Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : POLL: [RAID] How should we configure our next VZ server

[EuroVPS]

IBM xSeries 445
32GB RAM / 8 CPU

What RAID level will we run?

RAID 5 or RAID 10

Read the link:
http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdo...on%20Final.pdf

Vote away!

[geekfreak]

This depends on three factors:
1. Budget.
2. Size requirements (and available space in the case)
3. Performanc requirements


1. Raid5 will yield better storage/dollar ratio... so is better for budget.
2. Raid5 "wastes" fewer drives, thus yielding more storage / drive bay slot (same as #1 really)
3. Raid10 is much faster for WRITING performance, and a little faster for reading.

Having dealt with virtuozzo vps servers on a large scale, I can safely say the writing I/O on a vz server is usually pretty low.
In short, your best bet is probably raid5

That is what I have always done on my VZ machines :-)

[EuroVPS]

We've been setting them up in RAID 10 and RAID 5EE, so far RAID 5EE is faster. If we decide to stick with 5EE we'll probably scrap 10.

RAID 5EE is a proprietary technology available only with IBM controllers. It includes a built in spare drive and actually uses the spare to boost seek times. We're talking about a measurable 20% boost in seek + aggregate transfer rate over straight RAID 5. Not to mention it's faster than RAID 10 on random reads.

[trau]

Originally posted by EuroVPS/Igor
We've been setting them up in RAID 10 and RAID 5EE, so far RAID 5EE is faster. If we decide to stick with 5EE we'll probably scrap 10.

If you are using the 8i controller make certain you update the firmware this quarter when the data corruption fix comes out. The origional firmware will cause data corruption when a drive fails.

[Richard]

We've been using RAID5 for a while; no complaints.

[EuroVPS]

origional firmware will cause data corruption when a drive fails

We experienced this recently. We are now running 6M's in all our machines with 7.12 firmware. Our x350's are running 4Mx's with 7.10 on RAID 5EE and all is well, even with 2 drives down.

Thanks for the heads up on the 8i.