Newbie RAID questions

[tommy]

I have recently discovered the need to build a mass storage device and
am looking at building a RAID 5 sytem. Speed is not as important as
redundancy because this will be a personal server that will be used by
myself and family/friends. I'm thinking of having a seperate disk
(not part of the RAID subsystem) to install the OS and just have the
RAID as the data storage.

I was going to get a RocketRAID 454 from newegg.com but had some
specific questions.

1) If my motherboard fails, will I be able to transfer the RAID card
and disks (in their proper order) to another computer and keep the
data in tact? I fear that one of the default functions of a RAID
driver is to format the hard disks on a new or re-install, but,
because I'm new to RAID, I don't know all of the nuances.

2) is RAID cross-compatible? if I find a better card (and they exist
for quite a bit of money), can the card just be replaced if I keep the
same RAID configuration or are there usually/always proprietary issues
involved that would make this impossible?

Any additional information would be greatly appeciated.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

I have recently discovered the need to build a mass storage device and
am looking at building a RAID 5 sytem. Speed is not as important as
redundancy because this will be a personal server that will be used by
myself and family/friends.

Then more important than redundancy is a good backup scheme.

I'm thinking of having a seperate disk
(not part of the RAID subsystem) to install the OS and just have the
RAID as the data storage.

Why not the OS there too?

I was going to get a RocketRAID 454 from newegg.com but had some
specific questions.

1) If my motherboard fails, will I be able to transfer the RAID card
and disks (in their proper order) to another computer and keep the
data in tact?

Usually, yes.

I fear that one of the default functions of a RAID
driver is to format the hard disks on a new or re-install, but,
because I'm new to RAID, I don't know all of the nuances.

2) is RAID cross-compatible? if I find a better card (and they exist
for quite a bit of money), can the card just be replaced if I keep the
same RAID configuration or are there usually/always proprietary issues
involved that would make this impossible?

Assume propietary issues will block such. Backup old RAID..restore to new
RAID.
You gotta have that backup anyway.

 

[Toshi1873]

I have recently discovered the need to build a mass storage device and
am looking at building a RAID 5 sytem. Speed is not as important as
redundancy because this will be a personal server that will be used by
myself and family/friends. I'm thinking of having a seperate disk
(not part of the RAID subsystem) to install the OS and just have the
RAID as the data storage.

Normally you put the O/S on a RAID1 pair and the data on
a second RAID (either RAID1 or RAID5). It still doesn't
solve the back up issue.

I was going to get a RocketRAID 454 from newegg.com but had some
specific questions.

1) If my motherboard fails, will I be able to transfer the RAID card
and disks (in their proper order) to another computer and keep the
data in tact? I fear that one of the default functions of a RAID
driver is to format the hard disks on a new or re-install, but,
because I'm new to RAID, I don't know all of the nuances.
Yes.

2) is RAID cross-compatible? if I find a better card (and they exist
for quite a bit of money), can the card just be replaced if I keep the
same RAID configuration or are there usually/always proprietary issues
involved that would make this impossible?

RAID cards are often not cross-compatible... usually you
buy (3) of a particular model. One to use, one as a
spare, and the 3rd stored somewhere else.

Now for general rambling... let's say you need lots of
storage, but not more then 200GB in a single spot.
You're also not concerned about downtime too much as
long as you can pull stuff back from backups. Here's
how I might set things up:

System A (main storage):

2x250 GB 7200rpm 8MB 3yr warranty, RAID1
- O/S gets a 24GB partition, rest of drive as data,
mostly for user storage

1x250 GB 7200rpm 8MB 3yr warranty no-RAID
- "scratch drive", use it to store ripped media,
downloaded files, temporary files, nothing on this drive
gets backed up

Maybe add a second "scratch" drive if needed

System B (backup storage):
- older, slower box

2x30GB drives for the O/S, RAID1
- could also do 2x250

1x250GB
- backup drive 1, data from the primary system should be
rsync'd across daily, deleted files should be dumped to
another directory somewhere

1x250GB
- backup drive 2, even more storage to do rsync from the
main system daily (or hourly)

(add additional backup drives as needed)

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Normally you put the O/S on a RAID1 pair and the data on
a second RAID (either RAID1 or RAID5). It still doesn't
solve the back up issue.

"Normally"...no.

 

[tommy]

I'm thinking of having a seperate disk

Why not the OS there too?

I wanted to do this because I wanted to keep the data disks os-free in
case I needed to transfer the raid to a computer already built that
does not have the same hardware configuration.