to add more harddrives later? Since I would be out of ports I would need to use an add-on card, I am assuming there is no possible way my motherboard and the PCI RAID card can work together to make one giant RAID5 array?

Probably not.

Think I should do this? It seems like the best way to protect my data while losing the least amount of space, but its still a lot of space lost to parity information.

It's really not that mush space to lose, compared to other options.

For various reasons, my suggestion is that you should probably only do this is you are running your OS from another volume.

And, while a RAID 5 will protect me if a drive fails, what would be the chances of TWO drives failing at once?

Slim.

Would it be better to buy drives from different manufacturers or woudl that be a stupid idea?

That is unnecessary. Buy all the same drives. You can buy them from different retailers if you want to reduce your chances of running into a bad batch.

Can you mix sizes or do they all have to be the smae size?

Same size. You can mix different sizes if you want to waste space. All disks will asume the size of the smallest disk.

Can you add another drive later or would you need to backup all data, format, and re-build the array to add another drive?

This will depend on your exact implemenation. Look for a card (or motherboard) with an "Online capacity expansion" feature.

[+PeterUK MVC]

First of all you can just go RAID 5 with three HDD's in case you think you need four.

I am planning to buy a motherboard that supports RAID 5. Would this be better than using a PCI card?

Going with a motherboard RAID is a cheap way to go and Intel RAID is the best. If you go with card (PCI-E would be best) that true hardware RAID it helps take the load off the CPU and being a card it can be moved to another computer for what ever reason.

What if I decided to add more harddrives later? Since I would be out of ports I would need to use an add-on card, I am assuming there is no possible way my motherboard and the PCI RAID card can work together to make one giant RAID5 array?

NO.

And, while a RAID 5 will protect me if a drive fails, what would be the chances of TWO drives failing at once?

High...

Would it be better to buy drives from different manufacturers or woudl that be a stupid idea?

Keep them all the same.

Can you mix sizes or do they all have to be the smae size?

Yes...but that limits the RAID to the smallest size so keep them the same.

Can you add another drive later or would you need to backup all data, format, and re-build the array to add another drive?

This can only be done with a card that supports this.

[shazbot]

Raid 5 will work on most good MBs BUT it will be quite slow as the MBs CPU has to do all the work for calculating, this can be seen and checked on Vista using its performance tool

So I would suggest a raid card, "I know have been and done it", careful on the raid card though certain say they are vista compatible and they are not, the speed difference between card and MB is quite astounding

[utdarkviper]

And, while a RAID 5 will protect me if a drive fails, what would be the chances of TWO drives failing at once?

High...

Actually it's not that high. The probability of two drives failing at the same time is much less than the probability of one drive failing. :p

[+PeterUK MVC]

Actually it's not that high. The probability of two drives failing at the same time is much less than the probability of one drive failing. :p

Yes might not of made that clear...bad way of saying less likely to happen. :x

[Shadrack]

I don't know what your plans are for your computer or the data on your computer, but any RAID configuration is not a backup solution in and of itself. RAID5 and RAID1 configurations are more time savers than data protectors. If a hard drive fails you can still be up and running. However, RAID5 and RAID1 offers no protection against malicious code or a user error that corrupts data. Only a periodic backup routine can protect you against that.

Setting up a backup routine should be the priority over a RAID configuration.

[onlinebackup]

You will need more than for hard drives. The whole idea of RAID is an appreciation that hard drives will all fail at some undetermined future date. While RAID will allow you to acces your data when this happens (up to a point or specific number of drives) you need to have replacement drives in advance of drive failure as a RAID system missing drives and in use while awaiting deliver is a data enemy. If you are going to have four active RAID drives, you need at least two spares. Remember, given that you know at least one failure will happen at a time it is best to cater for at least two in succession.

John

http://www.backupanytime.com/blog

quote name='Cyber Akuma' date='Jul 14 2008, 23:25' post='589555248']

I hate the fact that I would be losing 750 gigs of space in order to add some security for my data (I don't care about it being seen as one large drive), but having four 750 gig harddrives with no protection is just asking for trouble.

I am planning to buy a motherboard that supports RAID 5. Would this be better than using a PCI card?

What if I decided to add more harddrives later? Since I would be out of ports I would need to use an add-on card, I am assuming there is no possible way my motherboard and the PCI RAID card can work together to make one giant RAID5 array?

Think I should do this? It seems like the best way to protect my data while losing the least amount of space, but its still a lot of space lost to parity information.

And, while a RAID 5 will protect me if a drive fails, what would be the chances of TWO drives failing at once? Would it be better to buy drives from different manufacturers or woudl that be a stupid idea? Can you mix sizes or do they all have to be the smae size? Can you add another drive later or would you need to backup all data, format, and re-build the array to add another drive?