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Raid 5, 50, or 10 for 4K editing system
Hello,
I’ve been all over the internet looking for an answer to this question of what i should do. I recently purchased 8x 4TB WD Enterprise Drives (7200 rpm)(+1 spare), a Sans Digital enclosure with 2 SAS outputs, and an Areca 1883x hardware raid controller. Windows 7. I need to decide on the Raid level to use. My primary purpose is video editing, vfx, and color grading. I usually always have a back up of the raw footage, but admittedly, I’m bad about backing up my work on a regular basis (I know I should be better). So raid 0 is out of the question for me.
What I want is the best performance while maintaining protection. I don’t care about capacity as much. I know raid 10 will eat away more capacity, but even that gives me 16TB, which is more than enough for me. For that reason, raid 5 scares me a bit as far as protection. I’ve heard horror stories about drive failures and failure to rebuild due to URE.
Questions:
1. Performance. I’ve read mixed things all over the net. I hear that Raid 10 offers better READ and Write Performance than Raid 5 or 50. Others say that Raid 5 is better for Read, but worse for Write. Does anyone have a real answer to this? How does Raid 50 Read compare to 5? Which is best for Read performance, 5, 50 or 10? Is it a big difference or negligible? I know 10 has the best Write.
2. Safety. Both Raid 50 and 10 can suffer 2 drive failures as long as they occur in the right places. Does this mean that they would be equally safe? Is one more safe than the other? If a single drive fails, would either be easier to rebuild? Is Raid 5 rebuild as bad as the horror stories?
3. Overall. Currently, I’m leaning away from Raid 5 because of the reduced safety. And I thought I was leaning away form 10 because of the slower Read speeds, but now I read some places that it may read even faster. Overall, with my set up, what would people recommend. I have 8 drives and one of the best hardware controllers I could find. (I intended raid 5 until I did more research, did I waste my money on this card if I go with Raid 10). What is your overall recommendation for me?
I appreciate the help. Excuse the ignorance. Thank you
David -
9 Replies
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RAID 6 is what I use with every system.
If you don’t like that, use RAID 5.
Forget RAID 50. Just my stupid opinion.Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Thank you for the feedback. What are your thoughts on Raid 10? I keep reading that it performs better than Raid 5, and I don’t care about the lost capacity. So if it does perform better and it’s safer, then I might go that way.
Does Raid 6 have a noticeable drop in performance from Raid 5? That’s my main concern with 6.
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it takes 30 seconds on an Areca card to reraid from 5 to 6, so you can try it. It’s easy, and you can do your own performance tests.
Do you want help ?
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Thank you, I’ll try that. I don’t think I need help. I’ve never actually set up a raid before, but looking at the manual it seems pretty straight forward. I’ve been reading up on my card and how it improves the performance of raid 5 and 6. So I think I’ll try a Raid 6 with a 256k stripe size and give it a test. If it seems too slow for writes I’ll try 5, but I think it’ll be good after what I’ve read. I appreciate the help.
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Areca generally has good read/write performance in RAID-6, I think you’ll be happy with it. And it’s easy to set up.
My 2 cents.
Good Luck!
TC -
youp, Raid 6 is the answer
cheers
Rainer
factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems -
Hey everyone,
Thanks for the help. I’ve been running Raid 6 and am quite happy so far. One quick question. My Raid tower has a power switch, and when I shut down my computer I turn it off after. Then the next day I turn on the tower, then my computer. But I was wondering if it would be harmful to turn on my tower after the computer is already on? I haven’t dared to attempt it, because one time I turned on the tower after the computer before I Raided the drives, I looked at the raid bios and saw that half the drives didn’t initialize properly. So now if I forget and turn on my computer first, I shut down the whole computer, start up the tower, then the computer. Should I just continue to do this or am I being paranoid?
Areca 1883x
Windows 7 Professional
Asus P9X79 ProThanks
David -
The best thing is to turn on your whole Peripherie first and then your computer.
So the computer recognize your drives and other hardware attached to it,cheers
Rainer
factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems -
David, you may want to check this article out regarding RAID 5 vs. RAID 10:
https://www.miracleas.com/BAARF/RAID5_versus_RAID10.txt
I’ve been using RAID 10. I haven’t tried RAID 6 yet, but I would like to give a try perhaps with my next RAID.. I’ve been reluctant to go RAID 5 as well. Though some swear it’s the way to go because it’s industry standard. I don’t care what the industry does (within reason). People spend a lifetime doing things that aren’t ideal or rather, sometimes industries just stick with what they know because of the people in charge who make such decisions are unwilling to change. There’s too many factors outside the technical ones that may be able to be factored.
I am open to trying something new. Technology changes and price points often dictate that necessity to change.
Tangier
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