Hi,
I am looking into purchasing a new server. This server will be mission-critical.
I have read and somewhat understood the theories behind RAIDs 0, 1, 5, 10 & JBOD. However, I would like to get some feedback from those who have experience in implementing and recovering from a HDD failure using RAID.
Hardware specs include:-
Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz 2 GB RAM
I would like to implement hardware RAID but am unsure as to which would be most suitable for my needs. Any advice is appreciated.
Option 1 - RAID 5 (3 hdd's) + 1 hot spare
Option 2 - RAID 10 (4 hdd's) + 1 "cold" spare (in the shelf)
Questions I have :-
1) When should RAID 5 be implemented? 2) When should RAID 10 be implemented? 3) Is RAID 5 with a hot spare safer than RAID 10 with a "cold" spare? 4) Is it possible to configure RAID 10 to have a hot spare? 5) Should one of the HDDs fail, a hot spare w kick-in immediately and begin rebuilding. As I am planning to put in 300 GB HDDs, how long would this take on a RAID 5 vs. RAID 10? 6) Will there be a degradation in performance for users on the system (RAID 5 vs. RAID 10)? 7) What are the disadvantages of using RAID 5 vs. RAID 10?
Thanks in advance for answering my questions.
Best Regards, Andrew