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#174955 - 12/08/2003 11:40 RAID5 as a function of Windows
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Since I am starting to re-rip in FLAC at an active rate now, I am running out of space on my main computer with the 200GB drive. I had planned for this and started building a server to house all my tunes. I also decided that it must have redundant storage. RAID5 has already been determined as the desired RAID level. I'm at the point now where I have to decide if I want hardware or software RAID.

I am using IDE disks. There is no question there. The only thing I need to know is if there is any compelling reason I should buy something like the Promise FastTrack SX4000 or just use what's built into Windows 2000 Advanced Server (my likely platform, but NT 4.0 is also an option).

If I go for software RAID, this would be the configuration:
  • 1 - Samsung SP0602N 60GB Hard Disk. Used as the system disk connected to the motherboard's primary IDE controller.
  • 3 - Samsung SP01604N 160GB Hard Disks. These three drives would be combined in a RAID5 array to achieve 320GB of space. I chose Samsung drives because they are quiet, cheap, and still come with a 3 year warranty.
  • 3 - HighPoint Rocket133SB IDE adapters. These are cheap single channel PCI adapters with their own BIOS on board. I would like to use single channel adapters for the RAID drives because I would be able to monitor drive access with independent LEDs for each disk.
Anyone care to comment on that set up? It's going to take a lot more good points to convince me to use a RAID card over software than the DLT/DAT thing the other day.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174956 - 12/08/2003 11:53 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
It's going to take a lot more good points to convince me to use a RAID card over software than the DLT/DAT thing the other day.
Um, think about it Rob. This is a MICROSOFT implementation of software RAID we're talking about.

Last time I tried to use a Microsoft software RAID, I lost all the contents of the disks when one of the disks failed. Fortunately, I'd backed them up the night before onto DLT...

Also think about speed. A hardware RAID controller will be hella faster. It'll have onboard cache and such.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#174957 - 12/08/2003 12:00 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tfabris]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Hardware RAID5 will be orders of magnitude faster than software RAID5, especially in writes. Reads will be faster, but not by as much. Recovering a failed drive should be much less intensive under hardware.

Of course, all that assumes a solid RAID5 software implementation, which, from what I hear, simply does not exist in the Windows one. Every Windows admin I've ever met eschew it completely, including the rare ones who actually know what they're talking about.

You could go with an OS that has software RAID that's not failed on me in ten years or so, though: Solaris. It'll cost you $20 to download it.
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Bitt Faulk

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#174958 - 12/08/2003 12:02 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
Yeah, I'd agree with Tony and say you want hardware raid if you're going to do it right. Speed probably won't be too much of a factor for you, so you could probably get away with something cheap. You probably should still keep some sort of backups, however, as raid isn't a panacea, and if your raid controller crashes hard enough you can loose all your data. Then again, you could consider your CDs the backup in that unlikely turn of events.

Matthew

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#174959 - 12/08/2003 12:07 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
A hardware RAID5 card will be much faster than the software RAID option. You can also get hot-swap enclosures for hardware RAID cards which you wouldn't be able to do with software RAID.
I personally would use a 3Ware Escalade IDE RAID card but they're much more expensive than the Promise cards. The 3Ware cards have much better support under Linux and I've found them to be more reliable. I've got an 8 channel Escalade 7500-8 but it was around $500. Not sure how much the 2 channel one is though.

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#174960 - 12/08/2003 12:07 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tfabris]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
So what you're saying is have to be less of a cheap-ass when it comes to backups and RAID arrays?

OK, supposing I go straight for hardware RAID, can anyone recommend a good/cheap card? I don't need something with 256MB of cache, so whatever the bare minimum is and still being better than the Windows stuff would be ideal.

It's going to take a lot more good points to convince me to use a RAID card over software than the DLT/DAT thing the other day.
I guess the first three people replying to the thread bashing MS RAID was good enough.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174961 - 12/08/2003 12:12 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tfabris]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
Also think about speed. A hardware RAID controller will be hella faster. It'll have onboard cache and such.


