RAID for first time

[JLV2k5]

Hey guys,

Built my PC in may, ill upload specs to profile soon. I'm now using just 1TB hdd and want to upgrade to RAID after cyber Monday. I am wondering:

a) best RAID setup for my needs and
b) what that means for my purchase

At work my company runs RAID4 where you have one dedicated parity drive which is responsible for ensuring the safety of all other drives. We have a replacement parity drive ready in case the active parity drive fails.

AT home I have about 1TB worth of files with aspirations to double this before the next time I buy drives (~1 yr from now). My main concern is:

"In RAID4, how large must your parity drive be in reference to your overall storage capacity?"

Examples: If I have two 1TB drives (2TB storage) how big does the parity drive need to be? What if I have 10TB, or 100TB?

Thanks!

Jake

 

[Zangetsu]

Hi Jake,

My first question is, why do you prefer or with what thought did you wanna go for a RAID 4?
My second question; is that how many HDD's are you going to use? This important to known. And how much disk capacity can you exchange for your security? Or isn't that that important?

 

[JLV2k5]

Hi Jake,

My first question is, why do you prefer or with what thought did you wanna go for a RAID 4?
My second question; is that how many HDD's are you going to use? This important to known. And how much disk capacity can you exchange for your security? Or isn't that that important?

I want one of the more efficient RAIDs by way of wasted drives. 0 doesn't back your data up. 1 is a waste. 2 is slower than 3 is slower than 4 is slower than 5, and I don't need double parity like RAID6. Therefore, 5 offers me backup through distributed parity, so I can store AND back up my 2TBs of data with just say 3 1TB drives (which is the upgrade plan for cyber monday 2012).

I'm going with RAID5 i think. I've have a blank drive ready to replace a failed one. Thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Zangetsu]

Ofcourse is RAID 5 a much more better thought. That's why I was interested about your thoughts about RAID 4. Because that has a dedicated parity control which causes for slow performance, and is kinda less secure then 5. If you can "sacrifice" 1 Disk of 3 disks, then I would definitely go for a RAID 5. But what kinda of a RAID controller do you have?

 

[JLV2k5]

Zangetsu thank you so much with help so far. Okay to clear some one this from last week. Yes Zang you're right - RAID5 is the new focus. It's faster and just as safe at RAID4.

Right now I have 1TB of storage and nearly 900gb filled. My plan is to buy two more 1TB hdds on Cyber Monday and RAID5 the two new ones with the one existing.

The next questions include:

what else is needed? I know I need a RAID controller or RAID software. I don't know much about this part right now - suggestions? help?

Thanks!