Would a RAID 1 configuration be beneficial for a streaming video server?

[eP?]

I just wanted to know if it would be a plus to have a streaming video server setup in a raid configuration so that data is constantly being backed up? Or would this hamper performance? Also, if RAID 1 would be a good idea, then would using an IDE RAID config work as well for me as a SCSI config? Will the drives be able to keep up with the encoding/decoding being done by another machine or will it hiccup? I was planning on getting to 80GB 5400 RPM drives to do the work.

Thanks

 

[SCSIRAID]

RAID 1 will not improve your read performance over a non RAID environment. It will reduce write performance however. The benefit of RAID 1 over non RAID is the protection from a drive failure. If you want to boost read performance then RAID 0 will do that but at a higher risk of data loss since there are more drives involved and the loss of any one will result in the loss of all the data.

 

[eP?]

Yes, I understand how the RAID configurations work, but I was wondering if anyone who has experience with running a server for streaming video could recommend or advise against this sort of setup. My entire reason for wanting to use RAID 1 is that there will be 78 GB of video stored and I would really hate to lose it so I thought this would be a good way to back it up versus backing it up to out local servers (BIG OUCH!). I also would like to use IDE drives because SCSI drives cost way too much when they get big... I don't even want to know what a 80GB SCSI drive would cost.

THanks again