Ironworks Gaming Forum - View Single Post - Lyle's bimonthly inept question about computers

Bungleau · 09-12-2005, 10:15 PM

Sorry.. I don't believe in RAID 5 for most applications. It's designed to protect you from losing data when a drive fails by making copies of that data on other drives. In a three-drive array, I don't see where it buys you much. It's lousy for performance on any environment where you write a lot of data, although it's good when you're reading a lot.

RAID 10 is much preferable for RAID environments, if you want to go that way. If you want to use it, go for hardware RAID (with that PCI Express card) rather than software RAID. It will improve performance overall.

IMHO, today's drives are rather reliable. They will fail... all hardware eventually does. The question is whether it fails when you need it. You'll want to combine whatever disk environment you choose with a good backup strategy. In my book, that's far more important than the RAID environment you put on a particular machine.

If you are going to do RAID, I strongly suggest getting four drives and going with RAID 10. RAID 5 isn't worth it in my book.

09-12-2005, 10:15 PM	#4
Bungleau 40th Level Warrior Join Date: October 29, 2001 Location: Western Wilds of Michigan Posts: 11,752	Sorry.. I don't believe in RAID 5 for most applications. It's designed to protect you from losing data when a drive fails by making copies of that data on other drives. In a three-drive array, I don't see where it buys you much. It's lousy for performance on any environment where you write a lot of data, although it's good when you're reading a lot. RAID 10 is much preferable for RAID environments, if you want to go that way. If you want to use it, go for hardware RAID (with that PCI Express card) rather than software RAID. It will improve performance overall. IMHO, today's drives are rather reliable. They will fail... all hardware eventually does. The question is whether it fails when you need it. You'll want to combine whatever disk environment you choose with a good backup strategy. In my book, that's far more important than the RAID environment you put on a particular machine. If you are going to do RAID, I strongly suggest getting four drives and going with RAID 10. RAID 5 isn't worth it in my book. __________________ B Save Early, Save Often Save Before, Save After Two-Star General, Spelling Soldiers -+-+-+ Give 'em a hug one more time. It might be the last.