Need help with RAID. Different sizes of hard drive? 4tb HDD / 5tb HDD

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Von Swordfish

Von Swordfish

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Jul 31, 2014
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Hi there! I just have a question about RAID. I currently only have a single 4tb red NAS hard drive but Im buying a 2nd soon. I eventually plan to put all these hard drives hopefully 4-6 one day in a RAID set up.

But my local hardware store has a really good deal on 5tb red NAS hard drives... Could I buy 4tb and 5tb sizes for hard drives and still set them up in RAID configuration? possibly even 6tb?

Or should I just buy the exact same smaller size 4tb hard drive (even though because of the sale the 5tb is only 10 dollars more)
 
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Vosgy
https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator
Mate of mine is using one of these Synology ones and it is a nice little unit.
Raid 5 makes one drive redundant so one drive can die, you replace it and the others fill it up with what was on the dead removed one. Normally uses 5 drives.
Raid 6 makes two drives redundant so two drives and die at once and you can replace both with zero loss. Normally using 6 drives.
So raid 6 is good if you need really good data integrity, raid 5 still provides good data integrity as well just not to the same level.
You can also raid 1 which uses 2 drives and just mirrors data on each.
Or raid 0 for just having massive drives with no redundancy.
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Vosgy

Vosgy

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Nov 24, 2014
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By the look of it he wants a raid 5 or 6. You can hook up different sized drives but I believe normally you will loose space so all the drives will just be chopped down to the smaller size. Some of the purpose build NAS devices can however utilize different sized drives much more effectively, so if you are going down the grab a 4 grab a 5 grab a 6 you might want to look into one of them.
 
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Vosgy

Vosgy

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Nov 24, 2014
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https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator
Mate of mine is using one of these Synology ones and it is a nice little unit.
Raid 5 makes one drive redundant so one drive can die, you replace it and the others fill it up with what was on the dead removed one. Normally uses 5 drives.
Raid 6 makes two drives redundant so two drives and die at once and you can replace both with zero loss. Normally using 6 drives.
So raid 6 is good if you need really good data integrity, raid 5 still provides good data integrity as well just not to the same level.
You can also raid 1 which uses 2 drives and just mirrors data on each.
Or raid 0 for just having massive drives with no redundancy.
 
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Von Swordfish

Von Swordfish

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Jul 31, 2014
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Hmm okay raid 5 or 6 sounds sweet! So what do you think I should do? I dont want to buy bigger hard drives if they just get shrunk anyways... so should I just buy another 4tb or Switch and start buying 5s?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Personally, I would no go with a RAID to begin with.

The data you're trying to preserve is simply static files. Movies, music, etc. That just needs a regular backup to another drive.
RAID is not a backup. It is beneficial if you actually need a full failover in case of a drive fail. For instance if it is hosting a webstore, where downtime = lost sales.
But for that, you also need an actual backup.

A mirrored RAID only helps in the rare case of a drive dying. It does nothing for accidental deletions, corruption, viruses, etc, etc.
 
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Vosgy

Vosgy

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I would suggest a Proper NAS device, that is assuming others in the House hold will want to access this Raid, or you going to have something like a media tank hooked up to your TV and drawing media from the Raid. Otherwise I am with USAFRet, there is normally on a single PC no real reason to have a raid 5-6. Just perform regular backups.
 
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