RAID Controller Advice Needed - Tech Support Forums

omalleytrading · September 28th, 2007, 05:36 PM

Hi Gang,

I'm tinkering with the idea of converting my old PC (DELL P4 3Ghz w/HT) into a SBS 2003 box. If I'm going to use this as a production box for the office, however, I'm concerned about data loss. That leads me to think that I should slap a RAID controller into the box and put in a few 500Gb drives.

Having never done this, these questions start to come to mind.

Can anyone recommend a good RAID controller?
Is RAID 1 enough protection, or do I really, really need RAID 5?
Any best practices or "gotchas" I should look out for?

Thanks in advance for your help!

- Bryan

omalleytrading · October 2nd, 2007, 10:35 AM

No one has any advice?

**GroundZero3** · October 2nd, 2007, 11:30 AM

How much are you willing to spend? Raid controllers can be cheap and some can be expensive (you get what you pay for) Promise is a good company when it comes to raid controllers.

Raid controllers come into flavors, software and hardware. Some say software is a bit slower and you rely on the software. Hardware is supposed to be faster and more reliable.

I always lean towards hardware.

Now as for Raid 1, one thing you need to consider is if on one drive a file becomes corrupted, it will be corrupted on the other drive. Which sucks. If one drive fails, you will revert the other drive which works fine.

Raid 5 will work with on drive that has died, if two die you are screwed.

Most production networks seem to lean towards the Raid 5 solution.

If anything always make sure you have a backup on cd or tape.

omalleytrading · October 4th, 2007, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GroundZero3

Promise is a good company when it comes to raid controllers.

I always lean towards hardware.

Thanks for the response.

I agree, a Hardware solution is what I had in mind. I'll take a look at Promise.

I think RAID 5 is probably the route I'll end up taking. It seems the more painful (and costly) route, but it's probably worth it.

Anyone have any other advice or tips I should think about?

**GroundZero3** · October 4th, 2007, 11:13 AM

Its more costly for raid 5, however i don't see it as more painful

KarmaKiller · October 4th, 2007, 07:42 PM

You may look into just a new motherboard. They have motherboards out now that support all sorts of RAID configs, and they are still hardware ran. Also would be cheaper in the long run probably...

Just another idea..

JLK03F150 · October 4th, 2007, 08:38 PM

I'm running Intel Matrix Raid on my gaming PC. I have three 160gb HDD's divided into two partitions. I have a 90gb OS Raid 0 partition & a 248gb storage Raid 5 partition. I've been happy with the Raid 5 performance & it was very painless to set up. I corrupted the Raid 5 array due to an overclocking mishap (oops), but it rebuilt itself without a hitch - erm... twice. lol

omalleytrading · October 8th, 2007, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KarmaKiller

You may look into just a new motherboard. They have motherboards out now that support all sorts of RAID configs, and they are still hardware ran. Also would be cheaper in the long run probably...

You know, I've toyed with that idea.

As I mentioned above, the PC I'm recycling for this is a Dell (Dimension 8300). I've heard that sometimes they can be a PITA to put a new motherboard in. Something about odd screw placements or non-standard power supply connections. I don't recall the exact details, I just remember hearing that the Dell cases tend to make is hard to reuse.

Maybe I'm off-base on that one, but that's what I've heard...