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I am thinking of buying a new computer, and I want it fast (duh) and I know
that the best way to make it fast is to speed up the slowest device, the
hard drive. Which is why I want to put a raid setup in it that stripes the
disks. Now, I realize that striping makes it much faster, at the expense of
being twice as likely to fail. So I was thinking of doing raid 5, striping
with parity, but I have no experience with this. Have any of you set up or
used a raid 5 set up before? And do you know the overhead of raid 5 vs
striping without parity vs no raid at all in terms of cpu usage?

fyi, I think I will use 2 or 3 of the WD SATA 10k RPM drives (I think they
are called raptors)

Its going to be a little tough to find a MB for raid 5...you need to look
toward purchasing a server board and controller.

--
Mark
MCSA, CNA, A+, Net+, iNet+, Server+
"Jason Wheeler" <bigwheels16$P@> wrote in message
news:sqKdnRUkNvFyYbvcRVn-...
> I am thinking of buying a new computer, and I want it fast (duh) and I
know
> that the best way to make it fast is to speed up the slowest device, the
> hard drive. Which is why I want to put a raid setup in it that stripes
the
> disks. Now, I realize that striping makes it much faster, at the expense
of
> being twice as likely to fail. So I was thinking of doing raid 5,
striping
> with parity, but I have no experience with this. Have any of you set up
or
> used a raid 5 set up before? And do you know the overhead of raid 5 vs
> striping without parity vs no raid at all in terms of cpu usage?
>
> fyi, I think I will use 2 or 3 of the WD SATA 10k RPM drives (I think they
> are called raptors)
>
>

"Mark" <> wrote in message
news:6JOdnTzsNpgRFbrcRVn-...
> Its going to be a little tough to find a MB for raid 5...you need to look
> toward purchasing a server board and controller.
>
> --
> Mark
> MCSA, CNA, A+, Net+, iNet+, Server+
> "Jason Wheeler" <bigwheels16$P@> wrote in message
> news:sqKdnRUkNvFyYbvcRVn-...
> > I am thinking of buying a new computer, and I want it fast (duh) and I
> know
> > that the best way to make it fast is to speed up the slowest device, the
> > hard drive. Which is why I want to put a raid setup in it that stripes
> the
> > disks. Now, I realize that striping makes it much faster, at the
expense
> of
> > being twice as likely to fail. So I was thinking of doing raid 5,
> striping
> > with parity, but I have no experience with this. Have any of you set up
> or
> > used a raid 5 set up before? And do you know the overhead of raid 5 vs
> > striping without parity vs no raid at all in terms of cpu usage?
> >
> > fyi, I think I will use 2 or 3 of the WD SATA 10k RPM drives (I think
they
> > are called raptors)
> >
> >
>
You also need to read up on RAID... speed , failure fault tolerance .....

--
<B0N3H3@D>
"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." Albert Einstein

> You also need to read up on RAID... speed , failure fault tolerance .....
>
> --
> <B0N3H3@D>
> "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." Albert
Einstein
>
>

I was hoping I could just skip the many weeks of reading about raid and have
someone just impart their knowledge to me, hence the question in the first
place

you're right, I will read up on it, but I would like to hear some first hand
experience, some real-life application and usage.

in respnse to previous post, I was planning on purchasing a raid controller
add in card, not using an onboard controller, but honestly, I have not
checked the price of those yet.

"Jason Wheeler" <bigwheels16$P@> wrote in message
news:sqKdnRUkNvFyYbvcRVn-...
> I am thinking of buying a new computer, and I want it fast (duh) and I
know
> that the best way to make it fast is to speed up the slowest device, the
> hard drive. Which is why I want to put a raid setup in it that stripes
the
> disks. Now, I realize that striping makes it much faster, at the expense
of
> being twice as likely to fail. So I was thinking of doing raid 5,
striping
> with parity, but I have no experience with this. Have any of you set up
or
> used a raid 5 set up before? And do you know the overhead of raid 5 vs
> striping without parity vs no raid at all in terms of cpu usage?
>
> fyi, I think I will use 2 or 3 of the WD SATA 10k RPM drives (I think they
> are called raptors)


For RAID 5 you will need at least 3 drives and 4 is better. I wouldn't
really recommend them or home use. It does slow down disk writes. If you
go with SATA drives you would get good read speed anyway.
I have a RAID 5 array on a mail server and I've had problems with it from
day 1. Drives that check out fine with the diagnostic software have "gone
down" according to the RAID control software and just won't work with it. I
keep two spare drives in stock at all times.
We're probably going to build a new server and it will not have a RAID array
in it.

