Setting up multiple RAIDs

[1RuneKing]

Hey guys, I am looking to buy an Asus Rampage 4 Extreme, and I was wanting to do a bootable RAID 0 (striped RAID) with 2 1TB SSDs and a main storage RAID 5 with 4 6TB HDDs or 4 4TB Hybrid/HDDs.

How good is the RAID controller that is built into the motherboard? Is it a software or hardware RAID? Also should I get a high end RAID controller instead of using the built in one? If I do that route I'll need to pull my wireless card from the design.

Will the motherboard be able to support the two different RAIDs? And how would I go about setting it up? I have no experience with RAIDs other than 1, 5 and 10 give redundancy, and 0 and 5 give a speed boost.
Before you ask: I know that's a ton of storage, but it's because I can, and I was wanting the RAIDs to pull as much performance from my drives as possible, I've seen where SSD performance almost doubles from a RAID

PS: Does anyone have any experience with RAIDing Hybrid Drives? How well do they do?

Thanks for help

 

[Paperdoc]

RAID built into a mobo is always "Software RAID". The mobo's BIOS has the RAID management code, and it is executed in the main CPU and uses some RAM space. So it consumes mobo resources and does slow down your system a little to do it. On the other hand, some RAID systems may speed up certain storage device access operations. Do not expect a RAID5 system based on Software RAID to give you any speed-up; RAID5 uses more computing resources than RAID0 or 1.

The low-priced RAID controller cards you add to your PCIe slots also are Software RAID. The main difference is that they have the RAID code in the chips on the card, and don't use the code in the mobo's BIOS. The other difference, of course, is that such cards add more HDD ports to connect to. But any RAID array set up to use such a card must have all the HDD's in that array connected to that card. The card normally can't take control of a mobo SATA port to use for its RAID operations.

The higher-priced RAID cards you can buy are Hardware RAID. The carry not only their own code and ports, but also their own processor and RAM. They do almost all the work of managing a RAID array, and consume very little in mobo resources. The added components are why they cost more and deliver faster performance. Such a card may give you a RAID5 that is a bit faster than individual HDD's.

 

[1RuneKing]

RAID built into a mobo is always "Software RAID". The mobo's BIOS has the RAID management code, and it is executed in the main CPU and uses some RAM space. So it consumes mobo resources and does slow down your system a little to do it. On the other hand, some RAID systems may speed up certain storage device access operations. Do not expect a RAID5 system based on Software RAID to give you any speed-up; RAID5 uses more computing resources than RAID0 or 1.

The low-priced RAID controller cards you add to your PCIe slots also are Software RAID. The main difference is that they have the RAID code in the chips on the card, and don't use the code in the mobo's BIOS. The other difference, of course, is that such cards add more HDD ports to connect to. But any RAID array set up to use such a card must have all the HDD's in that array connected to that card. The card normally can't take control of a mobo SATA port to use for its RAID operations.

The higher-priced RAID cards you can buy are Hardware RAID. The carry not only their own code and ports, but also their own processor and RAM. They do almost all the work of managing a RAID array, and consume very little in mobo resources. The added components are why they cost more and deliver faster performance. Such a card may give you a RAID5 that is a bit faster than individual HDD's.

Okay, so to do it the best way possible I should get a high end RAID card and use that instead? Would that work for both the 0 and 5, or just use that for the 5 and the mobo one for the 0?

 

[Paperdoc]

I would suspect that RAID0 as your boot device is better left to the built-in mobo RAID system, using its two SATA 6 Gb/s ports. You will need to do a special step in the Windows Install process to add the required device driver for this. Then set up the RAID5 array using an add-on card with hardware RAID 5 capability. You don't plan to boot from this RAID5 array, right? So the device driver for that RAID5 array via add-on card can simply be added to Windows after it is installed and running. Make sure you choose a card that fits into a PCIe slot fast enough to handle the data rate.

