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Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).
40hz:
+1 w/Stoic on the battery on the card point. Do not use a RAID card that doesn't have a battery. If it was a toss up between a cheap SATA RAID card, or software RAID under Linux or Windows, I'd definitely go with software RAID and forget the card. At least for basic mirroring. Never tried RAID5 under software although I'm told by others that it's been reliable. There is a performance hit. But on a single user server (hmm...now that's an odd phrase) it shouldn't be a significant factor. However, I would still be concerned about the number of drives you try to incorporate under soft RAID. I'd worry with anything over three - and definitely not go past five drives in that scenario.
Note: Microsoft will give you a free 180-day trial copy of Windows Server 2012. Info and downloads here. I'd definitely give that a try, if for nothing other than to have something to compare should you decide to try a FOSS solution too.
8)
superboyac:
I do want to try the WIndows Server 2012 pooling features. Maybe I'll do that first, and if it's a problem I'll go to freenas next. Here's an article talking about the new R2 drive pooling features:
Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).
superboyac:
If I go with Windows Server 2012 and their Storage Spaces, here are my notes from that:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822938.aspx
Mirror
Stores two or three copies of the data across the set of physical disks.
Increases reliability, but reduces capacity. Duplication occurs with every write. A mirror space also stripes the data across multiple physical drives.
Greater data throughput than parity, and lower access latency.
Uses dirty region tracking (DRT) to track modifications to the disks in the pool. When the system resumes from an unplanned shutdown and the spaces are brought back online, DRT makes disks in the pool consistent with each other.
Requires at least two physical disks to protect from single disk failure.
Requires at least five physical disks to protect from two simultaneous disk failures.
Use for most deployments. For example, mirror spaces are suited for a general-purpose file share or a virtual hard disk (VHD) library.
--- End quote ---
There are three options: mirror, parity, simple. So they are recommending mirror for my setup.
Stoic Joker:
Never tried RAID5 under software although I'm told by others that it's been reliable. There is a performance hit. But on a single user server (hmm...now that's an odd phrase) it shouldn't be a significant factor. However, I would still be concerned about the number of drives you try to incorporate under soft RAID. I'd worry with anything over three - and definitely not go past five drives in that scenario.-40hz (August 14, 2013, 07:22 AM)
--- End quote ---
MB integrated Software 3 disk RAID 5 here ... Anything SB needs to know about it is contained in the (I think 4 page) thread here about when I goofed replacing a blown drive with the wrong type.
The third and final disk from that array blew just last week and replacement (with the spare I had on hand) went quite smoothly.
+1 to the 3 disk soft RAID max.
If I go with Windows Server 2012 and their Storage Spaces, here are my notes from that:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822938.aspx
Mirror
Stores two or three copies of the data across the set of physical disks.
Increases reliability, but reduces capacity. Duplication occurs with every write. A mirror space also stripes the data across multiple physical drives.
Greater data throughput than parity, and lower access latency.
Uses dirty region tracking (DRT) to track modifications to the disks in the pool. When the system resumes from an unplanned shutdown and the spaces are brought back online, DRT makes disks in the pool consistent with each other.
Requires at least two physical disks to protect from single disk failure.
Requires at least five physical disks to protect from two simultaneous disk failures.
Use for most deployments. For example, mirror spaces are suited for a general-purpose file share or a virtual hard disk (VHD) library.
--- End quote ---
There are three options: mirror, parity, simple. So they are recommending mirror for my setup.
-superboyac (August 14, 2013, 09:25 AM)
--- End quote ---
??? Mirroring for a VHD library? Library meaning storing them only, or running them from that location? Mirroring cuts spindle count in half which will severely limit the number of VM's you can comfortably run simultaneous.
superboyac:
??? Mirroring for a VHD library? Library meaning storing them only, or running them from that location? Mirroring cuts spindle count in half which will severely limit the number of VM's you can comfortably run simultaneous.
-Stoic Joker (August 14, 2013, 12:03 PM)
--- End quote ---
THis is not for the VMs and all that. This is just for the file storage. I need to use more than 3 disks, I'm not doing RAID. I can't tell if you guys are using the term RAID and drive pooling interchangeably. I have no desire for RAID of any kind, but I'm interested in drive pooling for the purposes of having storage capacities larger than the biggest disks available (4TB). SO I want 8TB drive pools or larger.
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