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  1. #1
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    Why not use SSDs on RAID5?

    I see a lot of people saying to avoid SSDs on RAID5 like it's a curse, but why exactly should I avoid putting 3 SSDs in RAID5, and have 2 SSDs in RAID1 and 1 hot-spare SSD?

    Thanks.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by v33usa View Post
    I see a lot of people saying to avoid SSDs on RAID5 like it's a curse, but why exactly should I avoid putting 3 SSDs in RAID5, and have 2 SSDs in RAID1 and 1 hot-spare SSD?

    Thanks.
    Are you trying to setup/configure 2 set of RAID arrays? ie: RAID5 (with 3 SSDs) & RAID1 (2+1 SSDs)?

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Asher ross View Post
    Are you trying to setup/configure 2 set of RAID arrays? ie: RAID5 (with 3 SSDs) & RAID1 (2+1 SSDs)?
    I believe he's trying to select between either going with 2xSSD in RAID1 + 1xSSD or going with 3xSSD RAID5 setup.

    At which point I don't see why you wouldn't go with 3xSSD RAID5.
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  4. #4
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    Please check this source, many opinions: http://serverfault.com/questions/513...raid5-with-ssd
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  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by v33usa View Post
    I see a lot of people saying to avoid SSDs on RAID5 like it's a curse, but why exactly should I avoid putting 3 SSDs in RAID5, and have 2 SSDs in RAID1 and 1 hot-spare SSD?

    Thanks.
    There is no reason to avoid RAID5 in SSDs. If you do it, be sure to have a powerful RAID controller, since SSDs are high performance and the job a RAID controller has to do in RAID5 is hard, especially in high performing drives.
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  6. #6
    I think everyone in this thread is missing the obvious here: Raid 5 amplifies writing dramatically. SSDs have a limited lifespan for number of writes. So the two are really a poor fit as you're going to wear out the SSDs very quickly in a raid 5 configuration. Raid 10 is best, raid 1 is also acceptable. Raid 5 is best avoided if possible.
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  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    I think everyone in this thread is missing the obvious here: Raid 5 amplifies writing dramatically. SSDs have a limited lifespan for number of writes. So the two are really a poor fit as you're going to wear out the SSDs very quickly in a raid 5 configuration. Raid 10 is best, raid 1 is also acceptable. Raid 5 is best avoided if possible.
    Yes, that's the main point here. Don't RAID 5 your SSDs
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  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by v33usa View Post
    I see a lot of people saying to avoid SSDs on RAID5 like it's a curse, but why exactly should I avoid putting 3 SSDs in RAID5, and have 2 SSDs in RAID1 and 1 hot-spare SSD?

    Thanks.
    SSD or SATA, avoid raid5.

    If you want to know why, try it yourself and you will see.


    Go for raid1 or raid10.

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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by net View Post
    SSD or SATA, avoid raid5.

    If you want to know why, try it yourself and you will see.


    Go for raid1 or raid10.
    Yes, mostly epic rebuild times, the problem with rebuilding is that it's intensive on your disks, there's a possibility that your rebuild will make another disk fail.

    Here, have fun:
    https://www.memset.com/tools/raid-calculator/
    http://wintelguy.com/raidmttdl.pl
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  10. #10
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    Like others have said RAID 5 is intensive during rebuild, rebuild times are slower compared to other RAID levels and other disks are more likely to fail during the rebuild, in which case you're screwed. Go with RAID 1 or RAID 10 where possible.
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  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    I think everyone in this thread is missing the obvious here: Raid 5 amplifies writing dramatically. SSDs have a limited lifespan for number of writes. So the two are really a poor fit as you're going to wear out the SSDs very quickly in a raid 5 configuration. Raid 10 is best, raid 1 is also acceptable. Raid 5 is best avoided if possible.
    I don't understand.. a write to a RAID10 array results in write to two SSD's (actual data + 1 copy). A write to a RAID5 array results in a write to two SSD's as well (actual data + checksum). Shouldn't make any difference for the lifespan. Also with enterprise 10DWPD SSD's you'd need a lot of writes to wear out your SSD's in their lifetime.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by martijnatlico View Post
    I don't understand.. a write to a RAID10 array results in write to two SSD's (actual data + 1 copy). A write to a RAID5 array results in a write to two SSD's as well (actual data + checksum). Shouldn't make any difference for the lifespan. Also with enterprise 10DWPD SSD's you'd need a lot of writes to wear out your SSD's in their lifetime.
    A write to a raid 5 writes to every drive in the array.
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  13. #13
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    Sort of like the old song - Don't Copy That Floppy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI) you gotta remember to not "Raid5 your SSD"

    I may have just aged myself.
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  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by RodneyGiles View Post
    Sort of like the old song - Don't Copy That Floppy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI) you gotta remember to not "Raid5 your SSD"

    I may have just aged myself.
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  15. #15
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    *

    As everyone is very against raid 5, under what circumstances does one use raid 5? I keep hearing the same thing when raid 5 has been put into discussion.

    I use raid 5 and 50 and not seeing a problem.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    A write to a raid 5 writes to every drive in the array.
    Yes, but isn't the write endurance issue on the amount of data written, not the amount of operations? So the fact that it is writing less data than a mirror should be a benefit, right?