You should be aware that recovering from a major RAID failure is difficult, although RAID5 can recover from failure of ONE of its HDD units - it just takes a lot of time. But if the RAID card fails, you would need to get a replacement card made by the same manufacturer and using the same RAID algorithms in its software so that the new card can understand the old drives. In that sense, cards are a better way to go that mobo-based RAID but only IF you choose one from an established maker so you can be confident they will be around later with compatible replacement cards.

What you have not mentioned is backup systems. RAID0 has twice the probability of failure of a single non-RAID HDD, and when you lose it, you often lose ALL it contains with little chance of data recovery. Even RAID5 can fail catastrophically. I once saw it happen in a place I worked. Their data centre was run professionally and had a good backup system. Their RAID5 array had TWO HDD units fail almost at the same time and it could NOT restore itself automatically. They had to replace the failed units, restore the RAID5 array, then restore all the data from backup tapes. This had to be done while the system was still running as best it could, and it took about 3 days before it was mostly restored. But it COULD be restored because they had reliable backups right up to the previous night. And that was a LOT less data that the huge RAID5 you propose.

 

[1RuneKing]

I would suspect that RAID0 as your boot device is better left to the built-in mobo RAID system, using its two SATA 6 Gb/s ports. You will need to do a special step in the Windows Install process to add the required device driver for this. Then set up the RAID5 array using an add-on card with hardware RAID 5 capability. You don't plan to boot from this RAID5 array, right? So the device driver for that RAID5 array via add-on card can simply be added to Windows after it is installed and running. Make sure you choose a card that fits into a PCIe slot fast enough to handle the data rate.

You should be aware that recovering from a major RAID failure is difficult, although RAID5 can recover from failure of ONE of its HDD units - it just takes a lot of time. But if the RAID card fails, you would need to get a replacement card made by the same manufacturer and using the same RAID algorithms in its software so that the new card can understand the old drives. In that sense, cards are a better way to go that mobo-based RAID but only IF you choose one from an established maker so you can be confident they will be around later with compatible replacement cards.

What you have not mentioned is backup systems. RAID0 has twice the probability of failure of a single non-RAID HDD, and when you lose it, you often lose ALL it contains with little chance of data recovery. Even RAID5 can fail catastrophically. I once saw it happen in a place I worked. Their data centre was run professionally and had a good backup system. Their RAID5 array had TWO HDD units fail almost at the same time and it could NOT restore itself automatically. They had to replace the failed units, restore the RAID5 array, then restore all the data from backup tapes. This had to be done while the system was still running as best it could, and it took about 3 days before it was mostly restored. But it COULD be restored because they had reliable backups right up to the previous night. And that was a LOT less data that the huge RAID5 you propose.

Well there sin't going to be anything incredibly critical on the system, if there comes a point where there is important data then I will just use a large external drive for those parts.
I'm essentially just wanting to pull some extra speed from the hard drives by doing a RAID 5, and because I will be using 4 large drives, I feel I should give myself some safety and do a 5 not a 0.
So you recommend using the mobo RAID for 0 and booting, then using a card for the 5... Okay, I will look into RAID cards. I just hope I can fit it in with 4 Titans and watercooling, (I haven't built it yet I'm just in design phase)

 

[popatim]

I would suggest you wait until the x99 motherbds come out which is supposed to be in June.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

1. I do not recommend a RAID array. The arrays are no longer necessary. Modern solid state drives have evolved quite a bit since the early days of ssd's.

2. If you want maximum ssd performance, then get the world's fastest internal ssd - the new Samsung XP941 M.2 NGFF ssd. You'll need a new motherboard that can support it. Currently only one ASRock motherboard properly supports M.2 NGFF ssd's. There will be more motherboards available later in the year.

I maintain the ssd database listed in a sticky at the very top of this forum section. Here is the link:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html

Scroll down to the Samsung section and follow the links to the technical reviews of the Samsung XP941 M.2 ssd. You can also follow links to technical reviews of other brands and models you might be interested in.

3. If you really want to go for all out performance and bragging rights, then forget ssd's and populate your motherboard with the maximum amount of memory and set up a RamDisk. It is a virtual disk that uses a portion of the motherboard's memory which is a heck of a lot faster than an ssd's flash memory.