Raid 5 -upgrading capacity

[InlineFour]

Originally posted by: songokussm
Raid 0/1 or any combination of the two, just isn't a possibility because of the amount of storage i would loose.

My big plan, is to have a huge storage system. Something to put all of my family video, photos, DVDs etc. But i want more experience in this before i jump into it. Plus the wife just bought herself 2005 Aston Martin... its hard not to pick that car over my storage project.

i'm sure the price of a good raid card isn't a concern for you. 😉

question for the OP: how much storage do you see yourself using in the future? 1TB? 2TB?

 

[ND40oz]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: ND40oz
Raid 0+1, stick as many drives in the array as your controller supports.

A four-drive RAID5 has half the 'wasted' space as a four-drive RAID10/01 (1/4 instead of 1/2). An eight-drive RAID5 has a quarter the 'wasted' space (1/8 instead of 4/8).

You need to buy significantly more disk capacity to run RAID10 or RAID01 and get the same amount of usable space. The tradeoffs often make running RAID5 (or, when possible, RAID6) worthwhile.

Of course, I was responding back to the post that you could only have 2 disks in raid 1, which isn't necessarily true. Of course you waste disk space doing so, but depending on the redundancy you want/need, it may be an option. I use an 8 disk hardware raid 6 setup on my media server, if I have two go bad, i'm still good.

 

[songokussm]

Raid 6 is certainlly sounding nice. But as i already have the hardware for raid5, as of right now i think i will stick with that.

It hard because i can see my self using many TBs. The purpose of the storage device is to tansfer my dvds to a media server. Thus being able to watch any dvd with a click of a mouse. I have my server currently setup like a dvr, so its not much more different. At last count i have 3 kids. the youngest is 5 and the oldest is 12. Thats a lot of video.

@Scarpozzi
ummm....you asked alot of questions already stated so im going to pass those.

Now you stated to use a linking program. Do you know any for windows? Or just any names im sure i could find a review pointing to a windows version.

 

[songokussm]

i called highpoint, again. The first time the rep said he needed to ask the engineering department. Called today, and he stated they are running senerios to try and figure out if this is possible.

If what he said is true, this is very nice tech support. however the tech support person himself cant discribe or give you any information on how to do anything. so thats a negitive.

 

[Jeff7]

They don't know how to expand the capacity on their own RAID controllers????

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Yes, it is possible. Pain in the ass, but you can replace one and rebuild each time. However, during the process of the rebuild, you are vulnerable.

When it is done, use "diskpart.exe" to get the extra available space. It works beautifully. And it comes with windows. I took screen shots of the process, so PM me if you need a walkthrough kind of thing.

 

[TheNinja]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: songokussm
There are two things i know i can asure myself of. One is that this will work. Becuase all that i am doing is swapping out one drive for another. The part i am unsure of is gaining the extra storage space.

You won't gain any space on that RAID 5 volume by just replacing the drives. To use the extra space:
1) Create a new volume using the unallocated space after you've replaced the drives.
2) Use a 3rd-party utility to grow the volume in size.
3) Back up all the data and create a brand new array and restore to that.
4) Add the additional drives as a new, second, array.

I can agree with RebateMonger b/c I just went through the exact same thing. I was running RAID 5 with an online spare. I just swapped them out 1 at a time giving the array time to rebuiled between each swap. It works fine but as already mentioned you don't automatically get that extra storage. Unfortunately my array controller does not allow me to expand mine either so I'll probably have to find a way to expand it with a third party software or something b/c I can't just blow my array way...my system is installed on the same array that I want to expand for my data 🙁

 

[songokussm]

they never called me back. or emailed as was prommised.....

tried it on my own, and i could change the drives while keep the data intact, but i could not get the raid controller to up the compasity on the array. is what i could do though is use the 'wasited space' made a new array. Apparently this controller supports using 1 drive in several different arrays. very impressed with the controler, not the support.