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Thread: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

  1. #1
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    Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    I need a raid 5 server for a friend but I'm trying to keep the cost down for him. I'm looking for Quad core, 250gb raid 5 with motherboard with onboard - Any ideas on how to keep the price down as much as possible (ie mobo selection, case, psu etc) - Can go any socket but absolute max price is £750 (lower if possible)

    Regards - Richie

    --------------------------------------------
    Sorry - Shows how nooby I am, I'm going off second hand information from my friend

    Right lets start again - He was quoted for a "Micron and Intel Motherboard ICH8 Raid 5 Hardware Controller" and he wanted me to help him get a cheaper alternative (and more modern).

    A bit of reading showed than the ICH8R was Raid 5 capable and I assumed that the raid was hardware raid on chip. I went on to read that ICH10 southbridges were also Raid capable and assumed that the gigabyte board I mentioned would suffice.

    What I ACTUALLY need is a cheap but decent hardware raid 5 solution, preferably Raid-on-chip hardware, but we will consider a standalone PCI-Express controller if its cheap enough. The specifics are limited to Raid 5 Hardware controller and Intel chipset (preferablly i5 capable) so any help would be really great

    Application is not in question here btw ^_^
    ----------------------------
    Last edited by richieuk; 06-12-2011 at 06:48 PM.
    -- MY 2008 RIG --
    CASE: Antec 300/ MOBO: ASUS P5Q Pro/ CPU: Q6600/ RAM: Corsair 4GB XMS2/
    COOLING: Xigmatek Heatsink 120mm, 2x Xigmatek 120mm w/ Fan controller/
    GFX: Sapphire HD4850/ PSU: Corsair HX520/ HD: WD 640GB w/ VibeFixer
    DISPLAY1: 22" Neovo 3ms/ DISPLAY2: 32" HDTV/


    -- MY 2011 RIG --
    CASE: BitFenix Survivor/ MOBO: ASUS P8Z68V Pro/ CPU: i7 2600K @ 4.4Ghz/ RAM: Corsair 16GB Vengenge DDR3 1600MHz/
    COOLING: Antek Kuhler H20 with Push-Pull Fans EXPANSION: Black Magic Intensity HDMI 1080p Capture Card
    GFX: Sapphire HD6950 *unlocked to 6970*/ PSU: XFX 650w Modular/ HD: 60GB OCZ Agility 3 Sandforce SSD w/ 1TB Sata 3 Storage & 640GB Sata2 Backup
    DISPLAY1: 23" 3D 1080p 120Hz LG / DISPLAY2: 22" 1080p LG/



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  2. #2
    Anthropomorphic Personification shaithis's Avatar
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    Re: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    What exactly is it for? Why does he want RAID5?

    Basically, depending on answers, you are looking at one of the following:

    1. a NAS solution
    2. a HP Microserver
    3. A machine where half his budget is just for the RAID controller...
    Main PC: Asus Rampage IV Extreme / 3960X@4.5GHz / Antec H1200 Pro / 32GB DDR3-1866 Quad Channel / Sapphire Fury X / Areca 1680 / 850W EVGA SuperNOVA Gold 2 / Corsair 600T / 2x Dell 3007 / 4 x 250GB SSD + 2 x 80GB SSD / 4 x 1TB HDD (RAID 10) / Windows 10 Pro, Yosemite & Ubuntu
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  3. #3
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    Re: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    A fileserver for his business - we need a motherboard that has hardware raid mainly but i read somewhere that all modern intel southbridges support raid 5 for sata 2 drives.

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...ga-on-board-at

    Would tht work?

    (Note we specifically want Raid 5 hardware motherboard for a server - not just a NAS drive etc)
    -- MY 2008 RIG --
    CASE: Antec 300/ MOBO: ASUS P5Q Pro/ CPU: Q6600/ RAM: Corsair 4GB XMS2/
    COOLING: Xigmatek Heatsink 120mm, 2x Xigmatek 120mm w/ Fan controller/
    GFX: Sapphire HD4850/ PSU: Corsair HX520/ HD: WD 640GB w/ VibeFixer
    DISPLAY1: 22" Neovo 3ms/ DISPLAY2: 32" HDTV/


    -- MY 2011 RIG --
    CASE: BitFenix Survivor/ MOBO: ASUS P8Z68V Pro/ CPU: i7 2600K @ 4.4Ghz/ RAM: Corsair 16GB Vengenge DDR3 1600MHz/
    COOLING: Antek Kuhler H20 with Push-Pull Fans EXPANSION: Black Magic Intensity HDMI 1080p Capture Card
    GFX: Sapphire HD6950 *unlocked to 6970*/ PSU: XFX 650w Modular/ HD: 60GB OCZ Agility 3 Sandforce SSD w/ 1TB Sata 3 Storage & 640GB Sata2 Backup
    DISPLAY1: 23" 3D 1080p 120Hz LG / DISPLAY2: 22" 1080p LG/



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  4. #4
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      • Motherboard:
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      • CPU:
      • Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad (2.4Ghz)
      • Memory:
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      • Storage:
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    Re: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    Quote Originally Posted by richieuk View Post
    A fileserver for his business - we need a motherboard that has hardware raid mainly but i read somewhere that all modern intel southbridges support raid 5 for sata 2 drives.

