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Home raid setups

I went for a different approach, and use a home server on a Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H - has 8 onboard ports supporting a variety of RAID 0/1/5/10 etc etc.

Got 4 1Tb drives (WD Reds) in RAID 5.

Something like a HP Microserver would be good though, pick them up for around £90 with cashback.
 
Jimmy,

Please don't get a drobo.

Cheaper option
Microserver

More expensive option
Synology
Netgear ReadyNas
Qnap

Also, try and use WD Red's, but you can use Greens if you flash the firmware (too much effort)

Thanks,

G.
 
We use a seagate blackarmour 440, 4 x 1tb drives running raid 5 so 2tb of usable space, theyre quite affordable now (under £250) if you look on ebay and amazon etc, only issue is disk read speeds (we use it as a media server) and if more than 2 people are streaming HD movies at once is does struggle as the standard firmware only allows for read/write speeds of 10MB/s. Some of the synology nas drives are bloody fantastic for the price, worth reading some reviews etc and find one that suits your needs as obviously some a great for storage and redundancy and others are better suited to being a mediaserver, alternatively build a low spec desktop with support for RAID 5 and say 8HDD's, you could combo up 8 x 1tb drives and get yourself 4tb of usable space with decent redundancy!
 
cava83 said:
Jimmy,

Please don't get a drobo.

Cheaper option
Microserver

More expensive option
Synology
Netgear ReadyNas
Qnap

Also, try and use WD Red's, but you can use Greens if you flash the firmware (too much effort)

Thanks,

G.
Click to expand...

Synology, remember you talking about their products. gonna check them out now. I'll be using this as part of my media server setup for my movies, and general data.
 
Adam. said:
What model do you have?
Click to expand...

Not sure, and I can't check at the moment. I think it's a ds411j.

Really nice unit. I have a media server app installed on it which my DNLA TV can see, but in a few weeks I'm going to be setting up a Mac Mini as my home theatre, so Mac OSX will just see it connected as a network disk. Ultimate flexibility.
 
Roy, running RAID 5 what total free space do you have across the drives? When I switch to a new NAS I'm considering 5 instead of 1, to increase capacity and keep redundancy and thinking I'll run 4 drives 2-4Tb each.

Have you noticed any write speed issues on 5?
 
Sym0n said:
Roy, running RAID 5 what total free space do you have across the drives? When I switch to a new NAS I'm considering 5 instead of 1, to increase capacity and keep redundancy and thinking I'll run 4 drives 2-4Tb each.

Have you noticed any write speed issues on 5?
Click to expand...

I think the useable capacity is around 5.6TB or something. Not noticed any speed issues.
 
I've got a HP ML110 G7, a HP Microserver and a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo.

If you've got any questions in relation to any of those feel free to ask.
 
Been doing some more reading tonight and the synology stuff looks stupidly good, seems like you can do so much with them apart from the normal data storage. Problem now is which one to get?
 
Can someone explain to me in plain english what the hell this thread is about, what these 'things' are and how I manage without one?
 
I'm curious as to why people are using RAID in a home environment?

I (personally) know the guy who wrote the original linux kernel IDE drivers and he's a serious low level expert and he wouldn't touch raid (certainly in a home environment) with a bargepole.

His solution and recommendation is to use mhddfs to create a single mount point from multiple drives, files are stored across the physical drives, any drive can be pulled with the only effect that files that were on that drive just are no longer available until the drive is plugged back in. A failure results only in the files which were on that drive being "lost" and does not threaten the integrity of the whole "array".

He uses rsync to replicate the drives which means he has redundancy built in.
 
sn00p said:
I'm curious as to why people are using RAID in a home environment?

I (personally) know the guy who wrote the original linux kernel IDE drivers and he's a serious low level expert and he wouldn't touch raid (certainly in a home environment) with a bargepole.

His solution and recommendation is to use mhddfs to create a single mount point from multiple drives, files are stored across the physical drives, any drive can be pulled with the only effect that files that were on that drive just are no longer available until the drive is plugged back in. A failure results only in the files which were on that drive being "lost" and does not threaten the integrity of the whole "array".

He uses rsync to replicate the drives which means he has redundancy built in.
Click to expand...

But if you're using RAID 5 it will not cause failure to the whole array if a drive goes down? Plug a new one in and let it rebuild from the other drives.
 
sn00p said:
I'm curious as to why people are using RAID in a home environment?

I (personally) know the guy who wrote the original linux kernel IDE drivers and he's a serious low level expert and he wouldn't touch raid (certainly in a home environment) with a bargepole.

His solution and recommendation is to use mhddfs to create a single mount point from multiple drives, files are stored across the physical drives, any drive can be pulled with the only effect that files that were on that drive just are no longer available until the drive is plugged back in. A failure results only in the files which were on that drive being "lost" and does not threaten the integrity of the whole "array".

He uses rsync to replicate the drives which means he has redundancy built in.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a poor mans RAID tbh.
 
ThomasBrentnall said:
But if you're using RAID 5 it will not cause failure to the whole array if a drive goes down? Plug a new one in and let it rebuild from the other drives.
Click to expand...

And a second failure during rebuild? More common that you'd think, long rebuild times with large arrays, drives from the same batch.....

Adam. said:
Sounds like a poor mans RAID tbh.
Click to expand...


How, it what way?
 
sn00p said:
I'm curious as to why people are using RAID in a home environment?