Whilst I don't dispute that, I don't think that it's that relevant. RAID5 takes a huge hit during the write - every drive must be read in order to calculate parity. Read performance is much better. For a web server or media vault, RAID5 is ideal, for a syslog server, not so. That being said, a hardware RAID5 implementation should be significantly better than a software implementation.

This is a MICROSOFT implementation

That would be my concern.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#174962 - 12/08/2003 12:24 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tman]
ricin
veteran

Registered: 19/06/2000
Posts: 1495
Loc: US: CA
I'll second the Escalade vote. The cheapest one you'll find that supports RAID 5 is the 7410 at just under $200. Most definitely worth the money though. In fact, you might want to consider going with a 7506-4LP for the extra $60 or so since the 74xx series is a little out of date, and the 75xx series has updated specs.
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Donato
MkII/080000565
MkIIa/010101253
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#174963 - 12/08/2003 12:28 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: ricin]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Both of those are 64-bit it seems.

Just because it's in a server case, doesn't mean it's a proper server.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174964 - 12/08/2003 12:29 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
Looks fine. But many dual-channel IDE controller cards also have one-LED per channel ("cable"), which is what you want, and which could save you a PCI slot or two -- many modern motherboards have only three PCI slots these days.. Think of the future (when your current mobo dies).

As for the hardware vs. software RAID: contrary to common theories, software raid has potential for the most speed (unless we're talking about 64-bit 66Mhz PCI.. which we are NOT, right?) -- especially with IDE drives. No single PCI slot bottlenecks with s/w RAID. But since you're using MS RAID s/w, all bets are off on that one.

Cheers

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#174965 - 12/08/2003 12:33 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
Folsom
member

Registered: 12/08/2001
Posts: 175
Loc: Atlanta
How often are you going to be writing to the drive? If you are mostly reading and want cheap, I would go for the software RAID. Why pay for the extra performance if you are not going to use it?

Edit: This is also assuming a non-MS software solution.


Edited by Folsom (12/08/2003 12:35)

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#174966 - 12/08/2003 12:46 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
We are talking 32-bit PCI. Currently there are 4 slots available and 5 total. The other is populated by a gigabit NIC. Yeah, I'm aware 32-bit PCI can't fully support a gigabit NIC. Blah blah blah....

I have used RAID5 software in Linux before (although I didn't set up the array) and that seemed to work. Of course, the drives never died, so I am unaware how well it does during crunch time. Other than that, I have used and set up a RAID5 array with a $1300 Mylex 3 channel UW SCSI card. That thing was pretty excellent when a drive died.

So, it seems that the only problem with RAID software is when it's made by Microsoft? I can believe it.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174967 - 12/08/2003 12:56 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
I have no issue with RAID hardware --> just remember that you must purchase at least one spare RAID controller for use when the first one dies.. single point of failure, there.

Cheers

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#174968 - 12/08/2003 13:14 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
ilDuce
journeyman

Registered: 22/06/2002
Posts: 92
actually.... I have pretty much nothing to contribute to this discussion.. Allthough I have always wondered what the hell a non important server has to do with raid?

I thought that all what raid was doing, was to mirror disks. So that when 1 disk fails, disk2 takes over the job. (if for ex. your root is on disk1 and that fails the server can still operate because the root is also on disk2?)
So why would anybody want to use raid @home and use 2 disks for the same job?

Or is there any performance improvements by this? By enebaling multi read/write (?) so that the OS can read from 2 different parts off the root at the same time?
would love some pretty good explenations on this!
Got link?...=)

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#174969 - 12/08/2003 13:22 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: ilDuce]
ricin
veteran

Registered: 19/06/2000
Posts: 1495
Loc: US: CA
There are different levels of RAID. What they're talking about here is RAID 5. Much more than just mirroring disks.
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Donato
MkII/080000565
MkIIa/010101253
ricin.us

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#174970 - 12/08/2003 13:23 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: ilDuce]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
There are different levels of RAID. RAID0 is commonly used by gamers and it is basically using 2 or more disks as one in order to achieve higher read/write speeds.

