View Full Version : Server and raid setup
Ok, just need people to check through this spec and see if I am missing something. Eventually I will be upgrading my ageing rig. Now seeing as hdds are a long way behind I have come up with the idea of creating to an uber array. Currently I have these in Raid 1
PC
2*300gb - raid 1
2*160gb - raid 1
Server
2*300 - raid 1
1*120gb
The idea is to get a PCIX 4X Highpoint 2310 raid card for £112 and 4* WD 160gb hdds @ 32.36. Looking at the WD over the Seagate hdds as they come with 16mb cache. Now all of these are going to be put into one raid 0 array on my main pc. This is simply for speed. Looking at the reviews it should be around 300mb/sec versus the 120mb/sec ish of my raid 1.
The redundancy for the main pc will be catered for by the server which will now contain 4* 300gb hdds in raid 5. Gigabit connection between the two machines. I will put server 2003 and maybe exchange on there?
I am putting this past you to see if there is something that I have missed. Do you have any recommendations of mail server software that I should look at? Essentially documents and mails will remain on the server and the pc will become a gaming / media machine rather than storing lots of info at the moment.
Can you put more than two disks in RAID 0? I don't see why not but it's not something I've come across before. Bear in mind that if you can, you'll end up with 4x the likelihood of failure (one dead disk and you lose everything).
Only thing I'll say is watch out for heat issues. I had four disks stacked on top of each other in a case and it was a serious heat trap with the disks running in the high-40s C all the time and hitting 50 on a warm day (running disks above 50C isn't a good idea IMO).
4 hard drives in RAID 0?! I'm a big fan of 0 and not even I'd do that. Twice as vulnerable to disk failure I could stomach, but not 4 times. I'd RAID-10 them myself.
As for the server software it comes down to cost. You can host files and mail in Linux for free, it just might be a bit unfamiliar to you and come with a learning curve. Or you can run it on Windows, either in a domain or not (though you'll need one for exchange) and it'll be more familiar, and possibly not with such a steep learning curve (Exchange in particular can be complicated if you're not used to it, though it's not to bad to just get it up and running).
I assume you mean PCI-E and not PCI-X for the raid card?
[edit]You can Mark, if the controller supports it :)
[edit2]I'd should also say that in a 4 disk 0 array your seek time could be pretty high, depending on how clever the controller is. For high bandwidth apps having the speed is little good if the disks are always thrashing around trying to piece together the data.
I don't personally trust RAID-10 after seeing two hardware controllers (both 3ware IIRC) each nuke their respective arrays from orbit. It wasn't pretty either time. Ask Beansprout as it was his server.
I'm sure he was just unlucky, but two failures like that tends to leave an impression.
Admiral Huddy
17-09-2007, 10:24
Daz, do you really think that RAID 0 is beneficial to performance? I've often though about it. In fact, just as I was going to format the drives last time I re-installed windows I was read an article making it quite clear that it made no difference to performance what so ever and was pointless.
Matt, what about RAID-5?
I'm sure :) Never had trouble with it here, use it on the busy production SQL servers.
Daz, do you really think that RAID 0 is beneficial to performance?
Yep, if you're using applications that can benefit from it. I virtualise a lot, and when you have multiple VM's accessing their disks (large chunks of binary data), the bandwidth makes all the difference. I've done direct comparisons myself, not to mention actually working with both setups and now, none of my workstations (either at home or work) have a single disk bottleneck.
I agree with Daz on that one. Dealing with applications like VMs, video editing, databases, that sort of thing, that have big files and need rapid access to them is a perfect candidate for RAID 0. Video editing in particular is a good one because it's often sequential access so doesn't suffer the seek penalties as much.
For the average home user though, it's rare that any benefit would outweigh the reliability penalty, and in most cases it just ends up being a bigger e-penis claim based on hdtach scores.
I'll be honest and say I'm doubtful of the benefits of running RAID 0 on a file server built for home use because of the inevitable network transmission penalties (even with GbE). I have no benchmarks to back that up though so I'm probably wrong.
I'll be honest and say I'm doubtful of the benefits of running RAID 0 on a file server built for home use because of the inevitable network transmission penalties (even with GbE).
Absolutely. And on a file server, because serving them is so trivial it's more important the data is looked after, so RAID-1/5 is better suited.
The thing that had put me off raid 5 was the slow down in writing data apparently. Not that I am going to be dumping 4gb sql tables often. I was simply musing the idea seeing that very fast drives cost bugger all now. Also your machine is only as quick as the slowest component (you know what I mean). I know a lot of people run raid 0 over two hdds, so i'm after the best solution for running 4 in parallel.
I currently have 4 hdds sitting in my main pc with 2* slow turning 120mm fans turning over them. Heat is not an issue. MB saw my setup the other weekend, its extreme but quiet.
I don't personally trust RAID-10 after seeing two hardware controllers (both 3ware IIRC) each nuke their respective arrays from orbit.
So use better controllers then. It seems a bit irrational to distrust a RAID level because of shoddy controllers.
Aye - I won't be using 3ware again. I thought about doing RAID-10 on the controller I have at home (very reliable, touch wood), but decided against. Like I said, it's a bad vibe gained from two catastrophic failures in a short space of time. RAID-10 wouldn't exist if it wasn't reliable.
Heh, tell that to RAID-3 & 4 & 6 ;D
If it's good enough for banks and large enterprises, then it's good enough for me :) It helps to understand these things, but when it comes down to it, you rely on what's tried and tested.
Just been reading up on raid 10 and it does look like a good solution. However I gather that when a read instruction is sent through, it will be covered by the raid 0 array? So in my example above, two drives will be used.
Depends on the controller dude. That's how it should be handled though yes, no reason to go into the mirror pair for reading.
Got it. I may need to increase the capacity of my drives if doing raid 10 then. Seeing as I will end up with one array of 160gb?
2*raid 1 mirror then the raid 0 over the top is 160?
Nay, 320. Stripe 2x160's = 320, then mirror that pair.
Nay, 320Gb. You stripe together 2 discs and then mirror the stripe set.
Your powers are weak old man ;)
Bah, serves me right for trying to work at the same time :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nested_RAID_levels
If i'm reading this right then you've just described raid 0+1.
It does look that way, but then I'd make that mistake too. I always mix up 0+1 and 10. :)
The capacity is the same in either scenario, and with 4 disks, there's no difference really.
Besides, all but the highest end cards wont tell you if it's RAID10 is to the letter or actually 0+1 that it's using. In most cases, RAID10 on low-mid range cards is a mirror of stripes, ime. Particularly if that card only has 4 ports.
We use 10 a bit here, depends on the function of the server and whether the demand is on data security or IOPs. RAID5 for your purposes would be more logical on the server. I'd echo the comments about not having one big RAID0 array.. the risks are a little large :)
Personally I'd be looking at putting *nix, Ubuntu Server or similar, and use Exim as a mail server on the server, rather than windows, but thats just my prejudices showing :)
I'd be tempted by using Linux again, but the chances of me getting a mail server secure are slim. Last time I delved into Linux was with Suse 9.0 back in 2005 :D
Agreed, raid 5 on the server as I want the redundancy. I was thinking of raid 0 on the main machine purely for speed. Which again I think raid 10 for the main pc is better.
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