Hi; sorry - I usually hate threads like this (new forum member, asks question that looks like he didn't do any homework), but I'm feeling really, really lost in the RAID world, having never used anything like it before.
I understand RAID is not a backup solution, but the idea of resistance to drive failure is attractive.
I've done some research and it looks like RAID 5, 1, or 10 will be fine for my needs (not mission critical, just storage for movie editing purposes). In any case, it looks like any raid enclosure I buy would support any of those, so I can make that decision later.
I was just wondering if somebody could point me at a reliable 4-6(ish) drive RAID enclosure (and if you don't mind, good, reliable HDDs to go with it - prob 2tbs each). I was browsing through many of the available options on newegg, and am not knowledgeable enough to be able to differentiate the products, and many of them do not have many reviews (on newegg or via google either).
My top pick so far was
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816321015
but it only has one review. It mentions "hardware raid" - should I assume that the products that do not specifically mention hardware raid are doing it in software? And will it really chew up my CPU time?
Also looked at this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816142003
more expensive, doesn't mention "hardware raid". What am I paying for here? The hot-swappable drive feature? I probably don't care about that.
And:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111137
Says you can expand to include more disks without rebuilding the raid volume. Is this a big deal for the other raid solutions?
Finally:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132015
which is the one it looks like everybody has (the highest rated raid enclosure with >50 reviews or so), but many complain about slow write times, or a drive crashing and killing the whole raid. But I can't tell if it's user error, or just inevitable with more reviews.
I see a bunch of stuff talking about eSata with port multipliers... I'm not at home, so I can't check, but I assume my old motherboard will need a PCIe eSata card... maybe. Is this something I need to worry about, or can I just buy any esata card (or use the one that comes with the raid enclosure) and assume it'll work?
Thanks for any help.
Also, as a side note - when you buy drives for RAIDs, do you usually buy exactly as many drives as you need+1, or do you get a whole bunch of extra drives all at the same time so you don't have to worry about not being able to find the same brand/model of drive when a drive finally fails X years from now? Or do RAIDs not care if you have a whole bunch of different brand/models of drives in there?
I understand RAID is not a backup solution, but the idea of resistance to drive failure is attractive.
I've done some research and it looks like RAID 5, 1, or 10 will be fine for my needs (not mission critical, just storage for movie editing purposes). In any case, it looks like any raid enclosure I buy would support any of those, so I can make that decision later.
I was just wondering if somebody could point me at a reliable 4-6(ish) drive RAID enclosure (and if you don't mind, good, reliable HDDs to go with it - prob 2tbs each). I was browsing through many of the available options on newegg, and am not knowledgeable enough to be able to differentiate the products, and many of them do not have many reviews (on newegg or via google either).
My top pick so far was
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816321015
but it only has one review. It mentions "hardware raid" - should I assume that the products that do not specifically mention hardware raid are doing it in software? And will it really chew up my CPU time?
Also looked at this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816142003
more expensive, doesn't mention "hardware raid". What am I paying for here? The hot-swappable drive feature? I probably don't care about that.
And:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111137
Says you can expand to include more disks without rebuilding the raid volume. Is this a big deal for the other raid solutions?
Finally:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132015
which is the one it looks like everybody has (the highest rated raid enclosure with >50 reviews or so), but many complain about slow write times, or a drive crashing and killing the whole raid. But I can't tell if it's user error, or just inevitable with more reviews.
I see a bunch of stuff talking about eSata with port multipliers... I'm not at home, so I can't check, but I assume my old motherboard will need a PCIe eSata card... maybe. Is this something I need to worry about, or can I just buy any esata card (or use the one that comes with the raid enclosure) and assume it'll work?
Thanks for any help.
Also, as a side note - when you buy drives for RAIDs, do you usually buy exactly as many drives as you need+1, or do you get a whole bunch of extra drives all at the same time so you don't have to worry about not being able to find the same brand/model of drive when a drive finally fails X years from now? Or do RAIDs not care if you have a whole bunch of different brand/models of drives in there?
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram