Best raid level for backup exec local storage

[mfahey]

I am upgrading the storage for our backup exec server. I am adding

8 X 500GB 6gb SAS 7200 rpm  sff drives.

What raid level is will give me the fastest restores?

I also will be using an lto6 autoloadler (HP MSL2024)

I wanted to do raid 10 but a raid 10 controller can get very expensive.

Will raid 5 work just fine?

Thanks.

[SuperBrain]

If you are planning to connect your tape devie to the RAID controller, check this article:

Why is it recommended that tape devices should not be connected to RAID controllers?

Also see, Support policy for Host-Bus-Adapters that feature RAID

[mfahey]

No. The tape drive will be connected to its own sas hba.

I simply want to know the best raid level for the local 4tb of space for restoring data.

[teiva-boy · Accepted solution]

It depends on how you configure your RAID groups, block size, NTFS formatting options, etc.  

No single RAID type will be better than the other, if you don't correctly set the options to tune for best performance for that workloadd.

Your answer is it depends.  You need to benchmark between RAID 5, 6, 10, 01, and 1.  Change block sizes, change NTFS segment sizes, partition align, etc..  Too many variables to tell you use RAID X

The simplest is RAID5.  It works is reliable, and simple to grow.

[mfahey]

I want the fastest raid level for writes. all else you mention is a plus.

Raid 5 is slower for writes then raid 10. Raid 1 is also fast but has no redundancy.

Your statement "no single raid type will be better" is false.

The most appropriate raid level for fast writes and redundancy I feel is raid 10.

Any have any other suggestions?

[teiva-boy]

If you are dead set on RAID 10, do it.  Most likely between the two, you will not see a difference for a number of reasons.

Your posts contradict each other.  The original post is you wanted fastest restores.  Now you say fastest writes.  You can't have both.

Either one will work.  I've set up close to a hundred backup exec servers, and managed multiple hundreds over the last 12+years. 

Let's face it, RAID5 will give you good restore speed, RAID 10 will give you goodd write speed.  Odds are you will NOT fully realize your speed potential as you'll have other bottlenecks in your environment like BackupExec, 1GbE, improper RAID tuning, client speeds, etc.  Disk and tape are the least of your worries. Your backup is only as goodd as your slowest link.

[mfahey]

WHen I said good write speed I meant when the tape is being restored to the local storage.

If you think raid 5 is good Ill stick with that.

Thanks

[CraigV]

...I suspect you mean that RAID0 has no redundancy...RAID1 is mirroring...

Thanks!

[CraigV]

...you're not restoring FROM the disk, you're restoring TO it therefore writing to disk as a result.

Thanks!