Hello all, Iâ??m about to take my first foray into Raid, and I was wondering if you could give me comments about my planned setup. First, system info and usage info.
Drive: 1x 120gb Western Digital 7200rpm /w 8mb cache
1x 60gb Western Digital 5400rpm
1x 40gb Maxtor 7200rpm
1x 45gb IBM 7200rpm (75gxp deathstar)
IDE Channels: Two of those drives are going to have to share one. The rest can get their own. Ideas of which two should share?
Usage: Well, this is a Win2K box and I plan to go full dynamic drives /w samba fileserving to my linux box if the need be. I use this box for coding (shouldnâ??t tax the system) and video editing, which taxes the system heavily. I basically want a windows partition, a binary partition for my apps/games, a HUGE partition for all my media, and then a small but extremely fast raid0/raid5 partition for my video editing files. Ideally, this would be the setup:
Windows/Office/VS.NET + LARGE swap: 15gb
Binaries: 15gb
Media: 220gb
Fast â??workingâ?? partition: 15gb
Now, the problems . . . I have never tried to set up Raid in such an extensive fashion, and have a ton of questions about how I am going to pull this off. First off, with this many drives, Raid5 would seem to be a nice option, but I am not exactly sure how Raid5 works on unequal drive sizes. If my 120gb drive goes down, will I really be able to recreate all that data from the other 3 drives? Also, are â??dynamic drivesâ?? smart enough that they can allow me to recreate it, i.e. spread the equivalent of the fat around?
Second, how much CPU power does Raid cost? I am under the assumption that for my 15gb â??workingâ?? Raid0 array, it is minimal. For video editing though, I need CPU power just as much as I need a fast array. How much will the parity calculations cost me? I am currently running a P4 1.6 @ 2.2 ghz.
Third, I have heard rumors that Windows dynamic discs do NOT handle a hard shutdown (i.e. pull the power plug) very well at all. How much truth is there to this?
And, the final question, if Raid5 turns out to be too expensive, that 220gb partition is gonna be spanning some drives. If I span it using JBOD raid, I am under the assumption that if I loose the second disc of a JBOD array that spans 3 discs, the information on the third disc is fine. Is this true?
In any case, thanks for reading over this. Please reply with any advice!
-Chu
Drive: 1x 120gb Western Digital 7200rpm /w 8mb cache
1x 60gb Western Digital 5400rpm
1x 40gb Maxtor 7200rpm
1x 45gb IBM 7200rpm (75gxp deathstar)
IDE Channels: Two of those drives are going to have to share one. The rest can get their own. Ideas of which two should share?
Usage: Well, this is a Win2K box and I plan to go full dynamic drives /w samba fileserving to my linux box if the need be. I use this box for coding (shouldnâ??t tax the system) and video editing, which taxes the system heavily. I basically want a windows partition, a binary partition for my apps/games, a HUGE partition for all my media, and then a small but extremely fast raid0/raid5 partition for my video editing files. Ideally, this would be the setup:
Windows/Office/VS.NET + LARGE swap: 15gb
Binaries: 15gb
Media: 220gb
Fast â??workingâ?? partition: 15gb
Now, the problems . . . I have never tried to set up Raid in such an extensive fashion, and have a ton of questions about how I am going to pull this off. First off, with this many drives, Raid5 would seem to be a nice option, but I am not exactly sure how Raid5 works on unequal drive sizes. If my 120gb drive goes down, will I really be able to recreate all that data from the other 3 drives? Also, are â??dynamic drivesâ?? smart enough that they can allow me to recreate it, i.e. spread the equivalent of the fat around?
Second, how much CPU power does Raid cost? I am under the assumption that for my 15gb â??workingâ?? Raid0 array, it is minimal. For video editing though, I need CPU power just as much as I need a fast array. How much will the parity calculations cost me? I am currently running a P4 1.6 @ 2.2 ghz.
Third, I have heard rumors that Windows dynamic discs do NOT handle a hard shutdown (i.e. pull the power plug) very well at all. How much truth is there to this?
And, the final question, if Raid5 turns out to be too expensive, that 220gb partition is gonna be spanning some drives. If I span it using JBOD raid, I am under the assumption that if I loose the second disc of a JBOD array that spans 3 discs, the information on the third disc is fine. Is this true?
In any case, thanks for reading over this. Please reply with any advice!
-Chu
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