Mirroring one disk to the other is RAID1.

RAID5 (what I want) is the ability to take 3 drives (in my case) and use the capacity of two of them as one drive. The third drive-space stores parity information in case one of the other drives dies. If that were to happen, I could recover the data on the dead drive to a new drive and continue as if nothing happened. When we're talking about 100s of gigabytes of music that's a pain in the ass to rip, having this kind of security is desireable (IMHO).

There are probably 10 different RAID levels. 0, 1, and 5 are the most common though.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174971 - 12/08/2003 13:29 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
ilDuce
journeyman

Registered: 22/06/2002
Posts: 92
wow.... and quick reply´s too.... thanks....

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#174972 - 12/08/2003 13:29 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
The third drive-space stores parity information
That's not quite true. The parity is striped along with the real data. RAID 2, IIRC, had a dedicated parity disk, but no one uses that anymore.
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Bitt Faulk

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#174973 - 12/08/2003 13:32 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: wfaulk]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
hence, I said "drive-space"

The idea is you have 3 disks (480GB in my case). The capacity of two of them (320GB) is available to the user. The remaining third (160GB) is used for parity bits. Drive-space.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174974 - 12/08/2003 13:36 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Hmmm. Okay. I'll let it slide.
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Bitt Faulk

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#174975 - 12/08/2003 13:38 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: wfaulk]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Thanks.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174976 - 12/08/2003 13:40 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
jmwking
old hand

Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 777
Loc: Washington, DC metro
And for the Novice, "Parity" in this case simply means that if any single drive of the 3 (or more in larger arrays) fails, that one drive can be replaced, and all the original information on the combined drives is still there (usually with a bit of work).

If more than one drive fails at once, you need a DLT or DVD-RAM or something else with a recent backup.

-jk

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#174977 - 12/08/2003 14:55 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: jmwking]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
On the more advanced hardware RAID controllers it will automatically swap in a spare drive once one fails. It'll then automatically begin to rebuild the lost data in the background from the parity data spread over the other drives. This is whilst your server is still running and you'll never know anything went wrong apart from it's slower than usual.

When you've got time you replace the bad drive and reinitialise it as a hot spare. And off you go

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#174978 - 12/08/2003 15:00 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tman]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
Yeah, my current server does this. I tested it by literally pulling out one of the drives while it was running. It was like nothing had happened. Re-inserting the drive caused it to automatically begin rebuilding that drive (slowly, in the background, as the server was still fully up and running). Very nice!
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Tony Fabris

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#174979 - 12/08/2003 15:14 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tfabris]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
It's going to take a lot more good points to convince me to use a RAID card over software than the DLT/DAT thing the other day.
Um, think about it Rob. This is a MICROSOFT implementation of software RAID we're talking about.
Actually, no it's not. The Help-About window in Disk Manager states "Dynamic disk and volume management provided to Microsoft by VERITAS Software Corporation.". And last I knew, MS and Veriats wern't getting along well, so if there was a problem, I don't see it being fixed any time soon. Took MS 3 service packs to fix an issue where a hardware RAID expansion would blow up dynamic disk layouts due to the drive info being held at the end of the hard drives.

Software (or cheep RAID controllers that simply are IDE controllers and software RAID drivers) = bad.

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#174980 - 12/08/2003 15:18 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
RAID0 is commonly used by gamers and it is basically using 2 or more disks as one in order to achieve higher read/write speeds.
And I laugh at most gamers who did this, after seeing time and time again that it ends up being slower. Why? Well the benchmarks aren't trying to do other things with the CPU during the benchmark, so it seems fine. But toss in a game loading, and all of a sudden their der cheep IDE RAID card and it's software RAID implemented via drivers chokes their system.

Raid 5, well, get a hardware controller for sure. And not just because of the dynamic disk mess, but because having to do Raid 5 calculations in software sucks. Newer Smart Array controllers (Generation 4-6) actually have IBM PowerPC processors to do dedicated Raid 5/6 calculations.

