I'm setting up a backup storage device-
This machine has Windows Server 2008, on a separate boot drive.
It has 8x 1TB drives, and uses a hardware RAID card.
My question is, which RAID configuration should I go for?
Initially, I was going to go with RAID 5 across all 8 drives, however members on serverFault have advised against it. I was just wondering why?
Some people have suggested 2 lots of RAID 5 configuration on 4 of the drives, then striping them…
I want to maximise the storage space, as this is a backup unit – will store SQL backups, Acronis Images, files, etc…
It won't be for public access, so the I/O won't be that high I wouldn't think.
Best Answer
Fore pure cold backup I'd say RAID5 is fine. RAID5 will take a considerable amount of time to restore on 8x1TB SATA drives, but given the chances of something breaking at low IOPS that's probably not critical. If you want the added bit of safety, go for RAID6 which will give you the ability to survive two simultaneous disk failures.