From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Wols Lists Subject: Re: Raid settings Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:59:44 +0100 Message-ID: <57C35ED0.2030107@youngman.org.uk> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: o1bigtenor , Linux-RAID List-Id: linux-raid.ids On 28/08/16 22:43, o1bigtenor wrote: > Greetings > > I have been doing some research thinking toward the future. > > Is there a 'best' raid setup? What do you want to achieve? There's no such thing as "best" - there's only "most suitable for the circumstances". > > It seems to me (a noob) that each of the options carries some negatives with it. > > Is there a good option for say: > > 2 - 5 disks > 4 - 8 disks > 6 - 12 disks > 10 - 30 disks > etc. > > I looked at raid 5/6/10/50/60/100 and I am wondering where is the > 'best' use of each of these options? > Ignoring linear or stripe (which you seem to have done), with 2 disks the only option is raid 1 (mirror). 3 disks gives you raid 5, and 4 disks gives you raid 6. But do you want to make maximum use of the disk space (raid 6 is your friend) or do you want maximum redundancy (raid 1)? For my home system I've got 2 x 3TB in a raid1 config. I had intended to add a 3rd drive and go raid5, but with two Barracudas I'd be an idiot :-( If I want to go that route, I need three new proper raid drives :-( I want maximum disk capacity with some redundancy, so raid 5 or 6 makes most sense for me. Without knowing what you want, we can't know what's best for you. Cheers, Wol