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To RAID or not to RAID

W

WhiteKnight

Platinum Member
I'm in the process of pricing components for a new rig. My current PC runs 3x100gb drives in a RAID5 array. I find that I am having trouble deciding if I want a RAID setup in my new rig as well. My basic problem is that I am finding it difficult to give up the redundancy of an array. Obviously it is cheaper to go the non-RAID route, but I like having that extra layer of protection in the event of a drive failure. I currently backup my entire array to an external 250gb drive roughly once per week, but I'm still nervous about having a non-redundant setup in my new system. Any thoughts from both RAIDers and non-RAIDers?
 
If you can deal with the cost, stick with RAID. Otherwise, with modern drives, and your weekly backup routine, your risk of catastrophic data loss is pretty slim. Unless you are doing mission critical stuff, I wouldn't worry too much.
 
Any suggestions for a SATA RAID5 card? I know a lot of mobos include it but I'd like to take the load of the processor if possible.
 
If you want the best XOR - go for an Areca card. I have the 1210 pciex8 4 port version, and it is excellent.

Arecas have a 500mhz processer onboard that does all the processing, can do any type of RAID you can think of, and have 128megs onboard cache standard. I love mine- it's really fast- and I also use their battery backup unit so that I can have write-back cache enabled without worrying about my data too much. Another benefit of getting a good card, is that you can transfer your whole RAID setup to another computer and it'll work right away and isn't stuck with the mobo you set it up on.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. Is it a problem that most of these cards are 150. If I keep this for a while I don't want to run into potential bottlenecks with SATA 300. I realize that HDs only saturate the 150 bus in special circumstances now but I'm trying to think ahead.
 
Even the SATA 150MB/sec bus is only saturated if you have a high-end RAID. With your RAID 5 I would bet that it's not maxing out. 100gb drives don't have that high of platter density, so even sequential reads will probably not even hit 150MB/sec.

Either way, by the time native SATA 300 drives with NCQ and all that jazz are released I'm sure you'll want to be buying new drives anyway.

I am getting more and more interested in RAID, and one thing that I noticed is all those cards lack Native Command Queing support. I think NCQ seems like a no brainer for a high-end SATA card, but I guess not.
 
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