[Bwanagreg]

My raid 5 array saved my butt - OK it saved many weeks of EAC up close and personal time  - this weekend. I had a hard drive failure and the dreaded "array is broken" message popped up on my file server. I knew the theory - all i had to do was assign a spare drive to the array and rebuild it. It feels different when many hours of work - and about 600GB of music and family photos - are sitting on the crippled array. So, after a full day of rebuilding, I woke up this morning to find all of my files back from the dead. Theory and practice united  .

I have a cheap HighPoint RocketRAID 454 PCI IDE Controller Card controlling the array. It's gotten some bad feedback in NewEgg but it worked for me. Performance is not an issue in my application - serving music files across my network to other machines running J River Media Center. 

[shokunin]

While the feeling of losing your data is fresh, RAID 5 arrays should always be backed up.  RAID shouldn't be considered as "backup" as it only provides availability and protection from drive failure.  If you had lost another drive during the rebuild of the array, then your raid volume would have been lost...  I've seen raid 5 arrays go down during a rebuild as the array gets taxed quite heavily during that process and a drive could easily overheat or go offline during that time.   Really Really important stuff like family pictures, tax files, etc are small enough to backup onto DVDs, tapes, or another offline drive.  If you have other PCs in the house with extra space, just spread some of your music files to those drives.

[jeffreybehr]

Remember, boys and girls, there are only 2 kinds of harddrives--those that have failed and those that will.  I've been playing with PCs since 1982 (IBM introduced their PC in 1981), and I'm still astonished at how many people claim to have important files on their HDs and don't have a backup.

Years ago I determined that the easiest and least expensive way to backup data was to another HD.  I chose NOT to use external drives for that and bought and installed 2 inexpensive 80G HDs in my PC.  Later I changed them to 200G drives.  Every week or 2, I copy my entire Data drive/directory to the HD containing the older of the 2 BUs.  I also copy my PST (Outlook's e-mails-and-addresses) file every day or 2 to the Data drive/directory and also to the newer of the BU drives.

Almost 4 years ago I built a very fast computer for processing large image files.  It used dual Athlon XP 1600s, 2GB of RAM, and a very expensive SCSI-U160/RAID-0 array (and those BU drives).  Two weeks ago that SCSI system failed for the last time.  I bought a fast HP computer and by the end of the next day, I had ALL applications and data reloaded and running.  Due to my BU filosofy, I had lost ONE day of e-mails and ONE modification of an image file.

'Nuf said.

[Bwanagreg]

All excellent points. The family photos were already backed up on DVDs, but the only "backup" I have for the music are the original CDs themselves (I'm not a fan of downloading music, legally or otherwise  ). Worst case I was looking at was re-ripping my entire collection, but not losing anything. Given how cheap the 200-300GB drives are these days, it's time to back up the APE files as well.

[Dr. Krull]

IMHO Raid 5 offers zero benefit when it comes to serving files for your hifi.  You have 5x more heat, 5x greater noise, 5x+ greater expense and 5x greater failure rate.  Like "jeffreybehr"  mentioned, the simple solution is to use a mirrored off-line drive for backup.   

Raid 5 is terrific for the right applications, but not for an audio music server.  Just my 2¢.

-Krull

[Bwanagreg]

You have 5x more heat, 5x greater noise, 5x+ greater expense and 5x greater failure rate. 

Umm, how do you figure this?  If every drive is the same capacity, say 200GB, then the total capacity of the array is (# drives -1) X 200GB. I have 4 200 GB drives for 600GB available storage space. Using paralleled drives or Raid 1, I would need 6 drives to achieve the same capacity.  With the controller I have, I can put 7 drives into the array, leave one channel empty to plug in a new drive in case of a failure, giving 1.2TB total capacity. The 200-300GB drives are very cheap now on a per GB basis so it's actually cheaper than buying fewer bigger drives, and I don't have to juggle files around to avoid filling up individual drives.

I agree with the other poster's points about Raid 5 not being a substitute for proper backups though especially for irreplaceable data.

[Andrew JC]

All excellent replies here. I have had many RAID-5 arrays fail over the years. It's such a great feeling the pull a drive off the shelf, slap it in the server and hours later it's as good as new.  It's hard to believe how cheap hard drives are today. I saw a 500GB drive for $200 not a bad deal at all.

[Levi]

I agree with you with IDE or SATA drive prices coming down.  Unfortunately, SCSI drives are still expensive.

All excellent replies here. I have had many RAID-5 arrays fail over the years. It's such a great feeling the pull a drive off the shelf, slap it in the server and hours later it's as good as new.  It's hard to believe how cheap hard drives are today. I saw a 500GB drive for $200 not a bad deal at all.

[jeffreybehr]

More on that important-files-but-no-backup.

A couple years ago someone wrote to one of the DPReview forums that his HD had just died, and he's got important stuff on it that he really needs, and could someone help him.  I replied that he now has the opportunity to use one of those backups he's surely been making regularly since he has important data on the drive that he needs to keep.  Someone else told me I should be easy on him.  I responded that PCs have been around and harddrives have been failing for over 20 years, and that if he's stupid enough to ignore that well-known fact, he now gets to deal with the consequences.  I have little tolerance for people who damage themselves because they're too lazy or too stupid...sort of like using illegal drugs or not wearing seatbelts in a vehicle.  It has to do with being responsible for one's own behaviour.

[Levi]

Hey Jeffrey, here is another way of looking into backup.  File system Backup is like brushing teeth, therefore only brush the teeth you want to keep.  

[Thump553]

For your audio files, I'd suggest buying a spindle or two of quality DVDs the next time you see a good sale and backing up the audio files as well.  You can put quite a few albums on one DVD.  As an additional benefit, I save an Excel spreadsheet on each DVD which lists what I have and which DVD the backup is on.