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What is your preferred server OS for home use? And Why?
Stoic Joker:
(RAID5) Two drives blowing in perfect harmony is excruciatingly unlikely-Stoic Joker (January 04, 2011, 10:48 PM)
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Yet it does happen - and when it does, it's usually when rebuilding the array, which seems to be more stressful on the disks than the simple procedure of re-duping a mirror to a blank drive. Shit's probably most likely to hit the fan if you've use drives from the same batch when building your raid5, which is a cardinal sin and all that... but with the stories I've heard, I wouldn't put my faith in Raid-5.-f0dder (January 05, 2011, 05:21 AM)
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I did say unlikely, not impossible, and with other configurations like RAID 0+1 you gotta blow all three at exactly the same time. Everybody has a horror story about an uncle that got blown to bits in a taco eating accident...The point is that it is highly unlikely.
Now a software RAID controller probably will torch your data if you look at it funny ... Which is why I like to avoid them.
Limiting yourself to mirroring for RAID does mean you don't get partitions larger than a single drive, but I don't see that as a super big problem - decent filesystems can abstract that need away (NTFS junctions, unix symlinks, ZFS storage pools, ...).-f0dder (January 05, 2011, 05:21 AM)
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Um... I don't recall making that distinction/recommendation, so I'm not sure what you're driving at here.
IMHO the only real advantage hardware raid controllers give you is battery-backed cache. And replacements for those cards tend to be pretty expensive, don't they?-f0dder (January 05, 2011, 05:21 AM)
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From the manufacturer? Staggering ... That's why you buy it from the other guy... :) The key is that the necessary part will actually be available.
The drive failure alarm is also a handy feature...especially if you have a headless server that doesn't allow you to see the first failed disk warning until it's too late.
Transplanting a RAID set is also smoother and safer with commercial hardware. When our PowerEdge 1600 started to die, I grabbed a PowerEdge 1800 for about $600 and since both used the same RAID controller (options, less is more) I was able to just drop in the second set and go. The controller pulled it in auto-magically, and Windows only needed an Import Foreign Disk reminder and we were live. Sure I could have restored the *)GB of data from tape - in a few days - But I like things simple. ;)
40hz:
IMO, RAID is oversold when it comes to small server deployments.
FWIW I think it's generally a big mistake to try to do RAID on the cheap. Epecially if you're doing RAID-5. I've seen too many bad things happen with inexpensive RAID controllers and consumer grade SATA drives to be very comfortable recommending them.
I believe most people would be far better off with some combination of routine backups, smart folder synchronization, and restoration disk images unless they have the money (and need) to go with "server grade" drives and controller cards.
By all means go with multiple drives inside a small server. Just don't create arrays out of them unless you have a genuine need to do so.
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(RAID5) Two drives blowing in perfect harmony is excruciatingly unlikely-Stoic Joker (January 04, 2011, 10:48 PM)
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Yet it does happen - and when it does, it's usually when rebuilding the array, which seems to be more stressful on the disks than the simple procedure of re-duping a mirror to a blank drive. Shit's probably most likely to hit the fan if you've use drives from the same batch when building your raid5, which is a cardinal sin and all that... but with the stories I've heard, I wouldn't put my faith in Raid-5.
-f0dder (January 05, 2011, 05:21 AM)
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+1 on that. I've seldom seen a rebuild go 100% smoothly. Usually all of the drives were purchased at the same time - and exposed to the same environmental conditions (i.e. heat) during their service period - so the likelihood of a second drive failing during a rebuild is not exactly uncommon.
In a mission critical setting, the only thing RAID really gives you is uninterrupted uptime and the opportunity to get the "most current" backup or image off the array. If the rest of the drives in the array are over a year or two old, you're better off replacing all of them.
If I got $5 for the number of times I've replaced one RAID drive element only to have a second one go within a few weeks...well...maybe I wouldn't be wealthy, but I'd still have a tidy sum tucked in my pocket.
IMHO the only real advantage hardware raid controllers give you is battery-backed cache.
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Plus better reliability and (maybe) some speed gains along with reduced stress on the server. But on a modern server equipped with today's multicore CPUs and RAM configurations, I don't think it's all that big a benefit any more.
And replacements for those cards tend to be pretty expensive, don't they?
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Less so than in the past. But they're still pretty pricey. :'(
app103:
One of the things I liked about Windows Server 2008, when hollow was running it, was that multiple users could be logged in at the same time, running whatever apps they needed to run, each having their own desktop.
Hollow had set up an account on his machine for me, which I accessed from my old slow WinME box over 33.6k dialup, using an RDP client. I was able to run stuff on his machine that I could never even dream about on my own box. Utilizing his broadband connection to download large PDF files and view them using his system's resources, it took me a fraction of the time it would have taken me to add the books to my ebook directory.