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#174981 - 12/08/2003 15:23 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: drakino]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
And I laugh at most gamers who did this, after seeing time and time again that it ends up being slower.
Not to mention that it doubles the chances of a catastrophic failure of a drive wiping out all your data. (Two drives with no redundancy==twice as much chance for failure.)
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#174982 - 12/08/2003 16:06 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: drakino]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
Okay guys.. don't get me started, but.. the only thing "cheap" about ATA (a form of "IDE", just like SCSI is..) is the price. The drives are the exact same hardware models, with different connectors and different firmware loads, but everything about them flys and is as reliable as anything else.

There's just a LOT more of them out there, which is why one hears a lot more failure stories. Not to mention that people are reluctant to make a fool of themselves by posting failure stories about hardware they paid double (or more) for..

The big differences compared with the alternatives (primarily SCSI) are:
(1) ATA is typically half the cost, or less,
(2) driver makers "differentiate" their product lines by reserving the faster spin-rate mechanisms for SCSI-only, as otherwise nobody would pay the premium.
(3) max two drives per channel on most ATA implementations, versus more on SCSI cables. But in a high end server, you really want as few drives per cable as possible, regardless of the protocol used.

Cheers

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#174983 - 13/08/2003 00:02 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
I know the drive are the same, my main point is that most PCI IDE RAID controllers in the low end are simply IDE controllers and a special BIOS/driver to enable RAID by using the CPU to do everything.

Also, the firmware does make a difference on reliability. Most Compaq hard drives that go into servers have their monitoring set to very low thresholds, so a minor hickup will be reported, and may cause the server to flag the drive as one to replace soon.

Where as I have an ATA hard drive in my media system that dosen't even do DMA transfers anymore, randomly corrupts things, but in general still somewhat works. SMART hasn't gone off once.

Other area the firmware is useful, peformance. Until recently, no manufacturer implemented tag command queuing in ATA drives.

Good points though that most drives now are pretty iidentical in their physical charistics and such.

(too tired to bother fixing the spelling mistakes and not on a browser that red underlines them)

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#174984 - 13/08/2003 05:57 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: drakino]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
So you are using a defective drive, one that you know is defective, and complaining about its reliablility, and therefore the reliability of all such drives?

Excuse me while I barf!

EDIT:

Tagged queuing is way overrated, though it does appear to give windows a boost of some kind (pretty much anything could help windows..). SCSI drives/controllers haven't had it for very long either, and at the same spin rate ATA drives normally outperform their SCSI brethern even without it.

I did a lot of work last year on a nice tagged-queuing controller for ATA drives, and with 7200rpm ATA mechanisms attached to it, it outperforms 10000rpm SCSI drives on a decent SCSI adapter under Windows, using tagged queuing.

But oddly enough, toggling tagged-queuing doesn't make as huge a difference with the same hardware under Linux -- the kernel already orders transactions fairly well, so unless one is using too small of a stripe size or some such thing, it's only worth a few percent, if that.

Managing a RAID in software is hardly any noticeable workload (Linux, FreeBSD) versus having a single card (bottleneck) do it all in firmware, unless one is using a ridiculously tiny stripe size (less than 128KB; 256KB is often better). Recalculating parity for RAID5 writes can be a little expensive, but if the system is that busy with I/O, then the CPU probably has enough spare cycles while it's waiting, so no big deal. Except on really big servers.

Here's a nice paper that discusses lots of RAID considerations: http://www.vinumvm.org/vinum/fullintro.html

Cheers


Edited by mlord (13/08/2003 06:15)

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#174985 - 13/08/2003 06:23 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
So... nobody has a problem with that Promise card? It doesn't come with memory, so I think I would get a 64MB stick (the minimum).
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174986 - 13/08/2003 06:35 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
For ATA ("IDE"), the consensus is that these guys http://www.3ware.com/ rule.

Cheers

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#174987 - 13/08/2003 06:37 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
The card seems okay. There is a review on storagereview where it compared it against an Adaptec card (this one was best) and the previous generation Escalade card. It wasn't the best performance but it was good for what you pay.

