[mythtv-users] OT Hardware RAID 5 non-Recommendations

[Steven Adeff]

On 12/17/06, Brad Templeton <brad+myth at templetons.com> wrote:
> It is also worth considering not doing RAID at all.   Seriously.
> Yes, drives are failing more often -- though if you keep them cool,
> that improves a great deal.   Of course, keeping them cool requires
> fans you may not want in your living room.    I believe you can get
> a box that goes in your 5.25" bay zone in larger cases with a 120mm
> fan, you can certainly get 92mm fans for such boxes.
>
> If it's a backend, not in the living room, put in the big, slow fans
> for good airflow and low noise.
>
> RAID as a backup protects you from drive failure, but it does not
> protect you from the far more common cause of loss, which is
> accidental deletion.   It also doesn't protect against the house
> burning down or similar troubles.
>
> You may consider that videos are not as much in need of backup
> and that you would rather than 1.5x or 2x the storage than have
> backup.   Videos can often be recovered over time (shows get run
> again) or for those inclined, there are sources on the net where
> you might question the ethics of using them for obtaining videos,
> but not for recoving ones you legitimately had.
>
> However, barring that, you may want to consider that
> extra drives (as needed for RAID 5) require extra power, heat and
> noise.  About 10w for a typical drive, which here means $10 per
> year or $30 over the 3 year life of a drive.     Thus a 750mb
> drive may be cheaper than two 400gb drives over time.  Not
> counting the fancy controller.

RAID also gives you speed, which for folks with HDTV becomes
important. So with RAID 5 you get a two-fer, speed and "reliability".
(plus, what serious TV watcher doesn't do off-site backup of their
myth recordings? ;-)

-- 
Steve
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