[mythtv-users] RAID using two drives per PATA channel ?

chris at cpr.homelinux.net chris at cpr.homelinux.net
Wed Aug 2 06:36:26 UTC 2006


On Tue, Aug 01, 2006 at 05:21:33PM -0400, Steven Adeff wrote:
> the drive bay has built in cooling via 2 huge fans, so I'll limit
> myself to 6 drives).

Don't trust the cooling fans.  When I built my RAID-5 system I bought a
special 3-drive bay with a large filtered fan.  After installing the
drives as per the directions, one of them started failing within a few
days.  The top drive was getting soaked from below, and was
uncomfortably hot to touch.  I pulled it from the bay and mounted it in
an un-cooled internal bay and everything was fine.  From now on I'm
going to buy single-drive pull-out bays with individual cooling.

> I figure, since I have the space and the ability
> in one form or another to have a 6 drive RAID 10 array for recordings,
> whats the best way to go about it from where I am....

You know you would have the same capacity if you used 4 drives in a 
RAID-5 array, right?  That's 33% less money/electricity/heat, and 
you might be able to avoid putting two drives on one IDE channel so 
performance wouldn't suck.  Software RAID-5 is not the performance 
pig some people make it out to be *IF* you have each drive on its 
own controller.



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