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Hi all,
We are using the poor man's RAID -IDE RAID. We have one 230GB striped array
(Raid 0) and one 640GB parity array (RAID 5). On the 230GB drive, we took
advantage of a motherboard that had RAID built onto it (~$140) and added
two Western Digital 120GB drives with 8mb cache(~$180ea). The 640GB array
we bought out right from Promise Technologies it is also IDE raid
(~$8,000).
NAS-IDE RAID: inexpensive good for small workgroups (~$600-$8,000)
There are NAS (networked attatched servers) solutions out there, they work
great and are basically plug n play; but when they die the whole system dies
except the drives. With NAS you are forced to buy parts from the
manufacturer. Otherwise they are easy to run and maintain, perfect for small
groups of networked users. Buy systems with good warranties and replaceable
drive controllers.
NAS-SCSI RAID: expensive good for huge groups of users (~$1000-$20,000)
If you buy an array it should really be made of all SCSI hard drives if you
want a secure and stable system. These can be bought as NAS devices (plug n
play) or as server style computers (require specialized management).
You can buy RAID PCI cards ($100-$300) in the consumer market and RAID ready
mother boards (~$140). These kind of additions work great in small
workgroups and for storing files using 2-4 IDE disks.
Note: Our 640gig IDE array hangs during large data set processing (one user,
one process). So now we are building new IDE array from scratch removing the
drives and tossing out the shell. If we had spent more money and gone with
the SCSI array I don't think we would be rebuilding right now. This in not a
big deal with confocal files though, just with 3d image processing.
Extra info:
Here are some common RAID choices for the consumer market:
RAID 0 "striping" makes big drives out of smaller one adding them together
and increases read and write times but if one drive goes you loose all of
your data.
RAID 1 "mirror" copies of your data to another drive of similar size. RAID 1
gives good data security but slower read write times if a drive fails you
can recover your data.
RAID 5 "parity" basically spreads the data throughout the array if one drive
fails you still have you data and most of the time you can replace the
harddrive with the system running. This works best with 4 or more similar
hard drives.
Jon Ekman
Florida State University
Biological Science Imaging Resource
119 Bio Unit I, 4370
Tallahassee, FL 32306
tel: 850.644.6519
fax: 850.644.0481
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Wessendorf" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 10:28 AM
Subject: Re: DVD data storage
> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
> Is anyone out there using large networked RAID arrays for data storage?
> If so, what do you see as their advantages and disadvantages? From what
> little I know, it sounds as if the data is backed up and (given the
> right networking) is accessible to any OS that can hook onto the net. I
> think the cost per gigabyte is probably higher--$8/GB is what sticks in
> my mind--but reliability should be excellent.
>
> Anyone out there whose actually tried it??
>
> Thanks!
>
> Martin Wessendorf
> --
> Martin Wessendorf, Ph.D. office: (612) 626 0145
> Assoc Prof, Dept Neuroscience lab: (612) 624 2991
> University of Minnesota Preferred FAX: (612) 624 8118
> 6-145 Jackson Hall, 321 Church St. SE Dept FAX: (612) 626 5009
> Minneapolis, MN 55455 e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
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