New Dells with RAID disks – experiences?

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Yes, it’s time to buy another new Dell, and I note this time round that there is the option of RAID 0 (striped) and RAID 1 (mirrored) disks, presumably using the Promise RAID controller (or equivalent), which is, as far as I am aware, the only non[/i]-SCSI controller, which is used to manage Serial ATA drives.

Does anyone have any comments on their experience with these RAIDed Dells that they would wish to share?

(Replies along the lines of: “Instead of Dell, you should buy a PC from xxxxx manufacturer” will be spurned utterly.)

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er, why not buy a Mac?

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(Spurn)**2

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Nice comparison here. Just one measurment but $3.14 per GB seems attractive compared to the Dell EMC CX200 at $9.05.[indent]

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Xserve RAID works well with Mac OS X Server, and you can use it with Windows- or Linux-based serversas well.

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Bowlie

Aren’t we getting just a bit carried away? The Dell PC I’ve just ordered has 2 x 120 GB hard disks with RAID-1 (mirrored). Why would I want up to 3.5 TB of disk space?

John

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But just think of all those useful batch files you could save on there!

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But just think of all those useful batch files you could save on there!

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John, the question is, why do you want RAID? Your potential answers are:

1. redundancy, at the price of somewhat reduced capacity; with two drives, you can do RAID 1, which uses mirroring and consumes double the space;
2. higher performance, with the risk of data loss if a drive fails; with two drives, you can do RAID 0, which stripes files across both drives for faster writes; or
3. both, sacrificing a variable amount of drive space; with two drives, you cannot do RAID 5 or any variations of the above.

Hope this helps. More info: http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref…raid/index.html%5B/url%5D

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John, the question is, why do you want RAID? Your potential answers are:

1. redundancy, at the price of somewhat reduced capacity; with two drives, you can do RAID 1, which uses mirroring and consumes double the space;
2. higher performance, with the risk of data loss if a drive fails; with two drives, you can do RAID 0, which stripes files across both drives for faster writes; or
3. both, sacrificing a variable amount of drive space; with two drives, you cannot do RAID 5 or any variations of the above.

Hope this helps. More info: http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref…raid/index.html%5B/url%5D

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Jefferson

Redundancy. (Magic word in other contexts, too!).

Disks are so cheap that my work to rebuild a failed disk would be more than the cost of a mirrored disk (which is effectively unused). That’s the main reason why all our servers (well, almost all!) use RAID-5 — but you aren’t going to get much RAID-5 with two disks…

John

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There is a small problem with mirrored RAID only. If your drive 0 crashes, you cannot just-a fire up with disk 1. Your data is backed up but the 2nd disk is still not a bootable disk.
I do not have the specifics in front of me but some-one here probably does.

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Kent

I think you’re correct, and will be checking on this, if I can, when it is delivered.

You may be interested in the following:

Dell PC ordered Monday, 14:30
Checked order status Wednesday, 09:00 – it had been shipped already!

No wonder Dell are still in business and making money!

So it will probably take considerably longer for the courier to deliver it than to do credit checks, build the PC from the components, put the software on the hard disk, and box it up ready for shipping.

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Kent

I think you’re correct, and will be checking on this, if I can, when it is delivered.

You may be interested in the following:

Dell PC ordered Monday, 14:30
Checked order status Wednesday, 09:00 – it had been shipped already!

No wonder Dell are still in business and making money!

So it will probably take considerably longer for the courier to deliver it than to do credit checks, build the PC from the components, put the software on the hard disk, and box it up ready for shipping.

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Strictly speaking you are correct; realistically, not. If a drive in the mirrored pair fails, you can replace the failed drive. The next time you try to boot you are thrown into the BIOS setup. From there you have the option to repair the array (meaning copy all the tracks from the good drive to the new) and boot. At least, that’s how my computer works.

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Strictly speaking you are correct; realistically, not. If a drive in the mirrored pair fails, you can replace the failed drive. The next time you try to boot you are thrown into the BIOS setup. From there you have the option to repair the array (meaning copy all the tracks from the good drive to the new) and boot. At least, that’s how my computer works.

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There is a small problem with mirrored RAID only. If your drive 0 crashes, you cannot just-a fire up with disk 1. Your data is backed up but the 2nd disk is still not a bootable disk.
I do not have the specifics in front of me but some-one here probably does.

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Jefferson

Redundancy. (Magic word in other contexts, too!).

Disks are so cheap that my work to rebuild a failed disk would be more than the cost of a mirrored disk (which is effectively unused). That’s the main reason why all our servers (well, almost all!) use RAID-5 — but you aren’t going to get much RAID-5 with two disks…

John

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Bowlie

Aren’t we getting just a bit carried away? The Dell PC I’ve just ordered has 2 x 120 GB hard disks with RAID-1 (mirrored). Why would I want up to 3.5 TB of disk space?

John

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Nice comparison here. Just one measurment but $3.14 per GB seems attractive compared to the Dell EMC CX200 at $9.05.[indent]

---

Xserve RAID works well with Mac OS X Server, and you can use it with Windows- or Linux-based serversas well.

---

[/indent]

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(Spurn)**2

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Is that with cheeze and supper size it?

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Is that with cheeze and supper size it?

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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er, why not buy a Mac?

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