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Forum Discussion
OzzieNASuser
Aug 01, 2020Aspirant
RN104 and Raid
Hi, I've read a few posts but have not found an answer to the following. Is there any way to force an RN104 into Raid 1 mode when populated with four HDDs? And if there is what is the pat...
- Aug 02, 2020
Sandshark wrote:
Budget and whether you want to have to manually spread shares across the volumes are two main drivers if drive sizes and rotation speeds are consistent.
Expanding RAID-10 might be more complicated than expanding two RAID-1 volumes.
One thing to think about is whether you actually need two RAID-1 arrays, or if one will do. Drive prices (in $/TB) are pretty flat right now between 8 and 12 TB. Getting one pair of larger drives now, and leaving two bays empty for the future might also be a good strategy.
StephenB
Aug 01, 2020Guru - Experienced User
OzzieNASuser wrote:
1. Is the best way forward to use drives from the same manufacturer and of the same capacity?
With RAID-10 should be the same speed and it would be simplest if they were the same capacity.
If budget is a constraint, I'd proceed step-wise. Personally I wouldn't rule out have two RAID-1 volumes. You can simply add the the second volume, and shift a couple of shares over to the new volume. Balancing the space between them isn't that difficult.
Sandshark
Aug 02, 2020Sensei - Experienced User
Another thing to look at is the results of drive failures. For both configurations, you can lose one drive and certain combinations of two and lose nothing. With RAID10, there are conditions under which you could lose two drives and lose everything. With two separate volumes, the worst with two drives failed is losing one of the two volumes. You didn't ask about it, but RAID6 can be grown from your current volume (and in steps, RAID5 then RAID6) and can lose any two drives and still retain all data. But it can be slower.
Budget and whether you want to have to manually spread shares across the volumes are two main drivers if drive sizes and rotation speeds are consistent. If you have a lot of data that's archive and can be on on volume, and other data that is more active for the other volume, then it makes it easier to deal with multiple volumes, since one needs little "care and feeding".
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