Storage performance

[DazMode]

well guys, I need some help here. Being little overwhelmed for past a while I'm falling behind the curve on storage systems performance.

Couple things I don't have time to research and hope to piggy back on your knowledge.

1. Any performance benefit to put SSDs in higher levels of Raid ? Remember some ramblings about trim... Need redundancy, so some sort of RAID must.

2. What is about 10k SAS drives vs SSDs? Any Idea?

3. Dedicated controller over on-board - performance perspective...

[Father Fuzzy]

I use the intel onboard for raid 0 but no redunancy...great for gaming

so raid 1 or raid 5

i would go for raid card and hd drives

are you talking alot of data?

seems like ssd's would be a waste of speed and pricey

[bungwirez]

I would rather have a NAS full of 2 or 3 TB WesternDig REDs than anything 10k SAS... much better bang for buck.

[DazMode]

I plan either 2 RAID - one SSD OS/APPS and one HDD for video/graphics

or single RAID for everything.

Ditching SSD actually already crossed my mind. Found review:

I'm running 8x2TB seagate ST2000DL003 drives in a RAID6. crystaldiskmark gives me 588MB/s read and 705MB/s write (seq).

while other guy says: 713 MBs Read / 567 MBs Writes (3-disk RAID5 using the Samsung 840 500GBs disks)

[snef]

Hardware raid with ssd is , in my opinion, waste of time and money for your needs
If you have a good ssd like samsung, vertex4 or intel 520, you will not see any real diference in windows

And for video editing or anything with a lot of wrinting cycle, ssd is not a good idea, ssd still have short writing life cycle

Why i do a raid with my ssd, space, not for speed, at time i bought my ssd, all 512gb was very to expensive
2 x 256 was cheaper than the half of the 512

The best thing for you is one ssd for windows and raid of mechanical drive and backup your ssd on raid

But daz, remember, raid is not backup, the best and more secure is raid and have a nas or external server for backup
Im sure you have enough computer part to build another pc and use it as a nas and put all backup on it
You dont know how many time i lost everything on my raid, but i have a full backup on my server
And with fail rate of ssd..........
And have a raid if you dont ave spare drive, not sure about that
, rais is not backup,

[DodFoddler]

I'm with snef on this one, I've had both RAID 0 and just single SSDs and you can't notice the performance difference. I'd say just use one good SSD that's 180GB+ and get some cheap 1-2TB drives. The 10k RPM drives have a much higher fail rate and are still blown away by an SSD, one of my friends has them and he got rid of them once he got an SSD.

The onboard RAID cards do a decent job, I've had no issues with them except my Gigabyte mobo didn't have the drivers for the Windows install.

The last thing to consider is power usage, I know HDDs don't use a ton but 8 in RAID starts to put the power usage up there while a single SSD has the same speed and barely uses any power. The increase in power is quite small, like leaving a light on or something but living in NS and having the highest power rates, that can cost $5+ a month.

[MRDcanadian]

But daz, remember, raid is not backup, the best and more secure is raid and have a nas or external server for backup
Im sure you have enough computer part to build another pc and use it as a nas and put all backup on it
You dont know how many time i lost everything on my raid, but i have a full backup on my server
And with fail rate of ssd..........
And have a raid if you dont ave spare drive, not sure about that
, rais is not backup,

have a read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_RAID

raid 1 aka disk mirroring. not the best for performance but it's safe for data

[Izerous]

Most of our stuff is either 0, 1 or 0+1 here in the office.

[Bartacus]

I run separate arrays, and have been for a few years now. You don't have to choose one or the other. I run a RAID 0 boot array with 2 120GB SSD's (partitioned into 2 drives, C: for OS, D: for Steam), and a RAID 1 mirror with 2 1TB drives for the data I want to protect a little better. I will also echo Snef's suggestion to get a proper external backup. RAID is for protection, but should never be used to replace a good external backup for your important files.