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by devonblzx View Post
    Yes, but isn't the write endurance issue on the amount of data written, not the amount of operations? So the fact that it is writing less data than a mirror should be a benefit, right?
    It's based in large part on the number of write operations, because each write op, no matter how small, must reflash in sector sized chunks or bigger. Depending on various factors including free / available blocks on the ssd, raid chunk size, size of a given write, etc, you could see pretty substantial write amplification in this scenario, which is why it should be avoided for both longevity and performance reasons.
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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    It's based in large part on the number of write operations, because each write op, no matter how small, must reflash in sector sized chunks or bigger. Depending on various factors including free / available blocks on the ssd, raid chunk size, size of a given write, etc, you could see pretty substantial write amplification in this scenario, which is why it should be avoided for both longevity and performance reasons.
    Yes, I was thinking the same thing with write amplifications after I posted. Assuming you know what you are doing, having a higher RAID chunk size and higher filesystem transaction size / commit timeout could go to benefiting endurance. I think with proper settings, you could make a RAID5 outlast a RAID1 by a good amount, assuming you are willing/able to lose a small amount of data on a power loss or crash (with the commit timeout).


  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    I think everyone in this thread is missing the obvious here: Raid 5 amplifies writing dramatically.
    How so? If a naive RAID controller is rewriting data that hasn't changed, then it would cause amplification, but a proper RAID5 implementation shouldn't be doing that.

    Quote Originally Posted by v33usa View Post
    I see a lot of people saying to avoid SSDs on RAID5 like it's a curse, but why exactly should I avoid putting 3 SSDs in RAID5, and have 2 SSDs in RAID1 and 1 hot-spare SSD?
    The main reason to avoid it would be for performance. The overhead of reading old data and old parity on partial stripe writes can slow things down quite a bit. In reality, you should still get decent performance, and maybe that's all you need.

    Another option to consider is using all 3 SSDs in a RAID10 by logically splitting each SSD in half, giving you 6 components to work with. You would then have 3 mirrors in your RAID10, where mirror #1 uses 1A and 2A, mirror #2 uses 3A and 1B, and mirror #3 uses 2B and 3B.
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  20. #20
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    Don't forget that raid5 adds significant (at least in SSD standards) read/write latency. SSD's in servers are about low access time, high queue-depth performance. You will see much lower random performance in raid 5 than a single drive.

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    A write to a raid 5 writes to every drive in the array.
    No it doesn't. In a 5-disk RAID5 array a write will result in the following operations:

    1. Write of the actual data (1 operation)
    2. Reading the data form the three other data disks in the stripe for parity calculation (3 operations)
    3. Writing out the new parity information to the last remaining disks (1 operation)

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by martijnatlico View Post
    In a 5-disk RAID5 array a write will result in the following operations:

    1. Write of the actual data (1 operation)
    2. Reading the data form the three other data disks in the stripe for parity calculation (3 operations)
    3. Writing out the new parity information to the last remaining disks (1 operation)
    It doesn't even have to read from all the other disks in the stripe. It just has to read the old data and the old parity. To write one sector, the RAID reads one sector of old data, reads one sector of old parity, writes one sector of new data, and writes one sector of new parity. XORing the old data with the old parity basically removes the old data from the parity calculation.

    RAID10 will do 2 writes. RAID5 will do 2 reads and 2 writes. Depending on the workload, there's a good chance that the old data is already cached, so it may only have to do 1 read and 2 writes.
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  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by bqinternet View Post
    It doesn't even have to read from all the other disks in the stripe. It just has to read the old data and the old parity. To write one sector, the RAID reads one sector of old data, reads one sector of old parity, writes one sector of new data, and writes one sector of new parity. XORing the old data with the old parity basically removes the old data from the parity calculation.

    RAID10 will do 2 writes. RAID5 will do 2 reads and 2 writes. Depending on the workload, there's a good chance that the old data is already cached, so it may only have to do 1 read and 2 writes.
    Right.. thanks for clearing that up.

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by YUPAPA View Post
    As everyone is very against raid 5, under what circumstances does one use raid 5? I keep hearing the same thing when raid 5 has been put into discussion.

    I use raid 5 and 50 and not seeing a problem.
    Mostly because it's dangerous in large arrays. With multiple terabytes or RAID arrays on SATA-drives with many blocks you risk discovering another bad block during resync. If you do the entire array is most likely gone. RAID 6 gives you double protection and should be used for all large SATA-setups. When you resync another drive may fail and nothing happens.

    You can use RAID5 for 72-146 GB 10-15k drives in small setups (4-6 drives). More than that and you start taking unnecessary risks.

    And as always - keep a spare drive available next to your servers at all times. When you replace it - immediately order a new drive.

  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by YUPAPA View Post
    As everyone is very against raid 5, under what circumstances does one use raid 5? I keep hearing the same thing when raid 5 has been put into discussion.

    I use raid 5 and 50 and not seeing a problem.
    there is nothing principally wrong with raid5 if used in the right use case scenarios - it always has been viable. but, as others have pointed out, it does have various drawbacks. those drawbacks were always weighed vs the benefits of increased capacity with less drives. with the price of storage continuing to drop, the argument simply isnt the same as it was back in the days of 73GB/146GB/300GB SCSI drives. you can now purchase 4TB or more SATA drives which perform better and at lower cost. if its pure capacity, a raid10 array will cost you less, provide you more capacity and cost you less then a raid5 array of older drives ever could. so, the argument for raid5 just doesnt make sense any longer - unless of course you are really just trying to save on drive cost and have zero care about write performance in the environment. otherwise, buy an extra drive or 2 and go with raid10/60
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