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Hi

Just built and ordered my new system. Im gonna be using it mainly as a server for my digital streamer boxes but i will be using it for everyday stuff and maybe a bit of gaming aswell. Im wanting to setup RAID but im not sure of the best setup to go for, it has to be mirrored as i dont want to lose any of my data as ive got tons of films etc that i have converted. Should i put my OS on a different drive and then use RAID for storage, or can you guys/gals recommend a better setup? Cheers

Mick

 

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What I did for back up was put all my data on one hard drive and use a seprate hard drive for my os. Just in case something ever happens to the OS I don't want my other partion to be effected. Also if the hard drive goes bad not only do you end up loosing the os but also the data.

 

If you want a RAID set up then put the OS on a different drive and use RAID 1 for mirroring.

I have dealt with RAID myself but I am sure thats the best way to go about, especially if you want your OS to have more integrity.

 

Ideally I'd use a RAID 5 configuration.

1 disk for your OS and 3 for the RAID Array. This will give you the best protection for your data, the best scalability, and faster read access to the data [which will be ideal for streaming].

 

This is the setup i currently have, the main problem with this is that i have over 1TB of data and if my drive fails then its all lost, thats why im thinking of going with RAID.

 

Yeah, i was thinking of this, whats the difference between RAID5 and RAID 1+0? Is it worth using that or are the benefits not worth it?

 

Heres what ive ordered in case anyone is interested

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB)
Asus Maximus Formula SE Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
2 x Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit
Seasonic M12 Modular 700W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black)
BFG GeForce 8600 GTS OC2 ThermoIntelligence 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)

 

Those new Asus mobos are good

Have you thought about striping instead of mirroring ?

 

I havent decided about the OS yet, it will probably be dual boot with XP and vista. What are the chances of RAID completely failing, and is there anyway to recover that?

 

Yeah, some of the reviews for the board are excellent, especially for OCing.

Never thought of setting up a stripped array coz it doesnt offer any kind of fault tolerance, and the only benefit i can see is a boost in speed.

 

Yeah, them boxes are pricey!

Do ya think its necessary to spend a couple hundred quid on a RAID controller? Will the built in one one the mobo not do the same job?

 

I can attach 4 drives to it mate.

 

Almost no motherboards in the consumer world support RAID 5. If you need that then you need the proper kit! But why would you need it?

Harry.

 

Yeah, it supports RAID 0,1,5,10

 

Having looked this up (and that was difficult - many pages have a slight variation of the chipset number) I see that this will do RAID 5.

However - unless you are running a database I don't think the complexity is worth it.

I'd say use a single boot disk, and keep the 'precious' stuff on a RAID1 pair.

Harry.

 

If you've got four slots, why not have two mirrored pairs - one for the OS and one much larger one for the data? Software RAID is shite - although you CAN do RAID 5 in windows without a RAID controller (I've seen it on a 'server' that was just an XP box for a small business - I think it was via a mod) it won't be stable, won't give you the performance that a 'real' RAID controller will and won't be as reliable if things go wrong with a single disk in the array 9which is why you'd be implementing it in the first place!)

I think two mirrored pairs is the way to go.