Which RAID for a Personal Fileserver?

Dredd2Kad asks: "I'm tired of HD failures. I've suffered through a few of them. Even with backups, they are still a pain to recover from. I've got all fairly inexpensive but reliable hardware picked out, but I'm just not sure which RAID level to implement. My goals are to build a file server that can live through a drive failure with no loss of data, and will be easy to rebuild. Ideally, in the event of a failure, I'd just like to remove the bad hard drive and install a new one and be done with it. Is this possible? How many drives to I need to get this done, 2,4 or 5? What size should they be? I know when you implement RAID, your usable drive space is N% of the total drive space depending on the RAID level."

Just remember the RAID song

[192939495969798999]

RAID 0, you need a hero,
RAID 1, is equally fun,
but RAID 5 keeps you alive!

Hardware

[DaveKAO]

Wow inexpensive & reliable... Those are two words you don't see together too often.

Re:search the fscking google

[PoderOmega]

Thank you for fulfilling the "Why didn't you check google?" quota. No one else needs to this until the next Ask Slashdot!

Re:Second poast

[Fooby]

Moderate this one "redundant."

*ducks*

Re:search the fscking google

[skirch]

Another missed opportunity to use the internet's, uh, hottest new acronym: FGI [fuckinggoogleit.com].

Here it comes...

[devphaeton]

"I'm tired of HD failures. I've suffered through a few of them. Even with backups, they are still a pain to recover from.

If you just run Gentoo, you can type "emerge new_harddrive" and it takes care of everything by the end of the month!

or..

Your shit PEECEE WINTEL crap parts made in china are no match for real quality Mac hardware, which are fully integrated with the UNIX UNDERPINNINGS that have the Best GUI Ever(tm) on top.

Disclaimer: I love trolls.

Dear Slashdot

[ccwaterz]

Dear Slashdot,

which is better, SCSI or IDE?

Googleless in VA

Re:Raid is not an option

[sxtxixtxcxh]

Raid Ain't "Inexpensive", Dumbass.

Re:Dear Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Googleless in VA,

You're new here, aren't you?

Slashdot

Re:search the fscking google

[Anonymous Coward]

In a mirrored configuration you can lose multiple drives as long as you don't loose a mirrored pair.

Wow, normally people fuck it up consistently and spell "lose" incorrectly as "loose". However, you've done it both ways in the same sentence. A Slashdot first!

Re:Raid-1 & Plan 9

[Hard_Code]

By my calculations that gets you either:

Plaid 10
Pain 10

Neither sound good.

Re:search the fscking google

[swordboy]

I always like to joke that this book [oreilly.com] should have been called: RTFM: Raid - The Fucking Manual

Re:search the fscking google

[ryanwright]

No offense intended, but why didn't you just do a google search rather than asking 1.5million slashdotters?

Holy crap! There are 1.5 million of us? Now I know what to say the next time a bully asks me, "You and what army?" THE SLASHDOT ARMY!!!

The word is FUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not one for spelling flames, but why is it so hard for slashdot geeks to spell the word "FUCK"??? The S and U keys are nowhere near each other.

Re:RAID 1

[MasTRE]

>> The really best way is RAID 1 + a third drive for backups, on another system.

> At a different site.

In a galaxy far, far away..

Re:RAID 1

[devilspgd]

So, heh-heh, one [smart-ass] question: How exactly do you back it up? :)

You've heard of usenet? It's just this guy's hard drive being posted over and over.

Re:search the fscking google

[Tim C]

I like STFW - Search The Fucking Web

Re:RAID 1

[z84976]

I have three 80GB IDE drives running RAID-5 on a server in a colo that is pounded 24x7. It's been in operation for more than two full years and hasn't failed.

Of course it hasn't failed. See, there is some sort of weird universal law that applies in these situations. If you take the time to put in some redundancy (raid 5, or just mirroring) then none of your hard discs will ever fail. However, if you had used the exact same physical drives in a non-redundant fashion, you can bet your buttons they would have failed. It's just one of those things... like the drives know your situation or something. If they know that their failure won't really cause you major headaches, they figure it's just not worth their time to fail. They only strike when they know they're going to hurt you.

Re:RAID 1

[Fjord]

Using RSync to do snapshots [mikerubel.org] is a good way to go. With the snapshot structure on the RAID system, you cannot accidentally wipe out data: it'll remain in the past versions.

Re:RAID 1

[Pieroxy]

And you access them quickly how?

I would say:

And you access them quickly how with the one hand available left?

Re:RAID 1

[StillAnonymous]

Jesus Christ! Who are you, Larry fucking Flynt? What are you going to do with all of those?

Re:RAID 1

[rootofevil]

someone needs to talk to that guy - hes got WAY too much porn