Hello all,
I'm running out of space on my data raid, so naturally I'm looking at several ways to expand the capacity. Unfortunately my funds are rather low now, so I can't really afford to try and see, hence this topic. I'd like you to run over what I've researched so far, see if there are any problems or misconceptions, how you agree or disagree.
My current setup uses a "Promise SuperTrak EX16350" (see details below), with 4x 320GB in 0+1 for my system drive and 6x 1TB raid 6 for my storage drive. Since my 640GB system drive is nearly full, and my 3.6TB storage drive has a mere 300GB left unused, and I was so silly to put the system drive on the raid card not the motherboard raid, simply adding a raid 6 of 2TB drives to copy it all over (before removing one or both raids) is not an option.
Promise SuperTrak EX16350 (16x SATA300 RAID, 128MB PCI-e x8)
http://it.promise.com/product/card_detail_ita.asp?pid=190
Storage capacity up to 16.0 terabytes (with sixteen 500GB drives x 2 controllers/ system)
Online capacity expansion and RAID level migration to add capacity --on the fly--as needed
As I see it, there are 3 options available to me:
1) Expand the raid 6 with additional 1TB drives. I'm still confused how the card could reliable redistribute striped&paritied data over one or more additional drives, but Promise apparently claims it can be done "--on the fly--", so this would be one option.
This would be cheapest, but smallest improvement and poor long-term value.
2) Expand the raid 6 with additional 2TB drives. Similar to the first option, but with the added benefit that in the future I could use option 3, but only have to replace the 6 original 1TB drives. Since you would effectively be using only half (or so) of the platter, I'm assuming there would be a performance hit - but at 90 spins per second, and it being used as a storage drive, this would probably be negligible.
This would be a little less than twice as expensive as first option, with smallest improvement, but decent long-term value potential.
3) Replace all 6 1TB drive with 2TB drives. Once that's done and the raid has been fully rebuilt, it seems entirely plausible to simply go into Windows' disk management and resize the partition to the new (roughly double) drive capacity.
This would be quite expensive - up to 6 times option 2, and roughly 11 times option 1, but would approximately double the available space - in one go - and provide great long-term value assuming option 2 works as well.
Of course all this is based on the assumption that:
- It really is that simple to just add another drive and have the raid card rebuild it somehow, hopefully safely.
- It really is that simple to just replace all drives with bigger ones and go into disk management to resize the partition
- Mixing different drives (perhaps even vastly different sizes) isn't all that bad
I think I'd prefer option 3 - it's a bigger investment - at least up front - but it keeps the drive counts low (great failure wise), doubles the capacity in one go (good for another year, perhaps two), and I'm not 'stuck' with even more 1TB drives. Other facts that factor into my decision:
- I'll probably be splitting my rig into a gaming PC and a storage server 'soon' (TM). To that end, the gaming PC would have a 120GB SSD and 2-4 1TB drives in mirror raid or 0+1. The storage server could then use 2 (or 4) 1TB drives for system/cache disks, thereby keeping the storage raid 6 as sequential as possible.
- The 320GB drives are getting pretty old. Not that I'm terribly worried about failure (they're in 0+1 plus I even have a spare), but these are 4 and 5 platter drives at 7200 RPM so the 1TB drives are faster, quieter, cooler, bigger and more energy efficient.
- My case is already one 3.5" slot short (one of the 320GB drives is loose - but the case is very stationary, at least). Hence a new case may be on the horizon, but I don't have it nor ordered it yet.
More info:
* HDD 320GB 7200RPM S-ATA300 Seagate 7200.10 16MB Ca --- 5x (4 in use; raid 0+1). Some of these broke within warranty (was it 3 or 4? two within a week, hence raid 6 instead of raid 5) so some are 5 platter and some 4 platter. At least I think so.
* Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EACS, 1TB --- 6x (6 in use; raid 6).
* Samsung EcoGreen F3EG, 2TB --- 0x. Looking at these to buy as replacements (or addition). Cheap, green (storage anyway), heard good things about the Samsung F# line.
Finally, "Storage capacity up to 16.0 terabytes (with sixteen 500GB drives x 2 controllers/ system)". What does this mean? Is this simply a re-mentioning that the/each raid controller card can support up to 16 drives? Or is this a statement that it can only handle 16.0 terabytes of storage (and would that be total, or per logical drive)? Clearly it's not a statement that 500GB drives are the biggest it can handle; I've already connected 6x 1TB drives. I've also read certain controllers may have problems with 2TB drives. Is this something I should look out for?
I hope my effort to be thorough hasn't created a wall of text - I've tried to be in-depth yet structured while mentioning all applicable details, leaving out unimportant stuff. Thanks in advance for your time, and your opinions.
