Best way to RAID 6 2TB HDD's w/data redundancy?

[Cortexian]

So I've currently got the following in my system:

Seagate 500GB 7200 RPM - RAID-0
Seagate 500GB 7200 RPM - RAID-0

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM - RAID-1
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM - RAID-1

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM - RAID-1
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM - RAID-1

That's how I have them grouped right now, the RED array is my OS/Programs array. The GREEN and BLUE arrays are my storage arrays, and they're now both full. I have two more 3.5" bays in the PC so I was hoping to buy 6 Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB drives and put them all in a single RAID array. I want fault/failure protection for at least one drive in the array and I want to have as much total storage space as possible.

What do you all recommend?

[Dwood]

Holy batman 4 TBs of data full thats a lot of tor's

[Cortexian]

2TB*

RAID-1 clones each drive in case one fails. This is something key that I want, data redundancy/failure protection.

[Patrickssj6]

Change one Raid to Raid-0. I am pretty sure more than 50% of the files on both are redundant to protection because more than one copy exists.

[Cortexian]

Sorry, I'm thinking about replacing the 4 1TB drives I have with 4 2TB drives and then adding two MORE 2TB drives for a total of 6. What would the best RAID solution be for storage? I want fault protection in case one drive fails, the only other requirement is as much storage space as possible.

[Bodzilla]

i think your looking at it the wrong way, your mirroring drives then setting them up in another raid system.

so your raiding on top of raid.

i cant remember what on it is but theres one that has 3 drives that all partially copy the files, and if 1 dies, the other 2 can rebuild a new drive to replace the files.
It's faster then a standard raid and i'm pretty sure you get the full use of atleast 2 of the 3 drives.
I was going to use this, but i didnt want to shell out another couple hundred for a 3rd black 2TB ED drive, so i've just got the standard mirror.

you want something like that. Google for a list of different raids and check it out.
From the little i know, mirror is only truly useful if you have 2 drives.

[Cortexian]

Yea, right now I have 4 WD Caviar Black 1TB's in two separate RAID-1 mirrors. These are separate mirrors on the same RAID controller card. The 2 Seagate 500GB drives are plugged into the Motherboard and running off of its built in RAID controller in RAID-1.

What I plan to do is replace the 4 WD 1TB drives with 6 WD 2TB drives. And I think I'm going to use RAID-5, with RAID-5 you get the storage space of all the drives in the array -1 and fault tolerance for 1 drive. Meaning with 6 WD 2TB drives I'll get 10TB's of storage space and data protection if one of the drives fail. If one drive does fail it can be replaced and the RAID will rebuild itself, as a matter of fact the RAID will continue to operate if a drive fails and once you replace the failed drive it will rebuild in the background.

So... I need a PCI-E RAID card with at least 6 internal SATA II (3.0Gbps) ports. I was looking at this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115026) but the reviews don't look great, if anyone has a RAID card that matches the specifications I provided here and it works well please recommend it!

The following are the only ones that NewEgg carries:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007607%20600022696%20600022730&IsNodeId=1

[Cortexian]

What I think I'm gonna do:

Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Disk failure protection)
Total = 10TB storage, protection if one drive fails.

All connected to a PERC 6/i RAID controller and BBU (Battery Backup Unit) that I will source from eBay for around $200.


What I would like to do:

Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-5 (Disk failure protection)
Total = 14TB storage, protection if one drive fails.

OR

Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-6 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-6 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-6 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-6 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-6 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-6 (Usable storage)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-6 (Disk failure protection)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 64MB Cache (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX26555%28ME%29.aspx) - RAID-6 (Disk failure protection)
Total = 12TB storage, protection if two drives fail at the same time.

Both would require me to fill all 8 of my cases 3.5" drive bays, removing the two 500GB drives I have in RAID-0 for my current OS. If I were to do this I would also remove one of my two DVD burners and use a 5.25" - 3.5" bay conversion and install an SSD for my OS/Games. This would be significantly more expensive due to the need for an SSD that's at least 300GB's in capacity.

[InnerGoat]

That last option looks best considering all that storage, and you could get a 600GB velociraptor (or two) for the system drive :v:

[Limited]

RAID5's performance will be reduced depending on how much writing you do because of the pairty overhead of having to recalcuate and distribute it out. Reading will be fine though.

I reckon RAID 5 is the best option, you'll get usage of all but one of the drive and plus if it breaks you'll only need to replace the 1 disk.

Also Freelancer..Only $152.99 Save $27.00 (15.0%) *Limit 2 per customer Not sure if you planned to buy from there but its only 2 per person...Also those drives are well cheap.

[Cortexian]

The 2 per customer limit is only when they're on sale, I'd be able to get 2 for that price and the rest at regular price if needed. I'm also a REALLY good customer there since my dad and I pretty much buy all of our electronics there. I also keep applying there to get a job so they know me really well haha, can probably get em all for even cheaper than $27 off lol.

I'm liking the data protection RAID-6 offers, but I've honestly only ever had to replace ONE disk drive due to failure and I've been working on PC's for a good 8 years now. I've got some 10+ year old drives that are still kicking.