Raid 5

[PolarBearBob]

I do wedding video and I would like to know if RAID 5 will work for my needs? I want to set up a RAID 5 using 4,74GB Raptor 10Ks I have a 36GB Raptor 10k for my applications

I'm a pilgrim in a strange land. I'm trying to assemble another working computer for my little business. I was leaning toward a AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 1Ghz FSB Socket 939 and a ASUS A8N-SL1 Motherboard.

Guess I have a couple of questions... I would greatly appreciate any and all help with regards to the RAID 5 setup and would welcome any and all reasonable recommendations as to a new production computer.

Thanks, PolarBearBob:confused:

[Force Flow]

Welcome to PCMech, PolarBearBob :)

Here's a RAID card that would probably suit your needs:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816103137


By the way, what sort of budget to you have to work with here?

[PolarBearBob]

Well I would like to keep it under two grand if possible. fifteen-hundred even better.

[PolarBearBob]

Hey Double "F"

Thanks for the tip; I hope you know something that I didn't read about. Seems some of the folks that bought that raid card were not happy with it. So say the posts I've been reading on NewEgg. Seems the Tyan MoBo people couldn't get to work above 33MHz. Forgive me for being a little dull, are the items listed at the bottom of your post your recommendations for parts to buy??
Thanks PBB

[LoC]

thats a signature, the "parts below the post."

[Force Flow]

Hey Double "F"

Thanks for the tip; I hope you know something that I didn't read about. Seems some of the folks that bought that raid card were not happy with it. So say the posts I've been reading on NewEgg. Seems the Tyan MoBo people couldn't get to work above 33MHz. Forgive me for being a little dull, are the items listed at the bottom of your post your recommendations for parts to buy??
Thanks PBB

The problem is the motherboard--it's a low end, low quality board. If you go with a good quality manufacturer and motherboard, everything should go smoothly.

As for the parts listings below post, many members choose to list their system specs.

[Louds3]

I would recommend that Asus board, but if you will never need 2 video cards you could go with the A8N-E instead and save a few bucks. i would definitely go with 2x1gig of memory since video editing is Very memory intensive. then you could always add more in the future should you need it. i would also imagine that running a system with 5 raptors would be quite loud, i don't have a raptor but I do hear they are kinda loud as they run at 10K. as for the RAID 5, i am not really that knowledgeable when it comes to raid arrays but I know there are some people in this forum that aren't completely convinced at the speed gains. it is possible that you wouldn't notice a big difference between between the RAID 5 (with that controller card and 4 raptors you are looking at over $800) and a nice 300GB SATA II with a 16mb cache ($115) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701.
if you need the security of backup you could get 2 of them and do raid 1. just my thoughts.

steve

[glc]

If you really do want to run 4 drives in RAID, RAID 5 is the best way to do it. The A8N-SLI Deluxe and Premium boards support RAID 5 with the onboard Sil controller, you wouldn't need a card. You will have the effective capacity of 3 drives, a slight performance increase over a single drive or JBOD, and redundancy - it can tolerate failure of any one of the 4 drives with rebuild ability after drive replacement.