I'm running out of space on my data raid, so naturally I'm looking at several ways to expand the capacity. Unfortunately my funds are rather low now, so I can't really afford to try and see, hence this topic. I'd like you to run over what I've researched so far, see if there are any problems or misconceptions, how you agree or disagree.
My current setup uses a "Promise SuperTrak EX16350" (see details below), with 4x 320GB in 0+1 for my system drive and 6x 1TB raid 6 for my storage drive. Since my 640GB system drive is nearly full, and my 3.6TB storage drive has a mere 300GB left unused, and I was so silly to put the system drive on the raid card not the motherboard raid, simply adding a raid 6 of 2TB drives to copy it all over (before removing one or both raids) is not an option.
Promise SuperTrak EX16350 (16x SATA300 RAID, 128MB PCI-e x8)
http://it.promise.com/product/card_detail_ita.asp?pid=190
Storage capacity up to 16.0 terabytes (with sixteen 500GB drives x 2 controllers/ system)
Online capacity expansion and RAID level migration to add capacity --on the fly--as needed
As I see it, there are 3 options available to me:
1) Expand the raid 6 with additional 1TB drives. I'm still confused how the card could reliable redistribute striped&paritied data over one or more additional drives, but Promise apparently claims it can be done "--on the fly--", so this would be one option.
This would be cheapest, but smallest improvement and poor long-term value.
2) Expand the raid 6 with additional 2TB drives. Similar to the first option, but with the added benefit that in the future I could use option 3, but only have to replace the 6 original 1TB drives. Since you would effectively be using only half (or so) of the platter, I'm assuming there would be a performance hit - but at 90 spins per second, and it being used as a storage drive, this would probably be negligible.
This would be a little less than twice as expensive as first option, with smallest improvement, but decent long-term value potential.
3) Replace all 6 1TB drive with 2TB drives. Once that's done and the raid has been fully rebuilt, it seems entirely plausible to simply go into Windows' disk management and resize the partition to the new (roughly double) drive capacity.
This would be quite expensive - up to 6 times option 2, and roughly 11 times option 1, but would approximately double the available space - in one go - and provide great long-term value assuming option 2 works as well.
Of course all this is based on the assumption that:
- It really is that simple to just add another drive and have the raid card rebuild it somehow, hopefully safely.
- It really is that simple to just replace all drives with bigger ones and go into disk management to resize the partition
- Mixing different drives (perhaps even vastly different sizes) isn't all that bad
I think I'd prefer option 3 - it's a bigger investment - at least up front - but it keeps the drive counts low (great failure wise), doubles the capacity in one go (good for another year, perhaps two), and I'm not 'stuck' with even more 1TB drives. Other facts that factor into my decision:
- I'll probably be splitting my rig into a gaming PC and a storage server 'soon' (TM). To that end, the gaming PC would have a 120GB SSD and 2-4 1TB drives in mirror raid or 0+1. The storage server could then use 2 (or 4) 1TB drives for system/cache disks, thereby keeping the storage raid 6 as sequential as possible.
- The 320GB drives are getting pretty old. Not that I'm terribly worried about failure (they're in 0+1 plus I even have a spare), but these are 4 and 5 platter drives at 7200 RPM so the 1TB drives are faster, quieter, cooler, bigger and more energy efficient.
- My case is already one 3.5" slot short (one of the 320GB drives is loose - but the case is very stationary, at least). Hence a new case may be on the horizon, but I don't have it nor ordered it yet.
More info:
* HDD 320GB 7200RPM S-ATA300 Seagate 7200.10 16MB Ca --- 5x (4 in use; raid 0+1). Some of these broke within warranty (was it 3 or 4? two within a week, hence raid 6 instead of raid 5) so some are 5 platter and some 4 platter. At least I think so.
* Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EACS, 1TB --- 6x (6 in use; raid 6).
* Samsung EcoGreen F3EG, 2TB --- 0x. Looking at these to buy as replacements (or addition). Cheap, green (storage anyway), heard good things about the Samsung F# line.
Finally, "Storage capacity up to 16.0 terabytes (with sixteen 500GB drives x 2 controllers/ system)". What does this mean? Is this simply a re-mentioning that the/each raid controller card can support up to 16 drives? Or is this a statement that it can only handle 16.0 terabytes of storage (and would that be total, or per logical drive)? Clearly it's not a statement that 500GB drives are the biggest it can handle; I've already connected 6x 1TB drives. I've also read certain controllers may have problems with 2TB drives. Is this something I should look out for?
I hope my effort to be thorough hasn't created a wall of text - I've tried to be in-depth yet structured while mentioning all applicable details, leaving out unimportant stuff. Thanks in advance for your time, and your opinions.