[edit]Oops. It's a SuperTrak SX6000 on that review...[/edit]


Edited by tman (13/08/2003 06:38)

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#174988 - 13/08/2003 06:39 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
RAID5 doesn't seem to be supported on their 32-bit cards
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174989 - 13/08/2003 06:40 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
Bummer.

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#174990 - 13/08/2003 06:42 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Not really. They're expensive. I'm glad the cheaper card has more functionality.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174991 - 13/08/2003 08:12 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
I just bought the SX4000 and 3 160GB Samsung drives.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174992 - 13/08/2003 10:39 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
Hey Rob, where did you buy those drives? I tried searching with the model number you posted here, but didn't find anything.
_________________________
Matt

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#174993 - 13/08/2003 10:43 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: Dignan]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
I ended up getting these from newegg. I am not sure what the model # discrepancy is all about (missing a leading zero), but I would imagine they're the same drives.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#174994 - 13/08/2003 10:50 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
Ah, yeah I see the problem. Odd. Although is seems the entire internet sees them without the zero, so maybe Samsung is listing their products weirdly.

Anyway, those look cool. Good luck!
_________________________
Matt

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#174995 - 13/08/2003 14:32 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
jimhogan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Hmmm, I was pretty sure the (often affordable, eBayable) 3ware 6410 supported RAID5.

I love and respect the 3ware cards, but in your shoes might just set up mirroring with one of the Arco Duplidisks. What 3Wares (and most RAID cards) *don't* give you is teh ability to swap in pairs of larger disks later on to expand your array size (which is why I like the dumb Duplidisks). I would opine more thootfully on this but I just drove in from the coast (from Portland to Boston in 3 days) and I gotta take a shower and nap.....
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.

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#174996 - 13/08/2003 14:41 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: jimhogan]
Phoenix42
veteran

Registered: 21/03/2002
Posts: 1424
Loc: MA but Irish born
I believe it does too Jim, but they also did have a version optimised to work with RAID 5 sold as 6450, how big of a differance there was between a 6410 and a 6450 I don't know.

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#174997 - 19/08/2003 15:14 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
So you are using a defective drive, one that you know is defective, and complaining about its reliablility, and therefore the reliability of all such drives?


I wasn't using that drive to base my reliability claim on ATA drives, just stating that too many people get a false sense of security with SMART and such. If that drive shouldn't have been setting off SMART alerts months ago, I don't want to see a drive that does trigger an alert.

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#174998 - 19/08/2003 18:17 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: drakino]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
I've only ever seen one drive give SMART warnings and that was a drive that was in a rather battered laptop. It did actually kind of work but had a transfer rate of about 1k/s as Windows would load but slooooowly.
All of the other dud drives I've got just died suddenly without any warning.
SMART is more for giving you a probability that the drive is going to be bad rather than actually warning you of impending failures. It basically keeps statistics e.g. power on hours, CRC errors, seek times and if the values exceed the preset thresholds then it will warn you.

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#174999 - 24/10/2003 13:14 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
UPDATE:

I got the machine together (finally) earlier this week but determined that 320GB was probably not enough. I decided to add another 160GB drive for a total of 480GB in RAID5. Well, I got my 4th drive in today and quickly hooked it up.

It seems this FastTrack SX4000 works.



Attachments
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-Rob Riccardelli
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#175000 - 24/10/2003 14:10 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
Mmmmmm....447GB....Droooool...
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Matt

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#175001 - 24/10/2003 14:17 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: Dignan]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
The problem is that that's a lot of data to lose should something go horribly wrong.
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-Rob Riccardelli
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#175002 - 24/10/2003 14:26 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
The problem is that that's a lot of data to lose should something go horribly wrong.
I certainly hope if all this pr0n^H^H^H^Hdata is important to you, you have a more permanent backup?

