Bill4sman 10 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 I've currently got a Mediasonic 4 Bay ProRaid sety for RAID 5 with (4) 4TB WD black drives. Having recently had a drive failure I've come across the fact that RAID 5 is NOT the ideal choice given the file sizes and quantity of data. So, I'm thinking of moving to Raid 10. Thoughts, Concerns or better suggestions? Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMBanana 84 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 Why do you think RAID5 is wrong for your setup? You'd lose available space going to RAID10. It's faster but do you need speed for media files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill4sman 10 Posted March 22, 2019 Author Share Posted March 22, 2019 It has to do with the statistically proven data errors. Dealing with 12TB of data you ARE more than likely to have bad bits. Now, on a 12TB rebuild which I just had to go through, if you lose another drive during that process you're essentially hosed. I'll probably go with RAID 10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMBanana 84 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 It has to do with the statistically proven data errors. Dealing with 12TB of data you ARE more than likely to have bad bits. Now, on a 12TB rebuild which I just had to go through, if you lose another drive during that process you're essentially hosed. I'll probably go with RAID 10. RAID6 might be a better option. It can handle any 2 drives failing without loss of data. RAID10 is basically a mirrored raid 1, so it can't handle any 2 drives failing. If you look at the drives on a RAID10 array like this. |A1|A2|-|B1|B2| If A1 fails its data is only on A2. It can survive B1 or B2 also failing, but if A2 is 2nd drive that dies or errors you're out of luck. Also, with regards to RAID5 I don't think it's bad with 4TB disks and for something that isn't a customer facing production environment. The risk of failing during a rebuild should be pretty low. As always though anything that you can not afford to lose must be backed up. You aren't rebuilding 12TB of data, but 4TB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill4sman 10 Posted March 22, 2019 Author Share Posted March 22, 2019 Unfortunately not supported by my ProRaid but you're right about 6. The problem is that 4K movies are a little hefty so with almost 500 movies in the library I'm going to need to have more storage. Upgrading drives in Raid 10 is FAR easier and faster whereas 6 would be an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kanipek 224 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 Raid 5 is risky to use unless there is a backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 Drive pooling. It's far better and has much more configurability. And a range of possible software. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilgamesh_48 943 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 Raid "anything" is a poor choice for safety. Mostly, even the best, do not protect from the underlying system failing. That is if you lose the "computer" that is running things you no longer can access the data on your drives. Pooling, in particular StableBit's DrivePool as it is what I am familiar with, stores all the files in a hidden, but accessible, hidden directory on the drives in the pool. The stored files are in a standard Windows readable form and can even be accessed and played without the DrivePool software even running. For me that makes pooling vastly superior to all the "raid" systems I have heard of. I had a computer that was running DrivePool fail a couple of years ago and all I needed to do was move the drives to another computer and install DrivePool on the new computer and it detected the pool on the drives and recreated it on the new computer. Then all that was needed was to reenter the activation key and all was good to go. The whole process took less that 30 mins. There are a LOT of people running various raid systems successfully but I think they are taking a risk. The only drawback to using pooling is that it does not compress the files at all and, if you turn on duplication for redundancy, the space used by the files is exactly doubled. But drives are quite cheap and the extra cost is more that offset by safety. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMBanana 84 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 Disagree with Gilgamesh, most RAID controllers will recognize an orphaned RAID configuration exists if you plug drives back in in the same order on another machine with the same model RAID controller. But that's a small point because the real lesson should be that no data is safe without a proper system of backups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlGaInTl 279 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 Drive pooling. It's far better and has much more configurability. And a range of possible software. That would be my advice as well. My system uses a RAID5 array right now, but once I find a deal on some new disks, I'm going with snapraid and drive pooling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6771 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 Don't forget DriveBender Also, this thread: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/45382-drive-pooling/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill4sman 10 Posted March 22, 2019 Author Share Posted March 22, 2019 I've been looking at several NAS' that run BTFRS but they're pricey... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlGaInTl 279 Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 Don't forget DriveBender Also, this thread: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/45382-drive-pooling/ But I'm a Linux server kind of guy. I'm running OMV right now and may go to Snapraid + MergerFS. I'm also considering evaluating Unraid instead. I've been looking at several NAS' that run BTFRS but they're pricey... You can always roll your own. That's normally what I recommend anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 If you're using Linux, ZFS is probably the best choice. I haven't used it, but the guys on here highly recommend it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlGaInTl 279 Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 If you're using Linux, ZFS is probably the best choice. I haven't used it, but the guys on here highly recommend it. ZFS has a lot more demanding hardware needs. I thought about it, but ultimately decided against it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4270 Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 (edited) On largely static media collections, for home use, I came to the conclusion that there is very little point in having a redundant RAID setup and as has been highlighted in this thread, this actually increases the recovery risk due to sheer volume of parity data required or complications such as identical disk sizes, firmware, raid controllers etc etc An offline and easily accessible BACKUP of the data is far more important - and if you have a set of disks available for RAID 1/10, then I would personally use them for backup, not redundancy. After some discussion in this recent thread below - I've moved to drive pooling (from JBOD) and it makes use of ALL my old odd sized disks (for a 100% backup) AND the beauty is they are 100% portable to use as standalone if required. Have a read - there are some interesting views and a wealth of experience https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/71145-how-do-you-backuprecover-your-emby-system/?hl=%2Bhow+%2Byou+%2Bbackup Edited March 23, 2019 by rbjtech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlGaInTl 279 Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 On largely static media collections, for home use, I came to the conclusion that there is very little point in having a redundant RAID setup and as has been highlighted in this thread, this actually increases the recovery risk due to sheer volume of parity data required or complications such as identical disk sizes, firmware, raid controllers etc etc An offline and easily accessible BACKUP of the data is far more important - and if you have a set of disks available for RAID 1/10, then I would personally use them for backup, not redundancy. After some discussion in this recent thread below - I've moved to drive pooling (from JBOD) and it makes use of ALL my old odd sized disks (for a 100% backup) AND the beauty is they are 100% portable to use as standalone if required. Have a read - there are some interesting views and a wealth of experience https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/71145-how-do-you-backuprecover-your-emby-system/?hl=%2Bhow+%2Byou+%2Bbackup Which is why I'm leaning towards something like Snapraid + MergerFS It's not raid in the truest sense. Pooling will be done with Merger. Even a disk fails, the rest of the drives can still be read. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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