RAID 10 on new XServe 10.5

Planning deployment of new XServe. Will be preparing 2-1TB disks for multiple RAID sets (0+1), using multiple partitions on each drive. What happens when/if one drive fails? Since a RAID 10 requires 2 RAID 0 sets and one RAID 1 set (or visa-versa as the documentation says), how will I handle a rebuild?

RAID 10 with 2 drives? Why are you doing this? What do you expect to gain?
RAID 0 gives you performance by spreading content across multiple disks.
RAID 1 gives you redundancy by writing data to multiple drives.
RAID 10 combines both, but only if you're using more drives.
Performance of RAID 10 with two drives will be HORRIBLE. You will have to write all data 4 times - twice to each drive. Latency will be terrible and you won't have any redundancy at all - the only thing RAID 1 provides protection against is a failed drive - in this model, if you lose a drive you've lost all your data because it contains at least one component of the RAID 0 array.
Rebuilding your array will be the least of your problems - there's no ability to recover from a failed disk, so you'll be re-installing from scratch.
In all, I strongly urge you to NOT do this. Pick RAID 1 or RAID 0, but not RAID 10, at least not without more drives.

Similar Messages

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    +I don´t know what OS the Xserve RAID has, I just know that it is the first one.+
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    Apologies for the lengthy post.
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    Would I be correct in assuming I could expect similar/better performance from the new drives as opposed to the old XServe RAID?
    Comparable direct-attached storage (DAS) disk storage tends to be faster than SAN storage, yes.
    And you can connect DAS via SAS or SAS RAID PCIe controller, an older PCI-X controller, or via FireWire or USB buses. PCIe disk interconnects will be the fastest path, and USB the slowest.
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    Will the G5 XServe's Fibre Card fit the new XServe?
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    Ensure your LAN is Gigabit Ethernet or IEEE 802.11n 5 GHz dual-slot, too. Upgrade from any existing 100 Mb LAN and from pre-n WiFi networking.

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    In order to use link aggregation (i.e. the 4gbps connection to the Xserve), will I need to configure Server first using only 1 ethernet connection?
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    I believe so - 'basic' vs. 'Advanced' only controls the set of services that are run and simplifies the admin interface somewhat. I don't think it has any effect on the underlying network setup but I might be wrong (I've never used anything but advanced).
    I also believe I could – without re-installing the OS – changed the setup to RAID5 if I wanted to
    No, that is not possible. Converting to RAID 5 will destroy the current config and reformat the drives. You can migrate to a RAID 1 or RAID 0 array, but not to RAID 5.
    Can I setup disk mirroring without re-installing, and is the process the same (i.e. boot from DVD, change the setup, re-boot)?
    For simple mirroring you can use RAID Admin's Migrate option to migrate the current single drive to a new mirror on the other two drives. The you can re-use the original drive.
    We run Filemaker Server, and I wondered which initial setup option would be optimal
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    To start, focus on the disks. Everything else (applications, services, network, etc.) can be reworked easily later on. Not so with the disks.
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    Use BT for your public DNS for sure, but you'll definitely benefit from having working internal DNS, and that's pretty easy to manage, at least for small networks.
    so what DNS name do I use locally when configuring Server?
    You can use anything you like. You can use ourcompany.com - the same as your public domain, but just have to realize that 'server.ourcompany.com' may mean different things depending on whether you're inside your network querying your own DNS server, or external querying BTs (BT will return 12.34.56.78 while your internal DNS would return the 192.168.100.x address).
    This confuses me (from setup guide):
    Ignore the statement in the setup guide. It's perfectly valid to have 'server.domain.com' hosting email for [email protected].
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    This is absolutely the case - it's hard to make backups of active/open files, especially databases. Any backup takes time - you read the first byte at time 0, but might not get to the last byte until several minutes later - and you have to consider what happens to changes in between (some may be backed up if they happened before the backup reached that part of the file, others might not, leading to an inconsistent file).
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    This really depends on the frequency of change in your database. If it's mostly reads and not many inserts/updates, then reverting to yesterdays backup might not be a problem, but if your data changes constantly it might not be as good.

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    I personally think that for a 1u xserve you should get an xrack pro. There a little more expensive but are amazing i think. They pretty much sound proof the xserve and keep it very cool. They also come with a glass door that locks.
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    Hey Eileen, Seems as though you have the same legitimate problem as any other new computer purchaser. The way that I would suggest you do it is as follows:
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    Stephanie Kuhns-
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    No.

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    Jing Hui Zhou-
    Greetings and welcome.
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    With Snow Leopard Server, you need DNS services. Where that DNS is running matters not.
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