In all seriousness, "something horrible" means two drives failing at the same time.. Short of your entire PC bursting into flames, that seems highly unlikely. The really, really, really important subset of that data should be put on CD/DVD and stored in a safe. The rest is probably very safe in a RAID5 array, assuming your RAID card/drivers/etc. are up to snuff.
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#175003 - 24/10/2003 14:33 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tonyc]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
That's what I meant by "horribly wrong." I could see it happening. Then again, re-acquiring 500GB worth of pr0n could be fun too.
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-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#175004 - 24/10/2003 14:37 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tonyc]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
Well, it's safe from drive failures. It's not safe from user errors, or computer or raid controller failures.

Matthew

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#175005 - 24/10/2003 14:53 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: tonyc]
siberia37
old hand

Registered: 09/01/2002
Posts: 702
Loc: Tacoma,WA
Another thing that can screw up RAID paritions is unplugging the drives and then plugging them in again but in the wrong order. I kinda of did this once, ended up forgetting to plug one of the drives in with a RAID 5 set. That cost mea day of rebuiliding when I realized my mistake.. Leaving two unplugged may have been disastrous..

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#175006 - 25/10/2003 03:37 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: Dignan]
Roger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
Mmmmmm....447GB....Droooool

Admittedly, it wasn't configured for RAID, but on my Linux box recently...


offbeat:/# df -H
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 7.4G 460M 6.6G 7% /
/dev/hda3 31G 6.6G 23G 23% /home
/dev/hdm1 6.9G 1.7G 5.0G 25% /mnt-m1
/dev/hdm3 71G 15G 53G 22% /mnt-m3
/dev/hdo1 79G 64G 12G 85% /mnt-o1
/dev/hde1 248G 34M 235G 1% /mnt-e1
/dev/hdg1 248G 34M 235G 1% /mnt-g1
/dev/hdi1 248G 34M 235G 1% /mnt-i1

That's a grand total of 870 GiB :-)

...and I've still got 8 IDE connectors[1] left.

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#175007 - 26/10/2003 01:55 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: Roger]
julf
veteran

Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
What controller are you using?

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#175008 - 26/10/2003 05:01 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: julf]
Roger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
Highpoint RocketRAID 404. On that machine, there's also 4 IDE headers on the motherboard (2x VIA Ultra66, 2x Promise Ultra100).
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#175009 - 26/10/2003 16:56 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: siberia37]
gbeer
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
The other thing about redundant systems is that you have to pay attention to failures.

A parallel example is the triad lisence server where I work. Typically, the SAs never notice anything is wrong until the third server in the triad dies. Would you trust these guys with RAID.
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#175010 - 27/10/2003 00:22 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: gbeer]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
The other thing about redundant systems is that you have to pay attention to failures.
Agreed. I take a walk at least every two days by the servers I help manage at work. No red lights, I keep walking, otherwise I check to see what the failure was. Redundant fans, power supplies, and hard drives all make it very clear when they fail.

One day I'll get the agents loaded on the machines so they can just page me. That way, noone using these servers will ever notice any failures.

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#175011 - 27/10/2003 02:58 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: drakino]
julf
veteran

Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
One day I'll get the agents loaded on the machines so they can just page me

Or at least get everything onto one screen. One of the companies I'm involved in, BaseN, is selling network monitoring and performance measurement services based mostly on SNMP. But their system can show pretty much anything on the same screen, with alarm limits - so I actually abuse it to monitor machine room temperature, line voltage, house heating... and of course every single SNMP-monitorable parameter of all my systems. So I have stopped looking for red lights on the devices themselves

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#175012 - 27/10/2003 06:44 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows - DON't DO IT... [Re: robricc]
LittleBlueThing
addict

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 612
Loc: Reading, UK
Cooool

But

How are you backing this up? If your reference to DAT/DLT is 'cos that's the backup mechanism then fine, disregard the rest of this post... but for anyone considering RAID read on...

I used to run RAID - it's fun, it's what big systems do, hey, it must be the right answer...

