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Forum Discussion
X-Raid or Raid-5
I am resurrecting an old NV+ V1, with four 2TB drives. Since I can never expand beyond this, it seems there's no benefit in X-Raid flexibility. Should I let it use X-Raid by default, or choose Flex...
pourpain wrote:
Since I can never expand beyond this, it seems there's no benefit in X-Raid flexibility. Should I let it use X-Raid by default, or choose Flex Raid-5?
It doesn't matter, as the underlying RAID mode will be identical. XRAID is easier to set up (no need to over-ride the RAID mode via RAIDar), so you might as well just use that.
Thank you. I have read in a few places (unofficial, not in the documentation) that X-Raid uses Raid 4. They also say that it is slightly better for sequential reads. I assume in practice it might not matter (this unit is not fast enough to make any difference?).
pourpain wrote:
Thank you. I have read in a few places (unofficial, not in the documentation) that X-Raid uses Raid 4. They also say that it is slightly better for sequential reads. I assume in practice it might not matter (this unit is not fast enough to make any difference?).
The v1 ReadyNAS (sparc-processor systems) all use a dedicated parity disk - which is technically RAID-4. But it's labeled as RAID-5 in FlexRAID. So the on-disk structures are exactly the same.
Newer ReadyNAS systems (4.2.x, 5.3.x, 6.x) all distribute the parity blocks across the drives in the array (which is normal RAID-5).
As far as performance goes, RAID-5 distributes writes evenly across the disks. With RAID-4, the partity disk needs to be updated for every write. That increases wear on that disk, and also can become a performance bottleneck. Though with the v1 NAS, the performance bottleneck is the CPU speed and memory in the NAS (not surprising in a 15-20 year old hardware design).
Thanks again. It is strange they would label it as Raid 5 when it is not. But in this case, like you said, X-Raid is easier so the default will work fine.
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