My choice would be RAID 6 for a file server since you can lose two drives and it does not matter which set of two can die. From what I understand with RAID 10 you can lose two drives but if they happen to be on the same RAID 1 array then you are a out of luck? Any suggestions? Basic file server with about 200GB of data and it would act as a single point of backup for other workstations and servers.
RAID – RAID 6 vs RAID 10: Which to Choose
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Best Answer
It depends on what you are trying to do. While Raid 10 would give you faster reads and writes of the two, as you said, it is possible to lose everything if you lose the wrong two drives. But on larger disk arrays you could lose exactly half the drives and retain full operations. But with Raid 6, your writes could be a bit slower b/c of the extra checksum. But you could lose any two drives and not lose any data as long as there are no UREs found on any other drive during the RAID reconstruction phase.
I think another important point to remember is that Raid is not data backup. So the main thing RAID should be looked at is server uptime. Not keeping data intact.
I think in the end it is a matter of preference. I would go with Raid 10 personally; For really large arrays you might be able to pull of a RAID 50 or 60. Where disk in the striped set could be protected with raid 5 or raid 6.
Some good reading: