About RAID questions

[lookouthere]

If I run RAID 10 on X58+ICH10R, is it safe to hot swap the drives if one of the drive fails? If one of the drives fail, how will I know which one? How will the rebuild of the RAID be done? Will it be done in the BIOS or in the Windows, offline or online mode?

Thanks!

 

[Nothinman]

All of that depends on the controller and it's software. If it supports AHCI you can probably do hotswap and if their management software doesn't suck you should be able to watch the rebuild happen in Windows while the array is still active.

 

[lookouthere]

i am thinking using the ICH10R onboard RAID on Gigabyte X58A-UD5. not sure on how to use RAID since it will be my first time using it

 

[Yellowbeard]

Setting RAID arrays up is very easy. Once you enable the controller in RAID mode, you'll get a prompt during POST (for Intel controllers press CTRL+I) and you enter the RAID setup screen. Here's an example of some RAID-0 setups:

http://www.corsair.com/systembuild/report.aspx?report_id=1084686

 

[lookouthere]

Should I go with WD RE3 series HD or go with cheaper WD Black series HD? I am thinking about running 1TB hds in RAID 10.

 

[lookouthere]

Also, if I don't run in RAID and need the hd to run 24x7, which brand drive is better to do it? Is Hitachi 1TB drive good? able to use it 24/7?

 

[lookouthere]

Is it necessary to use WD RE3 series hd to run in RAID? Can I use regular hd for it?

 

[H20cooled]

You can run the WD Black long as you have the update firmware and make a little tweak so that it does not show the drive as offline every so often causing the array to have to rebuild

 

[pjkenned]

I'm using 10+ Hitachi 1TB and 2TB disks in raid 1 and raid 6 right now. They have been working flawlessly. Plug-and-go. Peak performance isn't as good as faster drives. Power consumption is a little higher (we are talking 1-2w v. other 7200rpm drives). The drives just work though. This year I've RMA'd 0 Seagate, 0 Hitachi, 0 Intel, 1 OCZ, and 3 WD (green 1.5TB). Also the greens were not happy on the Areca raid.

In fact, when I added my now third 4U case to "The Big WHS" yesterday, the first drive in the enclosure was a Hitachi 1TB drive.

I still haven't RMA'd a Hitachi drive yet, so on one hand I can't comment on their RMA process, on the other hand, I haven't had to use it.

 

[lookouthere]

I'm using 10+ Hitachi 1TB and 2TB disks in raid 1 and raid 6 right now. They have been working flawlessly. Plug-and-go. Peak performance isn't as good as faster drives. Power consumption is a little higher (we are talking 1-2w v. other 7200rpm drives). The drives just work though. This year I've RMA'd 0 Seagate, 0 Hitachi, 0 Intel, 1 OCZ, and 3 WD (green 1.5TB). Also the greens were not happy on the Areca raid.

In fact, when I added my now third 4U case to "The Big WHS" yesterday, the first drive in the enclosure was a Hitachi 1TB drive.

I still haven't RMA'd a Hitachi drive yet, so on one hand I can't comment on their RMA process, on the other hand, I haven't had to use it.

Is your Hitachi regular HD or enterprise HD?

 

[RebateMonger]

I still haven't RMA'd a Hitachi drive yet, so on one hand I can't comment on their RMA process, on the other hand, I haven't had to use it.

I own about five Hitachi 1 TB disks and, so far, haven't had to RMA one. I did read over the RMA requirements before buying and it seemed their packaging requirements were pretty strict.

I love how resellers ship new OEM disks to us in packaging that usually doesn't meet the RMA packaging requirements.

 

[pjkenned]

Is your Hitachi regular HD or enterprise HD?

Regular. I was a big Seagate SAS fan for awhile, now SSD's + consumer disks.

@RebateMonger: I'm basically only buying retail packed these days precisely for this reason. Only exception is Dell which ships drives in RMA OK boxes.

 

[lookouthere]

So, I could use Hitachi drive which is cheaper than WD RE3 series for a RAID setup?

 

[Emulex]

if you don't mind failure - yes.

otherwise use the enterprise hitachi - same part # starts with E