I (personally) know the guy who wrote the original linux kernel IDE drivers and he's a serious low level expert and he wouldn't touch raid (certainly in a home environment) with a bargepole.

His solution and recommendation is to use mhddfs to create a single mount point from multiple drives, files are stored across the physical drives, any drive can be pulled with the only effect that files that were on that drive just are no longer available until the drive is plugged back in. A failure results only in the files which were on that drive being "lost" and does not threaten the integrity of the whole "array".

He uses rsync to replicate the drives which means he has redundancy built in.
Click to expand...

sounds like a poor solution, and you lose the files that are on there...

I use RAID 5 for performance and storage size, plus it's only n-1 for storage lost.

If i lose one drive, I just rebuild the array with a new drive, nothing lost. The only way I can lose data is if two drives fail at the same time (which if that were to happen you'd be kinda screwed anyway no matter which raid config you were in.).

Sounds like you're living in the past tbh.
 
sn00p said:
I'm curious as to why people are using RAID in a home environment?
Click to expand...

Honest answer, because I'm lazy. I don't have to think or do anything at all if I'm running RAID. RAID 1 is overkill though, as I'm losing an entire drive for redundancy, but my current NAS only has the ability to house two drives so 5 is out of the question.
 
Addicted said:
sounds like a poor solution, and you lose the files that are on there...

I use RAID 5 for performance and storage size, plus it's only n-1 for storage lost.

If i lose one drive, I just rebuild the array with a new drive, nothing lost. The only way I can lose data is if two drives fail at the same time (which if that were to happen you'd be kinda screwed anyway no matter which raid config you were in.).

Sounds like you're living in the past tbh.
Click to expand...

Each drive you add to the array increases the chance of a critical failure and loss of data across ALL drives, not just those that have gone bad.

You also have to be somewhat careful and ensure that you pull the right drive from the array, this is often the way people find themselves going from a working raid waiting for rebuild to a completely dead and useless array.

With mhddfs any number of drive failures affects only the data on those drives, not the entire array.

I know which one I'd use in a home environment and it has nothing to do about living in the past and everything to do about mitigating data loss.

Anyway, both should be subject to backup.
 
Addicted said:
But mhddfs has nothing to do with backing up data, unless you are manually doing it?

Seems pointless, and then requires extra software to dupe the drives anyway.
Click to expand...

First post I made, read it. mhddfs+rsync.

Even with "RAIDs redundancy" I'd still be looking to backup all the data on a raid array, so either way I'd still have rsync in the equation. All important stuff at home is rsynced off to multiple offsite locations (incremental backups too, always good to be able to pick a version of file from a specific date/time)

Anybody using RAID as some sort of ill-conceived backup solution needs to be burnt by it tbh.

ymmv.
 
*JimmyJ* said:
Been doing some more reading tonight and the synology stuff looks stupidly good, seems like you can do so much with them apart from the normal data storage. Problem now is which one to get?
Click to expand...

Back to topic with your question.

Depends on how much storage you need and what your budget is, plus if you need a better CPU.

712+ is very good, new version is 713+, only a two bay unit, so not much room for expansion through it's chassis, but you can get the add on modules.

Next up is the 1512+, which can do 5 disks, excellent units. Rather quiet.

Then the 1812+

Cheapest option is still to use a MicroServer as discussed before but the Synology devices have so many built in toys and are simple to configure.
 
I've got a Synology 1812+, Microserver and a full size Nextenastor box. All have their merits in certain areas, the Synology is probably the best for most users average home users but the price reflects that.
 
I just use 2 x 1TB HDD's in RAID1 (Windows Mirroring) on my desktop PC with OS and Games installed on my SSD.
 
I use software RAID5 on a linux box because it meets with the requirements of my level of protection, speed and capacity. If the data was mission critical then sure.. I would backup to elsewhere too and look into alternatives RAID10 with off site backups etc. overkill for my home video collection ;)
 
The only 'mission critical' data that I have, is business stuff that I literally cannot afford to lose. That data is backed up on multiple discs and in different locations AND on my RAID system. I think I'm pretty safe. In the meantime I have all my Blu-Ray rips and family photos stored on my NAS in RAID 5, and I'd like to think that if one drive failed, I'd have a fairly good chance of replacing the faulty disc and recovering the array. Maybe I should also store my data on the Moon? lol ;)
 
Although, they say that the Moon is moving away from Earth, so maybe I need my own RAID 12 setup on Mars?

f**king IT guys ;)
 
Is anyone using a cloud backup solution on top, as an extra layer of redundancy? I can only think of my years worth of photos that I'd want to end myself over if it were lost.
 
Roy Munson said:
The only 'mission critical' data that I have, is business stuff that I literally cannot afford to lose. That data is backed up on multiple discs and in different locations AND on my RAID system. I think I'm pretty safe. In the meantime I have all my Blu-Ray rips and family photos stored on my NAS in RAID 5, and I'd like to think that if one drive failed, I'd have a fairly good chance of replacing the faulty disc and recovering the array. Maybe I should also store my data on the Moon? lol ;)
Click to expand...

I know of two people (personally) who recently who lost raid arrays, one was due to a second drive failing during rebuild and the other was due to (stupidly) pulling the wrong disk from the array and then (even more stupidly) not following the correct procedure to correct the mistake. jus' sayin', s**t happens.

I have an inherent distrust of drives, I have a big pile of dead drives at home (from my PC owning days) and an even bigger pile at work.
 
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