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Re: Xserve RAID: RAID 5 set using more than seven drives?



If a drive fails on either side it's okay -- the RAID 5 will handle it, you just replace the drive. If you lose a pair of drives on a single side, you lose the array on that side, and you'd end up losing the entire volume, due to the fact that it's RAID 0.

I don't know how the software component would "go." RAID 0 fails if one of the components (be it a drive, or a RAID set) fails. The definition of RAID set failure is that too many drives in the set fail (i.e. 2 drive failures in a RAID 5 with no hot spare, or 3 drive failures in a RAID 5 set *with* a hot spare (2 if there's a dual failure that's faster than the ~12 hour set rebuild time).

Cheers,

-Bill

On Oct 29, 2004, at 3:44 PM, Ken Carlile wrote:

What happens if one of the drives goes or if the software component (0) goes?


-----Original Message----- From: Bill Lloyd [mailto:email@hidden] Sent: Fri 10/29/2004 3:33 PM To: Ken Carlile Cc: Mac OSX Server Subject: Re: Xserve RAID: RAID 5 set using more than seven drives?

It is safe for data, because if a RAID controller goes bad, you won't
lose data.  Swap in a new RAID controller, it can read the RAID set
info off the drives, and you're back up and running in no time.  If you
have a spare controller on hand (i.e. you purchased a spares kit), this
swap takes 30-60 seconds.

However, it does have "uptime" implications.  If a controller goes, the
entire volume (that is, both halves) goes offline for the duration.
This effectively doubles your chances of losing availability.  It's two
"single points of failure" and some people won't tolerate ANY, so if
that's your goal, it's not a recommended approach.

Cheers,

-Bill

On Oct 29, 2004, at 2:23 PM, Ken Carlile wrote:

My question is, is RAID 50 safe (redundant)? My head gets confused
when I try to think about raid systems greater than 5.

...





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 >RE: Xserve RAID: RAID 5 set using more than seven drives? (From: "Ken Carlile" <email@hidden>)



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