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...ga-on-board-at

    Would tht work?

    (Note we specifically want Raid 5 hardware motherboard for a server - not just a NAS drive etc)
    http://www.gigabyte.eu/products/prod...px?pid=3884#sp
    -- MY 2008 RIG --
    CASE: Antec 300/ MOBO: ASUS P5Q Pro/ CPU: Q6600/ RAM: Corsair 4GB XMS2/
    COOLING: Xigmatek Heatsink 120mm, 2x Xigmatek 120mm w/ Fan controller/
    GFX: Sapphire HD4850/ PSU: Corsair HX520/ HD: WD 640GB w/ VibeFixer
    DISPLAY1: 22" Neovo 3ms/ DISPLAY2: 32" HDTV/


    -- MY 2011 RIG --
    CASE: BitFenix Survivor/ MOBO: ASUS P8Z68V Pro/ CPU: i7 2600K @ 4.4Ghz/ RAM: Corsair 16GB Vengenge DDR3 1600MHz/
    COOLING: Antek Kuhler H20 with Push-Pull Fans EXPANSION: Black Magic Intensity HDMI 1080p Capture Card
    GFX: Sapphire HD6950 *unlocked to 6970*/ PSU: XFX 650w Modular/ HD: 60GB OCZ Agility 3 Sandforce SSD w/ 1TB Sata 3 Storage & 640GB Sata2 Backup
    DISPLAY1: 23" 3D 1080p 120Hz LG / DISPLAY2: 22" 1080p LG/



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  5. #5
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    Re: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    Yes, it will work. Performance will not be very good though and if the mobo dies (or even if the BIOS needs updating) the raidset can get broken and will need to be restored from backup (RAID is resilience, it is in no way a replacement for backup!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <- I cannot stress that enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

    If he just wants to share files (i.e. doesn't want to load a domain controller, mail server, SQL server etc) then I would seriously look at a NAS solution, ideally one with good support as it's for a business.....or a HP Microserver.
    Main PC: Asus Rampage IV Extreme / 3960X@4.5GHz / Antec H1200 Pro / 32GB DDR3-1866 Quad Channel / Sapphire Fury X / Areca 1680 / 850W EVGA SuperNOVA Gold 2 / Corsair 600T / 2x Dell 3007 / 4 x 250GB SSD + 2 x 80GB SSD / 4 x 1TB HDD (RAID 10) / Windows 10 Pro, Yosemite & Ubuntu
    HTPC: AsRock Z77 Pro 4 / 3770K@4.2GHz / 24GB / GTX 1080 / SST-LC20 / Antec TP-550 / Hisense 65k5510 4K TV / HTC Vive / 2 x 240GB SSD + 12TB HDD Space / Race Seat / Logitech G29 / Win 10 Pro
    HTPC2: Asus AM1I-A / 5150 / 4GB / Corsair Force 3 240GB / Silverstone SST-ML05B + ST30SF / Samsung UE60H6200 TV / Windows 10 Pro
    Spare/Loaner: Gigabyte EX58-UD5 / i950 / 12GB / HD7870 / Corsair 300R / Silverpower 700W modular
    NAS 1: HP N40L / 12GB ECC RAM / 2 x 3TB Arrays || NAS 2: Dell PowerEdge T110 II / 24GB ECC RAM / 2 x 3TB Hybrid arrays || Network:Buffalo WZR-1166DHP w/DD-WRT + HP ProCurve 1800-24G
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  6. #6
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    Re: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    Intel mother boards (intel raid matrix) is not a hardware raid, it uses the drivers to do this. Why is this bad? If you have N disks in the raid you need to do N-1(+<1) reads and 2 writes for every write operation. This works the IO controller hard, so for safety writes are synced to disk, this gives poor performance. Hardware raids are better for 2 reasons, first you do one write operation to the controller, it then does the necessary reads and write, and secondly it uses a cache for the writes, this cache has battery backup so if the power fails mid write, it will synchronise the disks after the system reboots. Another thing to consider is how easy is it to remove a failed disk from the raid array and add a new one. When using the Intel system on a linux platform, I had disks drop to inconisant states, and was in general a nightmare. So now I use software raid (mirroring) you can also do a software raid with windows. However I really would get a proper raid card if it is for a real server or stick to mirroring drives. With 2TB and 3TB drives do you really need Raid 5 for a small setup. Mirroring (raid 1) is much fast, and does not require multiple reads for maintaining a parity. Raid 5 also uses a stripe size (normally 32K) This means any write to this area, will required not just the few bytes read, but the complete stripe must be read from all drives. the cache again solves this, as it delays the write as data is often sequencal, meaning the data after that point rather than being read, will also need to be written to the disk.
    Last edited by oolon; 06-12-2011 at 05:14 PM.
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  7. #7
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    Re: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    Deleted
    Last edited by richieuk; 06-12-2011 at 06:45 PM.
    -- MY 2008 RIG --
    CASE: Antec 300/ MOBO: ASUS P5Q Pro/ CPU: Q6600/ RAM: Corsair 4GB XMS2/
    COOLING: Xigmatek Heatsink 120mm, 2x Xigmatek 120mm w/ Fan controller/
    GFX: Sapphire HD4850/ PSU: Corsair HX520/ HD: WD 640GB w/ VibeFixer
    DISPLAY1: 22" Neovo 3ms/ DISPLAY2: 32" HDTV/