[MRDcanadian]

I run separate arrays, and have been for a few years now. You don't have to choose one or the other. I run a RAID 0 boot array with 2 120GB SSD's (partitioned into 2 drives, C: for OS, D: for Steam), and a RAID 1 mirror with 2 1TB drives for the data I want to protect a little better. I will also echo Snef's suggestion to get a proper external backup. RAID is for protection, but should never be used to replace a good external backup for your important files.

that is exactly what raid can do if you so chose the right level for you're needs bart. unless the computer that host these drives (have a leak in a water cooling computer for example (that i do not wish to anyone)) would happen and the power supply would by chance fry the HDD's with it (or something in these lines), one of the HDD should not fail at the same time as the other, you need to take adequate response from one drive failing. now you also need to replace the drive failing with a new one when it does and all would be fixed the mirror should automaticly add the data on the new drive to be a mirror image of it. having multiple hdd with the same data in case one fails is is the original purpose of a raid array. now you're recommendation is to rely on a single drive tha you backed up on somewhere and then you are relying on one disk. plus i am not sure how you plan to keep the data up to date with the active drive that way? doing manual copy past/win backup isn't fun and can be forgotten witch leave you with older version of files or none of the newer files since last backed up.

read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#RAID_6

raid 10 (aka 1+0) is the best but also cost the most as you need a lot of drives (minimum 4 drives for the array)

[MRDcanadian]

I wouldn't use SSD for sensitive data. first it's expensive for the storage space. and they do not have the longest life spawn. and trim functions isn't supported on SSD in a raid array. unless you make adjustment example: make partition of 80 to 90% of max capacity (even there it isn't perfect) you will lose performance at times if drive close to full and you add/creaate and delete lots of data. it happened to me on my first SSD as it was a 60G. I cancelled an install of a old game after 2hrs as it wasn't halfway there.

SSD is not the best solution unless all you wish to have is performance. in raid using SSD will surpass HDD with the compromise of cost, space and reliability.

from what i heard western digital RED is made for reliability and easier on the wallet so i would agree with bungwirez. you could get a NAS and do a raid in it with these drives for redundancy.

if you have that kind of money and wish to have 10krpm SAS drives, they are the cream in performance and reliability as per a friend that work's in such a field for different company's. not sure about dedicated controllers but words online is SOME dedicated controller are better for performance and reliability with a lot of drives. Some offer more options that motherboard controllers will not (like different levels of raid though you may not need it)

quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID_5#RAID_5

Although RAID 5 may be implemented in a disk controller, some have hardware support for parity calculations (hardware RAID cards with onboard processors) while some use the main system processor (a form of software RAID in vendor drivers for inexpensive controllers)




personaly i would go with a SSD for OS and apps, use the controller on mobo to do a raid 1 with 2 western digital red if i was to do a setup like that at home. if money wouldn't be an issue i would go with a NAS with a raid 1+0 function to offer more reliability and performance, the NAS would offer accessible for ALL computers in the network instead of that one computer

[DazMode]

I have some hardware I consider to re-use:

3x 10k HP 300gb SAS
2X Intel 520 240Mb SSD
2x 1.5Gb Black WD
2x2Gb WD Green

So far I think get mirrow on SSDs for OS/Apps and some raid on HDDs for video files.

Shoudl be OK. On my silent sniper I only use 124GB in Apps (zero games although).

And I probbaly drop buck on Adaptek controler, so I can move all from one PC to another...

[Bartacus]

Do you need a special controller for the SAS drives? That looks like some nice hardware you have laying around!

[snef]

i think the best Daz is one intel 520 for OS apps (no raid or mirror, loose Trim func) and raid with mechanical drive like red WD drive or your WD black drive
and for security on OS drive, acronis or windows 7 can make a image of your drive , just need to schedule it and put it on your raid array

[bungwirez]

^^ +1 Snef.

but I too am feeling the need to recycle hardware.

(There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief. Businessman they drink my wine....)