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  1. #1

    Soft RAID or Hard RAID

    Hi,

    I have 3 Hard Disk, 2x 500 GB SSD and 1x 3TB SATA and i want to setup the server, i want to know how may i do the RAID ?

    2x 500 SSD Raid 1 and 1x 3TB SATA Raid 0 ? or all of them with RAID 0 and use backup with Software ?

    and also i want know what is the different on Soft Raid and Raid with Hardware ?

  2. #2
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    In a server never use RAID0.

  3. #3
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    Do Raid1 at least. Software raid is fine.

    Specially 4 U
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  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by net View Post
    Do Raid1 at least. Software raid is fine.
    how do you mean ? 2x 500gb raid 1 and which raid should i use for 3TB ?

    why never use raid 0 ?

    can i use Raid 5 and 10 ? is possible ?

  5. #5
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    You cannot use the 3 disks with Raid

    Set the 2x 500 GB SSD to RAID level 1 - mirroring -- this will get you 2x read speed and your data will be intact on the failure of 1 drive

    The 3TB drive can be used alone for a different purpose, like for example a backup drive

    Software Raid is implemented in software while hardware raid use ASIC on a controller to do the RAID, if you have the controller available, yes go for hardware Raid as it is more effecient , If you just have the 3 disks , you can only implement the raid in software and it is good too and is easy to manage from the os utilities like mdadm in linux
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  6. #6
    Hello,

    If you need speed , use SW raid 1 with 2x 500GB SSD - and do backups using rsync to your 3 TB hdd.

    SW raid use resources of all server , HW raid use resources only from HW card (but they slower that SW raid, good HW raid very expensive ).
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  7. #7
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    With RAID0 on those 2 SSDs, if any of the disks fails, all the data stored in the RAID0 is lost.

    But, well, I know that many are using single disks for hosting. If you really insist, use RAID0 on the SSDs and backup constantly to the 3 Tb disk. If any of the SSDs fails, get it replaced, re-install the OS, the control panel... then bring back your data from the 3 Tb. Make sure you don't format it during the installation! Depending on your SLA, we are talking about a day or two of downtime for each disk failure. We may get 0 disk failure per year, you may get 1 or 2... hard to predict.

    It's not an HA solution but it does the job
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  8. #8
    Hi,

    From my experience soft Raid is done within your OS. If anything goes wrong with OS its' more difficult to recover your raid array.

    If budget allows, I would go with hardware raid. If your system dies and you need to migrate over to another server. Your raid card will retain all raid configurations.

    Hope that helps.

    Kelvin

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by FIAHOST View Post
    I know that many are using single disks for hosting
    The question is why?
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  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by WPCYCLE View Post
    The question is why?
    Lowers the cost of entry, keeps prices low, prices customers are paying probably do not justify even the slightest need redundancy in the owners eyes (yeah, they pay for this when things eventually fail in wasted time trying to get things back in working order), and many hosts leave restoration to the customers as they should have backups.

    Quote Originally Posted by server5-DE View Post
    Hi,

    I have 3 Hard Disk, 2x 500 GB SSD and 1x 3TB SATA and i want to setup the server, i want to know how may i do the RAID ?

    2x 500 SSD Raid 1 and 1x 3TB SATA Raid 0 ? or all of them with RAID 0 and use backup with Software ?

    and also i want know what is the different on Soft Raid and Raid with Hardware ?
    In your setup the best thing you can do is use RAID1 for the two SSDs, use the 3TB SATA drive as a local backup drive and then sync your backups offsite. This should help reduce the load on your SSDs as you can pull the backups of the SATA drive. SATA0 should not be used for anything important

  11. #11
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    I prefer software RAID because a hardware RAID card is another potential point of failure, and you can't expect the datacenter to have a replacement in stock. Linux software RAID is mature and reliable, and portable between servers. Hardware RAID is hardware specific. If the motherboard fails, you can't just plug the drives into another server unless it also has an identical RAID card.

    It would be best to get another 3TB drive, so you can have RAID 1 on both pairs of drives. I can't think of a situation where 3TB of storage could be regarded as disposable, or backed up off site--it could take weeks to copy that much data across the network.

    Or you could throw away 2500 GB of the SATA drive and use all three drives together as a RAID 5. Write speeds would be slowed down to the SATA speed, but read speeds would be at SSD speed.

    RAID 0 is only for hobby systems where starting over from bare metal isn't a problem.

  12. #12
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    If you want the ability to simply unplug a failed drive, slot the new drive in and walk away then get hardware raid.

    If you don't mind running a few commands afterwards, go for software raid.

