Results 1 to 16 of 16
  1. #1

    Do I need RAID on new server?

    I am buying a new dedicated server, but I am not sure if I should add RAD-1 or not.

    What is your advice?

    Thank you.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    United Kingdom.
    Posts
    50
    What are you going to be using the server for? I personally think RAID is very useful because if your hard drive fails, you can easily restore your data. However, depending on what RAID your getting, it will take up extra disk space.

  3. #3
    It's depends on your needs, if you want reducancy for your data then yes you should get two of the same drives with the order and get the RAID 1. However because of the way it's works you will only have one "active" drive to use so if you have two 128GB SSDs on RAID 1 then the actual storage capacity of that server is only 128GB. But the plus side if one of those SSDs failed and provided you make sure the RAID array is looked at then you can just have the bad one replaced and bam no backups to recover back to.

  4. #4
    I have a small hosting company, most of my customers use wordpress and their sites are not really heavy.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by OmarCast View Post
    I have a small hosting company, most of my customers use wordpress and their sites are not really heavy.
    Then it's just a matter of a business decision, do you want to charge more for quality or just be a bottom of barrel hoster? The choice is yours.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    United Kingdom.
    Posts
    50
    Quote Originally Posted by OmarCast View Post
    I have a small hosting company, most of my customers use wordpress and their sites are not really heavy.
    Then I would highly recommend RAID, as if your hard drive which hosts your clients data fails, then you won't be able to restore it unless you've made any previous backups. Can leave to many unhappy customers and so forth.

  7. #7
    I want to believe guys, you probably own several servers. Do you use RAID on them?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    918
    Quote Originally Posted by OmarCast View Post
    I have a small hosting company, most of my customers use wordpress and their sites are not really heavy.
    If your hosting customers sites on the server then raid 1 is really a minimal requirement in my opinion.
    Last edited by Silvatech; 08-31-2014 at 06:11 PM.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by OmarCast View Post
    I want to believe guys, you probably own several servers. Do you use RAID on them?
    For the most part yes any good provider will generally RAID their servers for the reasons that I and others that we pointed out. However there are instances that a few opt out of RAID their servers, for instance if they are a "budget" host that simply be one of the cheaper providers on the web. The reason of that because RAID 1 requires another drive to be "at the ready" so if the main fails it will seamlessly takes over.

  10. #10
    I think thanks to your comments I will definitely add RAID. At this point, I am not worried about the money, but I really want to offer a great quality of service to all my customers.

    I just started this business 4 month ago, and I think so far it is paying itself.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by OmarCast View Post
    I think thanks to your comments I will definitely add RAID. At this point, I am not worried about the money, but I really want to offer a great quality of service to all my customers.

    I just started this business 4 month ago, and I think so far it is paying itself.
    Nice, just be sure you keep an eye on the array, having RAID is great until.. it doesn't works anymore. This is caused by due to not keeping an eye on the array and then what happens SSD/HDD 1 dies then if not caught soon enough SSD/HDD 2 dies as well resulting in a failed array. Which is equal to losing a single drive on a non RAID server.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    918
    Quote Originally Posted by OmarCast View Post
    I think thanks to your comments I will definitely add RAID. At this point, I am not worried about the money, but I really want to offer a great quality of service to all my customers.

    I just started this business 4 month ago, and I think so far it is paying itself.
    I want to first personally Congratulate you so far on the growth of your business. Just to clarify the reason why a hair more. The biggest reason on shared hosting you need raid is because without raid if the drive was to fail all your customers would loose their data. Which would basically cost you your business. With raid 1 a drive fails all data should be preserved and none of your customers will have any downtime.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    1,767
    At the very least, I would recommend hardware RAID10 (1+0). There is a minimum of 4 drives, but will provide much better read performance, and double your write performance. Also, should a drive fail, your server will still be online, and you can swap out the drive and perform an online rebuild. Let me stress that this is not a replacement for backups. You will definitely want on or off site backups should the unthinkable happen.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by zacharooni View Post
    At the very least, I would recommend hardware RAID10 (1+0). There is a minimum of 4 drives, but will provide much better read performance, and double your write performance. Also, should a drive fail, your server will still be online, and you can swap out the drive and perform an online rebuild. Let me stress that this is not a replacement for backups. You will definitely want on or off site backups should the unthinkable happen.
    Good points but not everybody can afford to rent a RAID card+BBU since those runs for about another $50 a month and not to mention 2 more drives on top. What you could do is halves the size of the drives since the total size of a RAID 10 array is equal to 2 drives instead of 1 with RAID 1.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    918
    Quote Originally Posted by HarvestMine View Post
    Good points but not everybody can afford to rent a RAID card+BBU since those runs for about another $50 a month and not to mention 2 more drives on top. What you could do is halves the size of the drives since the total size of a RAID 10 array is equal to 2 drives instead of 1 with RAID 1.
    On top of it if I understand the OPs first post he does not expect what he is hosting to be high I/O on the hard drives.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Ten1/0/2
    Posts
    2,529
    Raid 1 gives you the sleep at night factor and should be part of your business continuity plan.

    I would fathom the question differently to you and ask:

    when the single drive in your server fails, what is your contingency? How long will it take you to re-build the server from scratch and restore backups to get your clients back on the air, assuming you have backups to restore from.

    When a drive in raid 1 fails, you can arrange a scheduled short outage to replace it.
    CPanel Shared and Reseller Hosting, OpenVZ VPS Hosting. West Coast (LA) Servers and Nodes
    Running Linux since 1.0.8 Kernel!
    Providing Internet Services since 1995 and Hosting Since 2004

Similar Threads

  1. Backup Server, RAID 6 or RAID 5 + Hot Spare?
    By gordonrp in forum Colocation, Data Centers, IP Space and Networks
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 05-31-2011, 01:02 AM
  2. RAID 5 vs RAID 10 in shared hosting server
    By Tomcatf14 in forum Hosting Security and Technology
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 10-23-2009, 03:54 PM
  3. Turn non raid into raid on live server?
    By Red Squirrel in forum Dedicated Server
    Replies: 12
    Last Post: 12-24-2008, 07:43 PM
  4. RAID or Not to RAID: Trying to Decide on a New Server
    By uninet in forum Dedicated Server
    Replies: 26
    Last Post: 08-26-2008, 06:08 PM
  5. Whats the best for server with SATA raid 1 and SCSI raid 10
    By zefefre in forum Hosting Security and Technology
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 01-14-2008, 12:42 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •