[SOLVED] Raid, if i put 3x 500gb drives in a raid 5 how much space will i have

[WINTERLORD]

also with raid 5 is the whole bit of space protected if one hard drive fails?

 

[ex_bubblehead]

What, exactly, do you intend to accomplish with RAID? RAID is NOT a backup solution, it is intended for those few applications where continuous uptime is required (website, database, etc.). Home use is not one of those uses. However, to answer the question, RAID level 5 requires an amount of space equivalent to one hard drive (thus the requirement for 3 drives minimum) for the chksum information, thus leaving 1TB available for storage in this instance.

 

[USAFRet]

3x 500GB + RAID 5 = 1TB space.

You do realize, of course, that this is only for drive redundancy, not data redundancy.
This is not a 'backup'. It might be useful in an instance where you need 24/7 uninterrupted ops. Like running a webstore and its server, where downtime = lost money.
Physical drive fail is far down the list of ways to lose your stuff.

Any 'RAID' needs a real backup as well.
And if you can suffer through 30 minutes of downtime, a good backup routine does that easily.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[WINTERLORD]

ok well i want to raid 2 drives for speed however i want to have a raid that gives it redundancy in case a hard drive fails so i dont lose any data kinda like a raid 1 and a raid 0 so what raid do i need? not looking to spend a ton so if can be done the less drives i need the better found some 500gb drives for a good price.

im not sure the difference between drive redundancy and date redundancy however i prolly need data redundancy so if the r=id 0 fails i dont loose my data

 

[USAFRet]

And if you're thinking of doing this with solid state drives, another aspect is that you

ok well i want to raid 2 drives for speed however i want to have a raid that gives it redundancy in case a hard drive fails so i dont lose any data kinda like a raid 1 and a raid 0 so what raid do i need? not looking to spend a ton so if can be done the less drives i need the better found some 500gb drives for a good price.

im not sure the difference between drive redundancy and date redundancy however i prolly need data redundancy so if the r=id 0 fails i dont loose my data

hahahha...no.
An SSD (of any type) will crush a RAID array of spinning drives.
A RAID array of SSD is pointless, and no faster than individual drives.

1TB SATA SSD will crush a 2x RAID 0 or 3x RAID 5.
But you know this already, due to the numerous SSD's you already have.

"im not sure the difference between drive redundancy and date redundancy however i prolly need data "
You do not need nor want a "raid" of any kind.

 

[WINTERLORD]

no i was going to use HDD's but i need the data on them to be safe can't lose the data.

will either use 500gb drives 1tb drives or since i have some already possibly 2tb drives depending how many i need for speed and safe data

 

[USAFRet]

no i was going to use HDD's but i need the data on them to be safe can't lose the data.

will either use 500gb drives 1tb drives or since i have some already possibly 2tb drives depending how many i need for speed and safe data

One last time...a RAID array of any type is not what you want or need.
Good luck.

 

[WINTERLORD]

well i add stuff all the time and dont want to be doing backups every day

 

[USAFRet]

well i add stuff all the time and dont want to be doing backups every day

My house systems....3 main systems, 10 physical drives...get backed up each and every night.

My personal time to do this? 0 min, 0 sec.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Raid is NOT a backup system. Furthermore, in raid 5, if a drive fails, you have to rely on the 2 good drives to rebuild the array. But if one of those 2 fails while the array is resyncing, say goodbye to your data.

The wiser solution in this case would be sign up for a Dropbox account. Business class with versioning. So that even if you got your data corrupted you could go back to older versions. Raid won't help you in those cases either.

 

[WINTERLORD]

USAFret what do you use for backups, software?

 

[USAFRet]

USAFret what do you use for backups, software?

Macrium Reflect, listed in my link above.

And I've had to use it to recover after a dead drive.
Dec 2018, one of my SSD's died. 960GB Sandisk, 605GB data on it.
Slot in a new drive, click click...all 605GB recovered, exactly as it was at 4AM that morning when that particular drive ran its nightly Incremental backup.

 

[WINTERLORD]

oh and one other thing to back up a 2tb drive won't i need free space of atleast 2gb or more? i know documents and such can be compressed but video and maybe photos cant be compressed without loosing quality so then i will still need a drive the size of if not bigger than the drives im backing up correct?

also say im backing up 3 drives with the total combined size of 4.6tb between 4 drives would it be ok if i just went ahead and got one 6tb HDD to backup all 4 drives? or how should i work that

 

[USAFRet]

You need sufficient drive space to hold the contents. Not the size of the physical drive(s).

 

[WINTERLORD]

ok, well i have one drive that id like to backup but cant i just put 2 drives into a raid 1 so whatever is written on one is written on the other so that i wont have to get backup software? my main drive i redo all the time so i dont worry bout backing it up justt one storage drive but cant i raid 1 it and it be just as good as a backup actually better since it writes stuff right away?

 

[USAFRet]

ok, well i have one drive that id like to backup but cant i just put 2 drives into a raid 1 so whatever is written on one is written on the other so that i wont have to get backup software? my main drive i redo all the time so i dont worry bout backing it up justt one storage drive but cant i raid 1 it and it be just as good as a backup actually better since it writes stuff right away?

"just as good as a backup actually better since it writes stuff right away "

So tell us...in this "just as good as"...when you accidentally delete something, how do you get it back?
Or a virus. Or accidentally formatting the wrong drive.

Please, enlighten us.

 

[seagate_surfer]

Just wanted to add some info that might be considered useful here:

First off, there's a tool on a popular NAS vendor called Synology's website that I like to point people to when they're trying to conceptualize RAID configurations: The Synology RAID Calculator. You just add in the quantities and capacities of drives you want, and select a RAID type from the dropdown to see how the storage space works out. Ignore the SHR options unless you have a Synology NAS because they're proprietary.

Secondly, it's important to think of RAID less as a backup and more as a way of preventing downtime. Lets say you run an online business, and you have a server which handles your transactions. A drive inside said server bums out. You can't afford to take the server down for hours/days on end because that's literally money walking out the door. RAID allows you to swap a drive/drives out and rebuild the data from the info saved on the other drives without the need to "take down" the server. It's about keeping the system functional. However, numerous things can happen while said data is being rebuilt with the new drive: New drive can suffer infancy failure (remember that historically, drive failure happens on a bathtub curve), another existing drive in the array can fail, amongst other possible scenarios.

For this reason, it's important to think of backing up important data with the industry-recommended 3-2-1 strategy: Keep 3 copies of your data, 2 locally but on different mediums, and 1 offsite in case of disaster. You can think of RAID as 1 copy of the data, but not as 2 or ever as all 3.

 

[WINTERLORD]

USAFret the luink you listed doesnt show wich you use so
wich version of " Macrium Reflect"do you use? also would the free version be sufficient? what would i be missing if i dont get the paid version and can i do without extra features of paid

 

[USAFRet]

USAFret the luink you listed doesnt show wich you use so
wich version of " Macrium Reflect"do you use? also would the free version be sufficient? what would i be missing if i dont get the paid version and can i do without extra features of paid

On my main system, the paid version.
On all the others, the free version.

The Free will be sufficient for your use.
I believe the difference is:
Free includes Full + Differential images.
The paid includes Incremental images.

 

[WINTERLORD]

with that software if im only backing up 700gb can i use the remainder of a 2tb drive for games?

 

[USAFRet]

with that software if im only backing up 700gb can i use the remainder of a 2tb drive for games?

Yes.