WRONG!! (or at least - it's not a slam dunk)

IMHO Most people shouldn't run RAID at home (well, not for mirroring anyway).
Mirroring means that both disks have the data written to them instantly - great.
Data is also blatted instantly if you accidentally do something bad - like corrupt a database, hit delete on the wrong directory etc etc. Even get a virus. And that's generally a lot more likely than a hard disk failure (unless you run IBM deskstars )

I suggest that you have seperately mounted disks and an automatic nightly (or hourly if you like) backup from drive A to drive B.

Then, when (not if!) you cock something up and get that chilled, scared feeling you find that your quiet backup disk is worth an awful lot...
This happened to me when I accidentally killed the partition with *all* my irreplaceable digital photos - whilst trying to replace the failed mirror drive - and believe me I nearly cried! (Luckily in my backup paranoia I'd copied this onto yet another spare partition 2 days before and all I lost were the date stamps - every photo is now 8/July/2002 10:22 - in the 30 seconds until I remembered this I was actually shaking - weird but true!)

For those who run a linux server look here:
http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

Robricc, you sound like you have the know-how to run rsync on windows so take a look and see what you think...

Rsync
http://rsync.samba.org/
on windows:
http://optics.ph.unimelb.edu.au/help/rsync/rsync_pc1.html

By the way, rsync was written by Andrew Tridgell (of Samba fame) and is a way of comparing and synchronising data across a network without transferring all the data...
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#175013 - 27/10/2003 06:59 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows - DON't DO IT... [Re: LittleBlueThing]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
I use rsync nightly to sync all my data both onto a local backup server and also to another machine hung off a friend's DSL line. I now know that even if my house burns down my data (including 10GB of photos and 20GB of MP3s) is safe.

My remote server is a very cheap mini-itx based machine, so it cost less than a decent tape drive and is completely silent apart from the hard drive (which is important because it has to sit in a friend's house).

I obviously had to connect the remote server locally to do the initial transfer. Rsync then just sends the changes each day.

P.S. I have rsync configured not to duplicate deletes, then if I delete anything locally it doesn't dissappear from the mirrors. Occasionally I it with the delete option so that it cleans up stuff I have moved around.

P.P.S. I wish rsync was just a little bit more clever, so that it noticed when you had moved files and just moved the ones on the target, rather than duplicating them into the new location.
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#175014 - 25/11/2003 02:41 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
phaigh
addict

Registered: 04/11/1999
Posts: 649
Loc: Reading, UK
So how are you getting on with the drive/card/RAID Array?

I'm about to take the plunge on a very similar system (only on SATA, rather than ATA) using the Promise S150 SX4 (http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?productId=112&familyId=2), so I'm curious how your experience has been so far.

I'm going for 4x160GB Maxtor SATA drives. (Total 480GB)

I take it that you didn't install Windows on that array as well?

Cheers,

Paul.
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#175015 - 25/11/2003 07:41 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: phaigh]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
I can't complain. It's currently serving my FLAC, MP3 and DVDs. I over-estimated the amount of space I needed, but that's fine.

Windows is installed on a separate 40GB drive.

Using SATA would have been better for me. Too many flat ribbon cables all over the place. I will probably round my own cables or just buy some pre-rounded ones.
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-Rob Riccardelli
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#175016 - 25/11/2003 10:06 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
How many drives can you get with SATA? Are there cards for them? My mobo only has two connectors on it, so I can only get two there, right?

Also, don't you dislike Western Digital drives? I thought they were the only ones with SATA drives up to the size you're talking about...
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#175017 - 25/11/2003 10:41 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: Dignan]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
3Ware has SATA Raid cards. I don't know much about using the technology (since I never have), but I do believe that it's one drive only per connector.

The previous poster says he is buying 160GB Maxtor SATA drives. I used 160GB Samsung ATA drives. Maxtor is cool with me.
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-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#175018 - 25/11/2003 11:26 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: Dignan]
phaigh
addict

Registered: 04/11/1999
Posts: 649
Loc: Reading, UK
The SATA Raid card supports 4 devices, 1 per connector. There is no master/slave type stuff with SATA as far as I can see, so two connectors means two drives.

the MB also has a number of SATA connectors on it, but I'll probably get a normal IDE drive just for windows.

