Raid 5 vs. Raid 5 + spare vs. Raid 6

[Shimmishim]

So yeah. I'm not a raiding person by any means and the extent my RAID has never gone beyond software RAID 0 with 2 old school WD Raptors.

I do photography as a second job and fill about 3TB of RAW data every year and right now I'm buying 2 3TB drives and copying two sets of RAW files to these two hard drives (I have a program that copies the files to two separate drives at once when I load my files from my SD/CF cards).

Since I'm buying 2 drives a year anyway, I was thinking about going with RAID 6 and using it for 2 years with 4 drives and then replacing those 4 drives 2 years later.

Thoughts on this approach vs. going with RAID 5 (or 5 + spare)? Or maybe just stick with my current approach or move to a simple RAID 1? Also I'd need a good RAID enclosure (obviously) but I've noticed RAID 6 isn't as common as 5.

Thank you!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

6 is better than 5 + spare. The problem with any parity-based RAID is the rebuilt process can be finicky. A hot spare doesn't do you any good if the rebuild fails.

Raid 6 isn't common in small enclosures because it "wastes" two drives instead of one. A big rack of HDs in a server closet will probably have 2+ parity drives (RAID-6) and probably have a hot spare or two as well.

If you're going to RAID-6 with four drives, you might as well just RAID-10 instead. (Faster, more reliable, lower compute overhead.)

 

[Shimmishim]

6 is better than 5 + spare. The problem with any parity-based RAID is the rebuilt process can be finicky. A hot spare doesn't do you any good if the rebuild fails.

Raid 6 isn't common in small enclosures because it "wastes" two drives instead of one. A big rack of HDs in a server closet will probably have 2+ parity drives (RAID-6) and probably have a hot spare or two as well.

If you're going to RAID-6 with four drives, you might as well just RAID-10 instead. (Faster, more reliable, lower compute overhead.)

Okay. I've done a little bit more reading and RAID 1+0 may be a better solution and I still get the 6TBs of data. Any recommendations for a 4-bay enclosure to run RAID 10?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Okay. I've done a little bit more reading and RAID 1+0 may be a better solution and I still get the 6TBs of data. Any recommendations for a 4-bay enclosure to run RAID 10?

This one's pretty popular.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816322006

 

[aigomorla]

Any recommendations for a 4-bay enclosure to run RAID 10?

are u looking for a external complete unit? or are u looking for something like a HDD backplane to put inside your PC?

 

[Shimmishim]

External complete unit! Thanks.

 

[nk215]

Qnap (TS-420, 421) are good candidate for a 4-bay RAID10.

I also take pictures with my 5Dmk2, Sony RX1 etc in RAW format. For those, NAS is not fast enough. I had to build a RAID5 using 5 2TB HD inside my server and use SSD as Photoshop Cache drive. This server is in my basement. To access my picture, I can remote logon to my server (RDP RemoteFX) and edit pictures from my other computers. OpenGL does not work this way but I don't really need openGL for Photoshop. For CUDA (video editing), I use tesla card in my server.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Qnap is NAS boxes.

Does OP need NAS (network attached storage, via ethernet or wifi) or DAS (direct attached storage, via USB or eSATA.) I suppose this is important. My previous answers assumed DAS.

 

[Shimmishim]

Qnap (TS-420, 421) are good candidate for a 4-bay RAID10.

I also take pictures with my 5Dmk2, Sony RX1 etc in RAW format. For those, NAS is not fast enough. I had to build a RAID5 using 5 2TB HD inside my server and use SSD as Photoshop Cache drive. This server is in my basement. To access my picture, I can remote logon to my server (RDP RemoteFX) and edit pictures from my other computers. OpenGL does not work this way but I don't really need openGL for Photoshop. For CUDA (video editing), I use tesla card in my server.

I'm working with 5D Mark III and Fuji X-T1 files however...

Qnap is NAS boxes.

Does OP need NAS (network attached storage, via ethernet or wifi) or DAS (direct attached storage, via USB or eSATA.) I suppose this is important. My previous answers assumed DAS.

I'm looking for DAS via USB 3.0 if at all possible... though the possibility of setting up a server is intriguing!