Question Second opinion on my intended storage setup ?

[faalin]

Im looking to upgrade my storage system.

Right now i have a Dell R320 server running a 228GB ssd for the OS with a RAID 5 on 3 18TB western digital red pro drives.

I want to add a QSFP card to the server LINK Edit: switching out to a LSI card LINK
and this desk shelf to expand storage LINK
connected with this cable LINK or this one LINK


Does this all work together?

 

[Ralston18]

One immediate question - what is the driving requirement or requirements for RAID 5?

Overall, as I have come to understand such things, there are only special circumstances that justify or otherwise require any sort of RAID configuration.

If RAID is not necessary or otherwise not required then there may be other more viable ways to upgrade.

Maybe just a simple home NAS.

 

[Satan-IR]

Yes , my question too. Do you really need a RAID 5?

 

[faalin]

The dell server runs windows server 2022 data center. 4TB of the raid 5 is for VM's, the rest i use for backups of my home computer and a 2TB folder from work.

Do i need raid, probably not as i dont need the 24/7 up time. But i dont mind the fact that i can loose a drive and still retain all my information.

 

[Eximo]

RAID 5 makes sense to me with 18TB drives. You can afford to lose one with no data loss.

Getting an SAS backplane and 24 drive slots. Not sure I could justify that.


Seeing a lot of chatter about issues with that particular card.

NetApp X2065A-R6 + DS4246 and TrueNAS

There isn't much knowledge out there about the NetApp X2065A-R6 card (on TrueNAS), so I thought I might share my experience. We have two DS4246s. We connected one with a QSFP->SF-8088 câble to an arguable sub-standard LSI and it worked. But I have only one câble and the daisy chain of the two...

www.truenas.com

 

[faalin]

RAID 5 makes sense to me with 18TB drives. You can afford to lose one with no data loss.

Getting an SAS backplane and 24 drive slots. Not sure I could justify that.


Seeing a lot of chatter about issues with that particular card.

NetApp X2065A-R6 + DS4246 and TrueNAS

There isn't much knowledge out there about the NetApp X2065A-R6 card (on TrueNAS), so I thought I might share my experience. We have two DS4246s. We connected one with a QSFP->SF-8088 câble to an arguable sub-standard LSI and it worked. But I have only one câble and the daisy chain of the two...

www.truenas.com

The backplane takes both SAS and Sata

I ended up finding a LSI MegaRAID SAS 9286-8e card, i finding a Reddit page where someone was looking for a raid card to use with the storage shelf and it was recommended.

​

 

[USAFRet]

RAID 5 makes sense to me with 18TB drives. You can afford to lose one with no data loss.

And most reports for RAID 5 see it as less and less beneficial as drives get larger.

The rebuild time gets longer and longer.
1.5-2 hours per TB of consumed space.
If we assume maybe 50TB actual consumed in that potential 72TB array....recovery means maybe a week to rebuild.

And still, that RAID 5 needs an actual backup, outside of the array.

 

[faalin]

And most reports for RAID 5 see it as less and less beneficial as drives get larger.

The rebuild time gets longer and longer.
1.5-2 hours per TB of consumed space.
If we assume maybe 50TB actual consumed in that potential 72TB array....recovery means maybe a week to rebuild.

And still, that RAID 5 needs an actual backup, outside of the array.

I guess a rundown of my backup processes is needed...

For home my computer gets backed up to the Dell r320 which right now is a single 228GB ssd for OS and 3 18TB in raid 5. That in turn gets backed up to a HP DL380 G8 that runs 2 500GB ssd in raid 1 with 10 10TB drives in raid 5 in a rack at work.

For work i back my computer up to a server in our server rack, that server is replicated to a second exact spec'd server and is also backed up to another server that holds a month of backups . The backup server is then backed up to another server in another building. I also take a 2TB folder from my work computer that is linked to my home computer with Resilio sync and it goes through the entire home backup process as well.


All im trying to do is add more storage space to the server, and to get a 24 slot shelf, cable, and card for around $500 seems cheap. Like @Eximo pointed out, the NetApp X2065A-R6 card has issues which is why im looking at a LSI card. Which to be truthful im not mad at since all our servers run LSI cards and i know how to work with them.