Paul.
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#175019 - 25/11/2003 11:27 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
phaigh
addict

Registered: 04/11/1999
Posts: 649
Loc: Reading, UK
Rob, did you have any trouble with current draw at startup? What sort of PSU do you have. I'm a bit concerned about powering 5 drives all at once, especially if I keep some of the existing scsi stuff in there.

Cheers,

Pau.
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Paul Haigh, Reg. 4120 (mk1) 6GB, Blue, 00254 (mk2) 12GB, Red, 00357

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#175020 - 25/11/2003 11:34 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: phaigh]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
I am using this 420W power supply. I have no current problems that I can see.

I have 5 hard drives, CD-ROM drive, floppy drive, and Duron 1.3GHz CPU and the RAID card.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#175021 - 25/11/2003 11:36 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
I hope this is not under WinXP..

If it is, then I wonder what happens when a drive dies and is replaced.. will XP refuse to boot (since it memorizes "legal" configurations and barfs whenever anything changes..).

-ml

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#175022 - 25/11/2003 11:42 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
JBjorgen
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3584
Loc: Columbus, OH
It still boots up to 5 times before you must re-activate it. A simple 5 minute phone call does the trick. I've done it a couple times.

Also, you must usually replace more than one piece of hardware for the re-activation to kick in.
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#175023 - 25/11/2003 11:46 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: JBjorgen]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
Oh, okay, maybe a feature of the PRO version, I suppose.

A friend here has spent the past three weeks trying to recover her files from a corrupted filesystem on WinXP Home. We copied the original drive to an identical unit so as not to let WinXP fsck up the original, and it refused to boot AT ALL on the copy, complaining with various accusations of piracy.

Total lunacy.

-ml

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#175024 - 25/11/2003 11:49 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
JBjorgen
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3584
Loc: Columbus, OH
Ah. I've never been able to do that either with home or pro. The funny thing is, it's ridiculously easy to install a pirated version of XP, but when you are trying to make an honest change, it screws you over.
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#175025 - 25/11/2003 11:50 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
Odd. I moved my hard drive from a Shuttle SS51 XPC into an SB51, and XP didn't complain at all about not being activated. This is with a full retail XP copy. The differences between the systems were the main chipset changing from a SiS based one to an Intel 845. This was with XP Pro Service Pack 1 about 9 or so months ago.

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#175026 - 25/11/2003 12:22 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: mlord]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
I am using Win2k on the RAID box but I've seen it barf just as much as XP. I don't think it will be a problem though since I am not using the RAID array as the boot device/system drive.
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-Rob Riccardelli
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#175027 - 25/11/2003 13:03 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
Neutrino
addict

Registered: 23/01/2002
Posts: 506
Loc: The Great Pacific NorthWest
Here's what I'm doing for raid5, 6 160gb drives. 5 of them in the array with a hot spare for protection. I used a sx6000 controller and the IDE hotswap drive bays. This way I know the status of the array at a glance.


Attachments
189797-raid5.jpg (270 downloads)

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#175028 - 25/11/2003 13:11 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: Neutrino]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Maybe I should take a picture of my server. It won't look as cool though.
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-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#175029 - 25/11/2003 13:45 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: Neutrino]
andym
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
Cool server, what do you use it for?
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Andy M

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#175030 - 25/11/2003 15:17 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: andym]
Neutrino
addict

Registered: 23/01/2002
Posts: 506
Loc: The Great Pacific NorthWest
I rip all my dvd's (at least my favorites) and place them on the file server. I then access them via XLobby and TheaterTek . Both the home theater and the TV in the living room have access to the file server through HTPC's.
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#175031 - 25/11/2003 18:21 Re: RAID5 as a function of Windows [Re: robricc]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Here's my server (it's the black one). It's still sitting on my desk since that's the only way to get 1000Mbit to it at the moment. Thankfully it isn't too loud.


Attachments
189841-IMG_0124.jpg (222 downloads)

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