what would you do? RAID HARD DRIVE SELECTION

[kherman]

OK, I've decided on a 3Ware serial RAID controller. I will be putting 128 meg on it. 256 if it supports that.

Redundancy is my main concern.

I have four options for hard drives:
1) 2 - western digital 120 gig, special edition 8 meg hard drives. 7200 RPM. Done in a RAID 1 configuration. $170x2 ($340)
acts like 1 120 gig hardd drive

2) 3 - western digital 80 gig hard drives, 7200 RPM. RAID 5 config 3x$100($300)
acts like 1 160gig hardd drive

3) 3 - western digital 80gig, special edition 8 meg hard drives. 7200 RPM. Done in a RAID 5 configuration. 3x$110 ($330)
acts like 1 160gig hardd drive

4) 4 - western digital 60 gig hard drives, 7200 RPM. RAID 5 config 4x$90($360)
acts like 1 180gig hardd drive


Prices are from google gear, just being used as estimates.

What I already figured out. Option 3 is obviously better than option 1. I left it for commenting purposes.

Based on cost/benefit, what would you do. Right now option 3 looks like the best option. Which setup will run the fastest? It looks like a fight between options 3 and 4.

 

[sharkeeper]

OK, I've decided on a 3Ware serial RAID controller. I will be putting 128 meg on it. 256 if it supports that.

Redundancy is my main concern.

That's a scary combination. I'm not familiar with the 3Ware controllers, but I'm sure they don't have a battery back up module for the cache. I hope you plan on (at the very least) a UPS. Even that won't stop you from corruption if you have a reset or you're in an environment (DOS, etc.) that won't use the features of the controller to flush the cache before restarting. If the controller supports write back caching, this is very, very important!

For example, if I ghost a logical drive containing an OS to my active logical (boot) drive and reboot, the dirty cache LED is lit and I get a message on next post about firmware flushing cache to the array. If I were to force aborting the flush (which I've done to test it) my active (boot) logical drive won't be bootable. This is because the 128MB "dirty" data wasn't flushed back to the drive and is gone forever. If this happens on a server (heaven forbid) you (or some other unfortunate individual) could be in trouble! :Q


Cheers!

 

[MonkeyK]

I'm not sure if the 3Ware cards will let you add more memory. Based on the configurations that you propose, it looks like you are looking at the 7500-4 (which I have). This comes with a 2MB cache.

-Mike

 

[MonkeyK]

Also, which configuration will work best depends on how you plan to use it. If you are looking at 4 or more concurrent/continuous users of of the data then clearly the option with 4 drives will perform the best. If you are looking at 3 users then option 3 is probably the best.


-Mike

 

[Pariah]

I'd get a cheap $50 ATA RAID card, and do #1 out of those choices if redundancy is your main concern. Subtract out the cost of the 3Ware card and it is the cheapest solution as well. 3Ware cards do not have upgradeable memory.

edit: I just looked at the price of the 3Ware 8500 series on pricewatch. Holy ---- those things are expensive. $425 for a 4 channel ATA card, $600 for the 8 channel and $850 for a 12 channel? If you want SATA cables that bad, just get the HighPoint RocketRAID card at Newegg for $120 and run RAID 1 on that.

 

[MonkeyK]

If you don't care about performance and all you want is redundancy, just do software raid 1. If you care about performance, get a 3Ware card, it is the only card that increases read performance in raid 1 (it also, is true hardware based raid, so CPU utilization is a little lower).
If you want raid 5, your only real options are Adaptec and 3Ware.


By the way, the 3Ware 7500-4 is available from HyperMicro for $245

Pariah, I don't see anything indicating that kherman is looking for serial ATA

Another really good place to research and discuss this stuff is StorageReview.com

 

[Pariah]

"Pariah, I don't see anything indicating that kherman is looking for serial ATA"

The first sentence in his post:

OK, I've decided on a 3Ware serial RAID controller.

 

[kherman]

sharkkeeper:
The scenerio you outline scares the crap out of me 🙂
I will be using a UPS.