    -- MY 2011 RIG --
    CASE: BitFenix Survivor/ MOBO: ASUS P8Z68V Pro/ CPU: i7 2600K @ 4.4Ghz/ RAM: Corsair 16GB Vengenge DDR3 1600MHz/
    COOLING: Antek Kuhler H20 with Push-Pull Fans EXPANSION: Black Magic Intensity HDMI 1080p Capture Card
    GFX: Sapphire HD6950 *unlocked to 6970*/ PSU: XFX 650w Modular/ HD: 60GB OCZ Agility 3 Sandforce SSD w/ 1TB Sata 3 Storage & 640GB Sata2 Backup
    DISPLAY1: 23" 3D 1080p 120Hz LG / DISPLAY2: 22" 1080p LG/



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  8. #8
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      • CPU:
      • Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad (2.4Ghz)
      • Memory:
      • 4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2
      • Storage:
      • 640GB Western Digital Sata2
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Sapphire HD4850 Dual Slot Cooler
      • PSU:
      • Corsair HX520w
      • Case:
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      • Operating System:
      • Windows Vista 64bit Premium
      • Monitor(s):
      • 22" Neovo LCD + 32" HDTV
      • Internet:
      • 24Mb Virgin Broadband

    Re: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    Sorry - Shows how nooby I am, I'm going off second hand information from my friend

    Right lets start again - He was quoted for a "Micron and Intel Motherboard ICH8 Raid 5 Hardware Controller" and he wanted me to help him get a cheaper alternative (and more modern).

    A bit of reading showed than the ICH8R was Raid 5 capable and I assumed that the raid was hardware raid on chip. I went on to read that ICH10 southbridges were also Raid capable and assumed that the gigabyte board I mentioned would suffice.

    What I ACTUALLY need is a cheap but decent hardware raid 5 solution, preferably Raid-on-chip hardware, but we will consider a standalone PCI-Express controller if its cheap enough. The specifics are limited to Raid 5 Hardware controller and Intel chipset (preferablly i5 capable) so any help would be really great

    Application is not in question here btw ^_^
    -- MY 2008 RIG --
    CASE: Antec 300/ MOBO: ASUS P5Q Pro/ CPU: Q6600/ RAM: Corsair 4GB XMS2/
    COOLING: Xigmatek Heatsink 120mm, 2x Xigmatek 120mm w/ Fan controller/
    GFX: Sapphire HD4850/ PSU: Corsair HX520/ HD: WD 640GB w/ VibeFixer
    DISPLAY1: 22" Neovo 3ms/ DISPLAY2: 32" HDTV/


    -- MY 2011 RIG --
    CASE: BitFenix Survivor/ MOBO: ASUS P8Z68V Pro/ CPU: i7 2600K @ 4.4Ghz/ RAM: Corsair 16GB Vengenge DDR3 1600MHz/
    COOLING: Antek Kuhler H20 with Push-Pull Fans EXPANSION: Black Magic Intensity HDMI 1080p Capture Card
    GFX: Sapphire HD6950 *unlocked to 6970*/ PSU: XFX 650w Modular/ HD: 60GB OCZ Agility 3 Sandforce SSD w/ 1TB Sata 3 Storage & 640GB Sata2 Backup
    DISPLAY1: 23" 3D 1080p 120Hz LG / DISPLAY2: 22" 1080p LG/



    Check out my Youtube Page for Funny Video series I make (17,000 Subscribers)

  9. #9
    Splash
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    Re: Raid 5 build (Beginners)

    You're looking at something like a PERC5/i or similar (maybe a HP E200?), complete with battery backed writeback cache - performance should be ok at that but nothing too stellar for RAID5 (as mentioned by Oolon, it's not the fastest for a number of reasons). Then you're looking at a spare controller and BBWC for when the first one fails (if it's for business you really don't want to be waiting for a replacement to be delivered if you have important business data in there, do you?). There goes a pretty fair chunk of your budget before you even look at other aspects of the system, not least of which will be the disks in question (do you need RAID grade disks? if so they'll soon add up too)

    Those ICH8 controllers are not hardware RAID, no matter what the salesman tells you.

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