Best way to build a RAID box?

[WebHead]

Hello,

I want to build a box that will support RAID 5, what is the best way to go about this in terms of configuration? I have looked at a number of cases and stuff but I am unsure. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Buddha Bart]

1.) decent raid card (but if all you're gonna have is one raid5 array, it doesnt have to be very high end)
2.) three drives (same size/make/model)
3.) a connector ribbon
4.) the drivers for your OS
5.) some free time

you should probably also make sure the case has pretty good cooling, 3 10K or 15K drives can throw off a lot of heat

bart

 

[Thor86]

Depending on your OS, Win2k also supports software RAID 5. Not as fast as hardware raid, but at least it'll save you bucks on the controller card.

 

[Nothinman]

Depending on your OS, Win2k also supports software RAID 5. Not as fast as hardware raid, but at least it'll save you bucks on the controller card.

And it will also convert your disks to dynamic disks (which means no 3rd party data recovery, partitioning, etc utils will work) and will make getting the data back incase of a failure overly difficult.

I think IDE RAID sucks, but Win2K software RAID sucks worse.

 

[Woodie]

The case is important for space and for cooling...the RAID controller (chipset) can also get quite hot.
Don't forget, RAID 5 is usually (always?) SCSI based.
Look for a case that can use drive-trays, or some sort of easily swappable HD setup.

I have RAID 5 in my server (Compaq) as well as in my workstation. I love RAID 5--I've had 2 drive failures in the last month, and 5 minutes of downtime due to it.

I have a (inexpensive!) SCSI F/W RAID controller (DAC-960 based) FS. PM or EM me if you're interested...

--Woodie