I am going to be setting up a home server for centralized file storage. This will be running under Linux with four discs in software RAID 1 or 5. One concern is long term stability of the RAID array. Is it worth getting enterprise class discs with TLER / ERC or will ordinary consumer discs do the job? I have heard that mdadm does not drop a drive if it is stuck for more than 7 seconds, so will this feature make any difference at all?
In order to ensure stability, what is the better software RAID option – 1 or 5 (also bearing in mind that I am a novice at setting up RAID)?
Hey gary,
Im much in the same shoes at you at the moment, creating a file storage server with some sort of raid to server the 3 media players in the house as well as store some backups of photo's etc.
I have done a little research on the topic and have steered away of hardware raid due to the costs and also possibility of loosing all my data due to failure and being unable to rebuild the array! I have opted to do research on software solutions and have stumble on two products that suit my needs. Unraid(Free ver only support 3drives, so its basically paid version, mature product) and Flexraid(Free, documentation is all over but its there). Ill just give a run down what i have found out about the two pieces of software and what has made me interested in them.
I originally found unraid which seemed to fit all my needs, but later i thought this isnt what i need because i found something better. Just a couple reason i didnt like unraid, you cant run other apps with it (ie downloads, jubebox etc), it costs money.
I then found flex raid which seems to fit my need(granted the project is still under way so its far from complete but this is what i will be using), the reasons why:
-Its Free
-Data isnt stripped and it can run on windows and linux(meaning that your file format is kept ie ntfs, so if you ever decide one day you dont want the array anymore you can pull the drives out of you computer and stick them back into a windows pc and it will work 100%)
-It can run on windows (I plan on using Windows home server 2011) ( allows me to run other media related applications)
-Can specify as many parity drives as you want(1per max drive failure, i would only use one)
-Has data pooling feature (Can pool all ur data to show as 1 virtual drive)
-If two drives do fail you only loose the data on those two drives, all other data is still accessible
-Does rely on expensive hardware
-can add drives on the go, so if you run out of space just stick in a new drive and update parity!
A few negatives to some people:
-Not as much documentation as unraid(but there is support in that the product is still being developed and people post on the forums regulary)
-Not live parity(live is in beta version) (doesnt create parity as you copy data, but to me this isnt a big downside as this will slow down the pc, it set by shedualer which you can run once an evening or twice a day, which means ur data loss if ever is limmited to a day)
Its just something else to consider! Here are some threads were you can get more information:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/networking-nas/1429720-tims-7-24tb-tiddler-unraid-nas.html - Build with UNRAID
http://wiki.flexraid.com/ - Flex Raid Wiki
http://www.openegg.org/forums/forums/list.page - Flex Raid forums
Disclaimer: Im also a total noob when it comes to raid but i have done a fair bit of reading, and the above are just my thoughts!
EDIT:
Some things to add, you dont have to start off with clean drives, they can be full of data!
