Raid solutions

lostinohio · 2007-11-05, 16:13

So what are you doing to protect your movies?

I have about 1 Tb of movies on hard drives and it dawned on me that if I had a drive failure I would be one sad puppy. So can anyone recommend a raid solution?

funbobbee · 2007-11-05, 16:39

RAID 5 all the way baby...

I bought a silicon image pci raid card that does RAID 5 for about £20 (see below for example)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Silicon-Image-...QQcmdZViewItem

It takes 4 sata 150 drives and is recognised by windows without having to get drivers from the website (which are available if you need them)

4 x 250Gb sata drives gives you about 750Gb of storage. The resaon for the loss is that with RAID 5, if you have a disk failure, you can swap out the faulty drive, do a rebuild (very easy) and job done. No data loss...

The best thing about these cards is that if you have a system failure (my motherboard blew up in December!!!) you just plug the card into the new motherboard and away you go... NO DATA LOSS...

There are other cards available (check out the XFX raid 3 card which is similar, but is meant to read/write quicker and takes sata 300 disks), but for price and ease of use I don't think you can go wrong.

UNOPARATOR · 2007-11-06, 07:05

I have a RAID5 array with 8x 500GB drives on a PCI-Express 4x (Highpoint-tech RocketRAID 2320) addon card.
The only the thing you should worry is more than 1 disks goes bad at the same time which results total data loss for all the disks or partition failures.
Also you need a GTP partition (not bootable) if you'ld like to have a single partition > 2TB

which is supported on Windows XP Pro x64, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista (not supported on 32bit WinXP)...

lostinohio · 2007-11-06, 13:01

That is too funny unoparator.. That is the raid card I was looking at. I will probably order it today. I already spoke with Highpoint support and they will support 1TB drives.

UNOPARATOR · 2007-11-07, 06:55

I'm using that card for more than 2 years, I strongly recommend it =)

AlcoNaft · 2007-11-07, 17:34

2lostinohio - It also possible to use software RAID5 built-in into Windows Server. Also it is possible to patch Windows XP to get this functionality. In general there are 3 type of RAID controllers:

1) Hardware - prices starts from 300$, more than mobo

2) Hardware/Software - price about 30-40$
3) Software - built-in into Windows Server, or *nux.

The second type is rubbish, because all calculations of checksum made by supplied drivers. You can use it as SATA port extender (if you don’t have enough on the mobo), actually it is a port extender with small BIOS and set of drivers.

I suggest to use 1 option or 3. Please note, if you use Windows Software-RAID, you can migrate from one mobo to another without any problem. But if RAID-controller died - you will have to find exactly the same model in order to restore data.

2007-11-05, 16:13	#1 (permalink)
lostinohio Portal Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 5 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	Raid solutions So what are you doing to protect your movies? I have about 1 Tb of movies on hard drives and it dawned on me that if I had a drive failure I would be one sad puppy. So can anyone recommend a raid solution?

2007-11-07, 17:34	#6 (permalink)
AlcoNaft Portal Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 11 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post Country:	2lostinohio - It also possible to use software RAID5 built-in into Windows Server. Also it is possible to patch Windows XP to get this functionality. In general there are 3 type of RAID controllers: 1) Hardware - prices starts from 300$, more than mobo 2) Hardware/Software - price about 30-40$ 3) Software - built-in into Windows Server, or nux. The second type is rubbish, because all calculations of checksum made by supplied drivers. You can use it as SATA port extender (if you don’t have enough on the mobo), actually it is a port extender with small BIOS and set of drivers. I suggest to use 1 option or 3. Please note, if you use Windows Software-RAID, you can migrate from one mobo to another without any problem. But if RAID-controller died - you will have to find exactly the same model in order to restore data. Last edited by AlcoNaft; 2007-11-07 at 17:38.*

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2007-11-05, 16:39	#2 (permalink)
funbobbee Portal Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 6 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	RAID 5 all the way baby... I bought a silicon image pci raid card that does RAID 5 for about £20 (see below for example) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Silicon-Image-...QQcmdZViewItem It takes 4 sata 150 drives and is recognised by windows without having to get drivers from the website (which are available if you need them) 4 x 250Gb sata drives gives you about 750Gb of storage. The resaon for the loss is that with RAID 5, if you have a disk failure, you can swap out the faulty drive, do a rebuild (very easy) and job done. No data loss... The best thing about these cards is that if you have a system failure (my motherboard blew up in December!!!) you just plug the card into the new motherboard and away you go... NO DATA LOSS... There are other cards available (check out the XFX raid 3 card which is similar, but is meant to read/write quicker and takes sata 300 disks), but for price and ease of use I don't think you can go wrong.

2007-11-06, 07:05	#3 (permalink)
UNOPARATOR Portal Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Istanbul Posts: 14 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	I have a RAID5 array with 8x 500GB drives on a PCI-Express 4x (Highpoint-tech RocketRAID 2320) addon card. The only the thing you should worry is more than 1 disks goes bad at the same time which results total data loss for all the disks or partition failures. Also you need a GTP partition (not bootable) if you'ld like to have a single partition > 2TB which is supported on Windows XP Pro x64, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista (not supported on 32bit WinXP)...

2007-11-06, 13:01	#4 (permalink)
lostinohio Portal Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 5 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	That is too funny unoparator.. That is the raid card I was looking at. I will probably order it today. I already spoke with Highpoint support and they will support 1TB drives.

2007-11-07, 06:55	#5 (permalink)
UNOPARATOR Portal Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Istanbul Posts: 14 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	I'm using that card for more than 2 years, I strongly recommend it =)