As for no memmory upgrades on 3ware cards. I must have been thinking of another brand. My bad. Probably was thinking about Adaptec cards.

From what MonkeyK says, option 4 is out. it's for personal use only.

Well, i'll narrow it down to options 2 and 3:
) 3 - western digital 80 gig hard drives, 7200 RPM. RAID 5 config 3x$100($300)
acts like 1 160gig hardd drive

3) 3 - western digital 80gig, special edition 8 meg hard drives. 7200 RPM. Done in a RAID 5 configuration. 3x$110 ($330)
acts like 1 160gig hardd drive

LET THE DEBATE CONTINUE!

 

[kherman]

Well,
I "NEED" redundancy because I will be using the PC to store financial info on among other things. Mucho data.
I "WANT" performance because, I feal a RAID 5 solution is easily attainable for hte same price.

Here's the thing:
Look at solutions 1 and 3.
Both are redundant!
Both use the brand/model hard drives
3 actually costs less.
3 offers superior performance
3 offers about 25% more hard drive space.

So, RAID 5 is easily better than RAID 1. Therefore, option 1 makes no sense to me when compared to option 3.

Now consider options 2 and 3. They are essentially the same, except 3 is slightly more expensive. 3 is also slightly faster (or should be due to 8 meg buffers)

Now consider options 3 and 4. option 4 costs more and uses lower end harddrives, but has more capacity. From what has been said, 4 drive RAID 5 only makes sense for a server with 4+ connected users. This actually has alot of differences between them in terms of pros/cons.

So, I guess option 4 is right out because there is no performance boost and it costs more. I can't justify $60 for an extra 20 gig.

options 2 and 3 are left. The pros/cons are incredible. it's almost like a ciruclar loop when figuring out what is best..2 or 3. i guess it comes down to this. Will the special edition hard drives perform so much better in a RAID 5 configuration that it warrants the extra $30. Yes, it's only $30, but if no performance gain is to be had, that $30 can go to something else. i know performance is a "want" to me, so i can live withouth te special edition hard drives, but if hte extra $30 will give me a 20% performance boost, I can justify the extra $30. if it's like a 5% boost, I'll save the $30.

 

[MonkeyK]

Sorry Pariah, I didn't notice that.

kherman, I would not bother with SATA yet. I have not heard of any current advantages other than thinner cables (but you can get rounded parallel cables or split your own). Let SATA stick around for a while so that motherboards can start to use the increased bandwith and for the implementations to mature.

No doubt the 8MB drive is going to outperform the 2MB drive. Considering what you are investing ($245 + $300=$545, vs $245+$330=$575), I would spend the extra $30 and go with option 3. Either way your system should smoke. Take a look at the software forum at anandtech, I recall some software to run your CDs from your HD (daemon, I think). You'll definitely have the space

I'm only running two 80GB Seagate Barracuda IVs in raid 1 to power 2 out of three mp3 clients in my house (2 of: my machine, my wife's machine, and a SliMP3 attached to the sterio). Playback is always smooth as silk and my server is nearly silent (or at least it will be when I replace the AMD stock HSF). If for some reason, I use up my 80GB, I'll buy a third Cuda IV and go to raid 5.

-Mike

 

[Pariah]

"Both are redundant!"

True, but RAID 1 is still safer.

"3 actually costs less."

Not necessarily, if you factor in savings from a cheaper RAID card, the RAID 1 option is much cheaper. Around half as much.

"3 offers superior performance"

Not necessarily either. The RAID 1 array will still be significantly faster on writes.

"3 offers about 25% more hard drive space."

True, but with the money you save going with a cheaper RAID card, you can afford more capacity. Which would lead me to offer you option 5 which is the same capacity as 3, will perform better, has more data security and is cheaper on top of that. Get a 3Ware 7500-4 card and 4 WD 80Gb SE drives and run a RAID 10 array. The card is not SATA, but it doesn't really matter, because neither are any of the cards out now labeled as SATA. All the current cards are parallel ATA cards with SATA conversion chips on them that allow you to use the smaller cables. Paying $150+ simply for the luxury of thinner cables seems like a waste of money.