All while he was using his PC for whatever purposes he needed it for.
It got me thinking about how great it would be for family use, where you could give the kids an old junk PC with 9x and an account on your machine running Server 2008. Everything they would be doing would be through your machine, which you could keep the security locked down tight and easily control when they could and couldn't use it.
An old 9x box is dirt cheap to acquire (probably could even get one for free), and they are easy to maintain, especially when you don't have to worry about installing software on it, so if the kids damaged their pc in any way, resetting the OS would be quick and painless with no data loss (all their data would be on your machine). And if the hardware died, no sweat off your back to replace it with another junk PC.
Stoic Joker:
I still don't see a compelling argument for RAID here. You're basically just saying "pro-level RAID is more reliable". Yes, it probably is. And I guess if you buy it off-lease it's affordably inexpensive (I have no experience with doing that so I can't say). The question is whether it's significantly advantageous over basic software syncing *for the home user*.-JavaJones (January 04, 2011, 11:10 PM)
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Well... with 10+TB of data ... Size Matters. Where are you going to sync it to?!? The cloud? Total recovery time = 9 weeks... *Joy* ...I ain't got that kinda time, do you? another NAS appliance? Ouch $$$.
We can't use the amount of data as a gauge of how "serious" or "important" anything is anymore. In times past only enterprises has 10+ TB of data, but these days with high resolution digital cameras, home DVRs, people ripping their own media, huge music collections, and everything else going digital, we're approaching a time where 10TB will not be unusual for the average household to have. Does that now mean *everyone* should have a RAID unit?-JavaJones (January 04, 2011, 11:10 PM)
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You gota back it up somehow, some where, and magnetic tape is too expensive for an archive that size even for most SMBs. Hell you're talking about a $10,000 device. Sure you can use one of those external drives (a stack of them actually) but do you want to walk a typical end user through an incremental restore? I don't.
So again the question, what specifically are the advantages over basic syncing?-JavaJones (January 04, 2011, 11:10 PM)
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Cost. Syncing requires either a 1 to 1 target size or you gotta decide what not to backup ... 'cause it won't fit.
It seems like the only real benefit you mentioned is speed. You could argue that realtime redundancy is good to have, and it is, but is it worth the added complexity vs. a simple sync solution? -JavaJones (January 04, 2011, 11:10 PM)
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How is it complex? You read the instructions, do it once, and then it continues working all by itself. Syncing requires that you remember to do it; or store you files in the right magic folder; or notice the error message... You aint gonna miss the alarm on a RAID controller going off ... Last time that happened here I had half the company in my office frantically pointing inside of 3 minutes. The other half of the staff...? ...Was outside thinking it was a firedrill.
Think about what superboyac has said about the desirability of being able to just take a drive and use the data on it as-is. That's simplicity, for a home user.-JavaJones (January 04, 2011, 11:10 PM)
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I did, parts of it are possible, and parts are science fiction... *Shrug*
And how much storage does that $1000 buy you anyway? Can you toss in 2TB drives to upgrade the storage? Does the controller support that? Are they SATA or SCSI? In other words does $1000 buy you a usable and *upgradeable* large data solution, or is it a one shot deal?-JavaJones (January 04, 2011, 11:10 PM)
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You can get either SATA or SCSI (SCSI typically being cheaper and smaller these days). But get the one you already have drives for, all you need are the drive trays ($10 - $20 each) and you can use the existing drives you have now. You're only limit is the number of Hot-Swap drive slots (6, 8, 10, more) there are on the machine. Yes the 2TB (SATA, I'm not sure on SCSI - probably if you can afford them, I can't) drives will work.
As for my own situation with the Lacie unit, it's getting a bit off-topic but your proposed solution isn't really applicable to me either. I dunno about you, but I don't equate a stand-alone unit I can just plug in to a USB/eSATA/Firewire port with a complete, separate machine with RAID. I guess I could just use that machine as a sort of NAS, but the whole point to me was to have *local data access speeds* over e.g. eSATA, rather than network-limited speeds.-JavaJones (January 04, 2011, 11:10 PM)
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Hm... GBit limited Network speeds. How often are you moving what size file(s)? It's not like browsing the filesystem is going to lag with the traffic of a home LAN (which everybody has these days - Even if they don't know it). How many of those Units do you have in order to be able to store the 20TB of stuff you mentioned having? They can't be that cheap.
Eóin:
+1 on that. I've seldom seen a rebuild go 100% smoothly. Usually all of the drives were purchased at the same time
-40hz (January 05, 2011, 07:08 AM)
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But the solution, surely, is just don't do that. RAID reliability assumes the probability of one drive failing is independant of the others. While that ideal can't be met in practice, you can get close to it by buying different drives from different sources and ideally different manufacturers.
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