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Forum Discussion
XRAID2 vs RAID6, etc.
I've got an RN104 on the way and I'd like to better understand my configuration options. To start with, I have to admit that I'm planning on using 3x2TB Caviar Greens to start with (WD20EARX); I kn...
You can add a 4 TB red, but you will waste 2 TB of its capacity until you have two of them installed. BTW, with RAID-6 you will waste 2 TB of capacity on the 4 TB drives until all 4 reds are installed.
CoW and Bit Rot protection are available in both xraid2 and RAID-6.
RAID-6 works out better on the RN300 and RN500 series. There is a performance hit for disk writes because the two parity blocks need to be computed, and the slower CPU in the RN100 makes that more significant. If you want to use RAID6 anyway, then change to flexraid before you install the fourth drive. There will then be an option to use the fourth disk for redundancy instead of additional space. After you get the RAID-6 volume synced, you can convert back to XRAID2 (and you won't lose the dual redundancy). Expansion with RAID-6 requires all 4 drives to be upgraded (switching back to xraid2 doesn't change that).
You need backups anyway, even with RAID-6 protection. So personally I'd go with single redundancy.
BTW, if you are planning to use the green drives in the NAS for the long term, you might want to set the head parking threshold (using the procedure you asked about here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=74601). Opinions on whether this really matters vary. On paper it voids the WDC warranty. I've had some green drives in my NV+ for almost 5 years, and chose not to set the parking threshold. They continue to perform with no problems with load cycle counts over 500K.
CoW and Bit Rot protection are available in both xraid2 and RAID-6.
RAID-6 works out better on the RN300 and RN500 series. There is a performance hit for disk writes because the two parity blocks need to be computed, and the slower CPU in the RN100 makes that more significant. If you want to use RAID6 anyway, then change to flexraid before you install the fourth drive. There will then be an option to use the fourth disk for redundancy instead of additional space. After you get the RAID-6 volume synced, you can convert back to XRAID2 (and you won't lose the dual redundancy). Expansion with RAID-6 requires all 4 drives to be upgraded (switching back to xraid2 doesn't change that).
You need backups anyway, even with RAID-6 protection. So personally I'd go with single redundancy.
BTW, if you are planning to use the green drives in the NAS for the long term, you might want to set the head parking threshold (using the procedure you asked about here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=74601). Opinions on whether this really matters vary. On paper it voids the WDC warranty. I've had some green drives in my NV+ for almost 5 years, and chose not to set the parking threshold. They continue to perform with no problems with load cycle counts over 500K.
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