    Performance wise there's not much in it in most cases.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by server5-DE View Post
    2x 500 SSD Raid 1 and 1x 3TB SATA Raid 0 ? or all of them with RAID 0 and use backup with Software ?
    RAID 0: When you absolutely, positively hate your data and want it all to just Go Away.
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  14. #14
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    For sake of mind, just use hardware RAID, you will normally get better performance, especially as load increases, especially since the cards are built for this purpose (similar to graphics cards, ASICs, etc.) If you want a painful life you can use software RAID, just do not expect to get any data recovered when things start breaking down. Your remote hands will love you as all they need to do is pop the drive out, and pop a new one in and they are done. If you have a pending write and loose power it can be a complete wrap for your server and require a complete rebuild. RAID0 and RAID1 performance differences between hardware and software are not very large, but as soon as you start going to RAID5 and above your performance will decrease as load and drive counts go up as the system CPU and RAM has to take on this task. With a large amount of IO it can cause some serious issues eventually. You normally get higher write throughput, faster rebuilds, and normally gives you the highest performance possible and frees up CPU and RAM to be used for non disk RAID processing tasks (get more use for running apps instead of the system managing your RAID arrays).

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by HelpOps View Post
    For sake of mind, just use hardware RAID, you will normally get better performance, especially as load increases, especially since the cards are built for this purpose (similar to graphics cards, ASICs, etc.) If you want a painful life you can use software RAID, just do not expect to get any data recovered when things start breaking down. Your remote hands will love you as all they need to do is pop the drive out, and pop a new one in and they are done. If you have a pending write and loose power it can be a complete wrap for your server and require a complete rebuild. RAID0 and RAID1 performance differences between hardware and software are not very large, but as soon as you start going to RAID5 and above your performance will decrease as load and drive counts go up as the system CPU and RAM has to take on this task. With a large amount of IO it can cause some serious issues eventually. You normally get higher write throughput, faster rebuilds, and normally gives you the highest performance possible and frees up CPU and RAM to be used for non disk RAID processing tasks (get more use for running apps instead of the system managing your RAID arrays).
    I think you need to clarify that the power failure benefit of hardware RAID cards only applies to the top-of-the-line RAID cards with battery backup.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by SneakySysadmin View Post
    RAID 0: When you absolutely, positively hate your data and want it all to just Go Away.
    That statement should go in the Joke thread.
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  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by SneakySysadmin View Post
    RAID 0: When you absolutely, positively hate your data and want it all to just Go Away.
    Nonsense. If I want to keep my data safe, I'd rather have RAID 0 with a backup than RAID 0+n without a backup. Beware the sysadmin who thinks disk mirroring (or parity) replaces backup.
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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Etian View Post
    I think you need to clarify that the power failure benefit of hardware RAID cards only applies to the top-of-the-line RAID cards with battery backup.
    haha good point, the cheap budget ones will leave you stranded and sorry.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Collabora View Post
    Nonsense. If I want to keep my data safe, I'd rather have RAID 0 with a backup than RAID 0+n without a backup. Beware the sysadmin who thinks disk mirroring (or parity) replaces backup.
    If they mention it is for backup and not redundancy they are not a true sysadmin and a child playing with fire just waiting for it to start as soon as possible.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Collabora View Post
    Nonsense.
    That too would be an accurate assessment of RAID 0.

    Quote Originally Posted by Collabora View Post
    If I want to keep my data safe, I'd rather have RAID 0 with a backup than RAID 0+n without a backup.
    "Keep my data safe" and "RAID 0" are mutually exclusive engineering choices.
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  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by SneakySysadmin View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Collabora View Post
    If I want to keep my data safe, I'd rather have RAID 0 with a backup than RAID 0+n without a backup
    "Keep my data safe" and "RAID 0" are mutually exclusive engineering choices.
    Good luck with that after a controller failure or malware infection or data corruption or accidental data deletion or physical disasters or RAID rebuild failure, etc
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  22. #22
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    Just to summarize again: RAID and backups are not the same thing.

    Even if you have a massive raid system with tolerance to multiple disk failures, you still need a backup. This is not something you can avoid really. Ideally, you would need multiple backups kept in multiple locations (what if your DC is flooded, burns to the ground, what if a raid firmware corrupts your data, someone manages to hack into your server...)

    RAID is only for you to keep going in case of disk failure.

    RAID 0 is usually not a valid choice. The only time I see businesses using RAID 0 is for some caching applications. Which means the RAID 0 is used only as a caching location to accelerate some applications. In that case, it's fine as if the RAID 0 loses a disk, the application would run slower then rebuilds its cache when the disk is replaced. I have even seen a RAID 0 with 4 disks. That's totally fine as long as the data there can be lost at any moment without causing any serious issue.

    In the case of the OP, the most reasonable option would be: RAID1 on the small disks + use the large disk for nearline backups + you must also ship these backups elsewhere (don't have the only backup in the same server you are backing up)
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