To Raid or not to Raid? Anyone here running Raid5?

[bartley9]

I'm probably going to regret this but I have 4 500GB SATA disks running of a cheap and chearful 4 port SATA controller configured as a software RAID-5 array under Server 2003 and it has been rock solid for the past 8 months.

I have even had a few BSD's due to a fault on my single "active recording" drive.

Streaming to 3 clients around the house gives no performance problems from the Raid-5 array.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by bartley9

I'm probably going to regret this but I have 4 500GB SATA disks running of a cheap and chearful 4 port SATA controller configured as a software RAID-5 array under Server 2003 and it has been rock solid for the past 8 months.

I have even had a few BSD's due to a fault on my single "active recording" drive.

Streaming to 3 clients around the house gives no performance problems from the Raid-5 array.

LOL, I see you ducking for cover with this one.
Although I have not heard anything bad about running RAID in Windows, I wouldn't try it as a first choice.

I am running a 5X300GB Disk Raid Array, with a promise SATA controller that I found in a broken server a few years back. The controller itself is decent, except for one problem. Every three to four months, it decides that one of it's 5 disks is not part of the array, and that the array is Critical. I have to go and manually reset the disk, and add it into the array again. So for the small 8 hour window that it takes me to realize this has happend, I am vunerable to a disk failure, which would suck.

As a result I am starting to look into the idea of doing a RAID array with linux, as I have Guru's, myself not included, and Google at my disposal for setting it up.

Overall, RAID5 has served me well with recording 4 HD streams from HDHomeruns, and recording 1-2 SD streams off of my HVR 1600's, while playing back a show. I don't think I would ever tax it more than that, and I doubt most people reading this will either.

[Fuzzy]

I'm running 4 200GB drives in RAID 5 (software, windows built-in). I have had no performance problems, and I have 2 HD tuners, and 3 Sd tuners, playing back on multiple clients. The system is on a seperate drive. I went with software RAID, because i am not tied to a controller. (in fact, 3 of the drives are SATA, and one is IDE). It was all about cost and convenience for me.

I would like to upgrade to bigger drives at some point, but haven't quite figured out what route i want to go for it. I've kinda gotten used to the 600GB i have available, but if I go with a more HD friendly solution (R5000 w/ Dish) I may start to get a little cramped.

[pez]

Originally Posted by Shield

So, here's my dilemma. Right now my Sage box consists of the following disk subsystem:

1. Hardware Serial ATA Raid Controller - 8 channel internal LSI Logic 8308ELP with 128 MB/cache. Supports RAID 0,1,5,50. Only thing to note here is write back cache is disabled as I don't have the battery backup unit (WBC cannot be enabled unless the BBU exists).

...

Thanks,
Shawn

FYI, I was reading the LSI SW users guide and came across this mode that might fix your writeback problem.

"Bad BBU: Select this mode if you want the controller to use
Writeback mode but the controller has no BBU or the BBU
is bad. If you do not choose this option, the controller
firmware automatically switches to Writethrough mode if it
detects a bad or missing BBU. "

BTW, how do you like the LSI controller? I'm thinking of getting it over the 3ware as it is cheaper.

-pez

[BitBass]

Mike, am I understanding this right? You have the Linux software RAID only acting as a NAS? The SageMC is a separate box and does all the encoding, etc? What's the traffic flow for the extenders? Are they able to access the NAS directly once queueing something up from the MC?

I'm thinking about moving from networked Tivo's to Sage. Just trying to plan out the build and the related costs. I have about 500 DVD's that I'd like to rip and have accessible so a good size storage solution is going to be important to me. I'm somewhat familiar with the volume management in Linux so I'm thinking of going that route.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by BitBass

Mike, am I understanding this right? You have the Linux software RAID only acting as a NAS? The SageMC is a separate box and does all the encoding, etc? What's the traffic flow for the extenders? Are they able to access the NAS directly once queueing something up from the MC?

I'm thinking about moving from networked Tivo's to Sage. Just trying to plan out the build and the related costs. I have about 500 DVD's that I'd like to rip and have accessible so a good size storage solution is going to be important to me. I'm somewhat familiar with the volume management in Linux so I'm thinking of going that route.

Am I the Mike you are talking about? If so, yes, 6 TB of storage in a linux RAID5 config on the NAS. The Sage TV server with the tuners is connected to the NAS through a GbE switch. The clients talk to the NAS as well, since Sage server hands them a UNC for playback. The clients are connected via 100BT or GbE. The client playback for recorded programs goes direct to the NAS.

Linux software RAID and LVM works great. Much more powerful than Windows if you are comfortable with it.

Thx
mike

[BitBass]

Yep, you're the Mike I'm asking.

I've been reading some of your other posts and your setup sounds exactly like what I want to build. I even found a similar thread over on avsforum where you talk about doing ADS authentication to the same setup.

All of the little things that can make a big difference in performance are a bit new to me. I might want to pick your brain if that's ok.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by BitBass

Yep, you're the Mike I'm asking.

I've been reading some of your other posts and your setup sounds exactly like what I want to build. I even found a similar thread over on avsforum where you talk about doing ADS authentication to the same setup.

All of the little things that can make a big difference in performance are a bit new to me. I might want to pick your brain if that's ok.

Sure. Let's try and have the discussion in the NAS thread in the hardware forum though since we already have a nice background on Linux NAS work already going.

Yeah, ADS authentication really makes things easy if you have a windows server platform already in the house. My wife is used to exchange (really outlook) and with all the developer license subscriptions available, it basically cost me nothing to run one. I also run a home wide backup solution on that server too.

Linux fileserving out of the box is probably just fine for 95% of the Sage set ups folks run. However, if you tweak it a bit (and large file serving with mostly sequential access is not what the default linux settings are usually optimized for), you can get very impressive numbers. Total overkill for most, but hey, why not? :-)

Thanks,
Mike

[sixdoubleo]

BitBass, I plan to do the same (as well as pick mikesm's brain).

I finally downloaded the massive 4GB ISO for openSUSE 10.3. I have Redhat/Fedora experience, but want to try openSUSE for this since it is what others have used and it has native kernel support for this.

I plan to install it into a VM here at the office (we run VMWare ESX) to get a feel for the OS and sort of poke around at the commands that are SUSE-specific. Added benefit...I'm looking at moving our Linux DNS/DHCP boxes at work to openSUSE anyway...might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Then maybe I'll be ready to throw a test box together at home this weekend.

I wouldn't mind seeing us develop a "How to build your own monster Linux SW NAS" document...

[BitBass]

Mikesm, no problem with taking the conversation over there.

Six, I'm with you on that. My preference is something Debian based such as Ubuntu, but I'm flexible. I certainly don't get into distro wars!

See you in the other thread!