AG

Jason Wheeler wrote:

> I am thinking of buying a new computer, and I want it fast (duh) and I know
> that the best way to make it fast is to speed up the slowest device, the
> hard drive. Which is why I want to put a raid setup in it that stripes the
> disks. Now, I realize that striping makes it much faster, at the expense of
> being twice as likely to fail. So I was thinking of doing raid 5, striping
> with parity, but I have no experience with this. Have any of you set up or
> used a raid 5 set up before? And do you know the overhead of raid 5 vs
> striping without parity vs no raid at all in terms of cpu usage?
>
> fyi, I think I will use 2 or 3 of the WD SATA 10k RPM drives (I think they
> are called raptors)
>
>
Hi Jason,

If you want performance, go Raid 0. If you want performance and fault
tolerance, go with Raid 0/1 (aka Raid 0+1 or Raid 10). Raid 0/1 requires
four drives. There are two RAID 0 stripe sets, which are used to provide
high input/output performance, that are mirrored as in Raid 1.

Bill

oh ok, well thanks for the input, I was under the impression that raid 5
would give u both speed and fault tolerance.

"AT" <torgny@@direcway.com> wrote in message
news:dEQWc.12232$ hlink.net...
> A RAID5 configuration will not give you much advantage in speed in normal
> use but will give you a fault tolerance. Minimum for a RAID5 is 3 Hard
> Drives where 1/3 of your disk capacity will be used for parity. I am only
> using SCSI for RAID so I have no experience with SATA in this matter.
>
> AT
>
> "Jason Wheeler" <bigwheels16$P@> wrote in message
> news:sqKdnRUkNvFyYbvcRVn-...
> > I am thinking of buying a new computer, and I want it fast (duh) and I
> know
> > that the best way to make it fast is to speed up the slowest device, the
> > hard drive. Which is why I want to put a raid setup in it that stripes
> the
> > disks. Now, I realize that striping makes it much faster, at the
expense
> of
> > being twice as likely to fail. So I was thinking of doing raid 5,
> striping
> > with parity, but I have no experience with this. Have any of you set up
> or
> > used a raid 5 set up before? And do you know the overhead of raid 5 vs
> > striping without parity vs no raid at all in terms of cpu usage?
> >
> > fyi, I think I will use 2 or 3 of the WD SATA 10k RPM drives (I think
they
> > are called raptors)
> >
> >
>
>

> Hi Jason,
>
> If you want performance, go Raid 0. If you want performance and fault
> tolerance, go with Raid 0/1 (aka Raid 0+1 or Raid 10). Raid 0/1 requires
> four drives. There are two RAID 0 stripe sets, which are used to provide
> high input/output performance, that are mirrored as in Raid 1.
>
> Bill

alright, thanks, that is good info...I was under the impression that raid 5
would give u good performance but I guess not. I guess what I will probably
do then is raid 0 and then back up the data manually to another non raided
drive. I can afford downtime, since it would just be my home pc. do u how
much an onboard controller would affect performance (of the computer, mostly
the cpu) v.s a card?

"JJW" <bigwheels16$P@> wrote in message
news42dnZZR_Z1gtrXcRVn-...
> > You also need to read up on RAID... speed , failure fault
tolerance .....
> >
> > --
> > <B0N3H3@D>
> > "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." Albert
> Einstein
> >
> >
>
> I was hoping I could just skip the many weeks of reading about raid
and have
> someone just impart their knowledge to me, hence the question in the
first
> place
>
> you're right, I will read up on it, but I would like to hear some
first hand
> experience, some real-life application and usage.
>
> in respnse to previous post, I was planning on purchasing a raid
controller
> add in card, not using an onboard controller, but honestly, I have
not
> checked the price of those yet.
>
>

funny, you should not have to purchase a raid controller card, since
the powermac g5 has embedded raid controllers (you did say you wanted
a fast system, right?).

by the way, kudos on the choice to go western digital.
--
Brought to you courtesy of Kozanski's Morgue & Grill

> funny, you should not have to purchase a raid controller card, since
> the powermac g5 has embedded raid controllers (you did say you wanted
> a fast system, right?).

right, but I guess I failed to mention that I would also like to run my
programs on it, and everyone else's, too
but I agree, it's an extremely fast machine

> by the way, kudos on the choice to go western digital.
the reason I went with them is because they are the only ones I know of that
have 10k RPM SATA drives....I dunno, maybe other companies have them now