[SOLVED] RAID?

[spinningstill]

It's time to put the RAID back together after being out of the county for a year. I do photography and have a about 1TB of photos. I used RAID0 (SoftRAID) before I left but now my discs are older and am hesitant to do 0. Any input out there for where RAID stands here in late 2019? I have a 4 bay Thunderbay and have an 5th disc to use for back up. My iMac has A 500GB SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

If RAID is the question, the answer is generally No.

What type of drives?
Only 1TB of data?
What type of RAID array were you thinking of?

 

[USAFRet]

If these are HDD's and a RAID 0, an SSD is typically faster.
If these are SSD's, RAID 0 doesn't really give any performance benefit.

 

[spinningstill]

I have four, 4TB HDDs. I had bought a couple before leaving to have originals as backups while out of the country. Any raid to increase speed to utilize the four discs I have. Have read some are hesitant to use RAID5.

 

[USAFRet]

I have four, 4TB HDDs. I had bought a couple before leaving to have originals as backups while out of the country. Any raid to increase speed to utilize the four discs I have. Have read some are hesitant to use RAID5.

RAID 5 can be problematic as you get into larger drives.
4TB is generally the dividing line.

Reasoning is that when you replace a dead drive, ALL drives have to go through an intensive read/write situation.
Rebuilding a 4x4TB RAID 5, with (for instance) 7TB consumed space...that can take 8-10 hours to rebuild.
Of constant hammering on the drives. If all 4 were of the same type and vintage, one of the others may fail.
And should only be done with a hardware RAID controller, not software.
Lastly, that RAID 5 only protects against a physical drive fail.

The OS and the user sees a single volume and bunch of files.
Delete something, and it is gone.

Sounds like this might need a whole reconfiguration on the drives.

So, the question is:
How much actual space do you need?
What dries do you have now?
What is your potential budget for new drives?
What system will these be attached to?
What is your backup situation (this is critical)?

 

[popatim]

Raid5 also has reduced write performance due to needing to calculate the checksum of all the file blocks as it writes to the drives.

If you are looking for both read & write speed, then raid10 might work for you.

Keep in mind that no form of raid is a backup. Raid is meant to keep the system up in the event of a drive failure. As already mentioned, if a file gets deleted or changed, you're only getting it back from your backups.

 

[spinningstill]

Right Raid 10 might be the solution. I have four 4TB HGST HDD drives (for RAID) (additional one for back up CCC). Having five total, I am not considering purchasing additional. Also use Backblaze.

These are connected to a late 2015 i7 iMac via ThunderBolt 2.

Yes, I understand RAID is not a backup.

Graciously,
Gary

 

[USAFRet]

RAID 10 + 4x 4TB gives you 8TB actual space.

For your working files, how much space do you need? a 1 or 2 TB SSD will crush that RAID array in performance.
Then, move the files off to those 4TB drives.

 

[spinningstill]

Only need 2-4TB storage. Working drive is 500GB. Will work toward a RAID10 (have the drives). Thank you.

Graciously,
Gary