Shadow703793 said:
^ No. Don't do RAID 5. The boards $uck at implementing RAID5. You need a true hardware RIAD card for RAID5. If you want reliability, go RAID1, if you want speed and reliability go RAID10. However, RAID10 requires 4x HDDs and you will loose 1/2 the storage of all the HDDs combined.
I say do RAID1 on the data/storage and just put the OS + programs on the SSD. You can also store the files you are working on the SSD until the work is done, then just move them to the HDD. This is what I do.
As far as the set up goes, it should be fine. However, I strongly recommend against OCing a workstation type build. I would also recommend you get ECC RAM.
Thank you very much for all of your help. Especially about the RAID stuff. I thought I may need to get more HDD's to RAID. I was on the right track then with having the OS and programs run on the SSD, but wasn't sure which RAID to do for the data and storage, so that helps heaps. From what I've read RAID 1 is Mirroring without parity or striping, using a minimum of 2 disks. RAID 5 is Block-level striping with distributed parity, using a minimum of 3 drives and RAID 10 or 1+0 creates a striped set from a series of mirrored drives, using either 2 or 4 drives increasing in multiples of 2. I would prefer to have parity, which RAID 1 and RAID 10 don't have although RAID 10 provides fault tolerance. From my understanding RAID 5 gives you a faster write speed and RAID 10 gives you a faster read speed. So if I was to go 3 x HDD's in RAID 5 what true hardware RAID card would you suggest? Would I need a true hardware RAID card for RAID 10? Both motherboards I listed support RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 on the motherboard, and the ASUS is PIKE supported, which would mean I would have to get the Seagate Cheetahs as they are SAS not SATA or can SATA also be plugged into a SAS PIKE card?. On that note both boards support only SATA II, would I have any problems using the SATA III HDD's? From what I have read it would be fine, only running at 3Gb/s instead of 6Gb/s, but taking advantage of new SATA III features. Can't seem to find a Workstation board that supports SATA III.
Just a couple of questions about the SSD and HDDs. The guy I spoke too to have it built, suggested an
A-RAM SSD ULTRA II series 240GB 2.5" MLC SSD as it has ECC (which is a feature that appeals to me) over the
Crucial C300-CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1CCA which doesn't have ECC (do I need it), although is the fastest SSD in the high end benchmark results. I have never heard of A-RAM and couldn't find any reviews or test results for it. As for the HDD's I had
Seagate Cheetah 15k 600GB or
WD VelociRaptor 10k 600GB, and he told me the WD has a high failure rate and is unreliable, which is the 1st of this type of negative feed back about this drive I have ever heard, and he said the 2 x Seagate 600GB was too small and to go for 3 x
Seagate Constellation ES ST31000524NS 1TB, 7200rpm, SATA, 3.5" 32MB in a RAID 5 Config. The fact the only information I could find on it was in the Knowledge Base section tells me it's an old model and a newer version has been released. I'm not sure I need 3TB at this stage and by the time I do I'm sure there are better options, or am I wrong? I just thought 1.8TB or 2.4TB would have been enough for me.
Looks like I'm going to have to buy the components and build it myself to save money, as they charge $2500AUD more than it costs to have one built in USA. So I will order the parts from the USA and build it myself and take it to a Computer store to help me if I get stuck. So with buying online from the US, where do you recommend I buy from? I keep hearing newegg being mentioned, is there any others I should look at?
Oh and all 4 Memory options were registered ECC 6 x 2G kits for 12G total.