HDD set up for HTPC: RAID anyone?

everlast24 · **9th September 2008, 10:49 PM**

I am curious if any one is running RAID0 for dedicated HTPC or do movies etc access quick enough with the standard set up.

I am considering a combo of RAID0 and RAID1 so it will access quick but also have a mirror to protect data. I have this setup on one of my computers but am wondering if it is overkill for a HTPC.

Thank you for your assistance.

bigbaron · **9th September 2008, 11:05 PM**

My standard 7200rpm single drive is enought to record 4 streams of TV to it at a time. Raid is not needed for that? The only usefull thing would be the speed in copying files!!

amilwain · **9th September 2008, 11:11 PM**

I have previously used RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 5 on HTPCs and have come to the conclusion that less drives in the HTPC the better. I now just sync important data to another server so that there are two copies.

Lots of drives = lots of heat and lots of noise.

I have 4 HD tuners and use one Samsung 1Tb 7200rpm SATA drive and have no problems recording 4 shows, playing back another recoreded show on the MCE and playing back a different show again via a Linksys Extender and it all works fine.

I use a separate drive for some local music, photos, other videos and the Vista OS

Hope that helps

AM

DDH · **10th September 2008, 11:10 AM**

I use RAID 5, which by definition will be slower than a single drive. I can stream 5 recordings including HD, and use it to serve up to another MCE at the same time. I can be sure that you will not need this for configuration for speed if you are usign a 7200 RPM 32Mb cache drive.

vlad · **10th September 2008, 11:45 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DDH

I use RAID 5, which by definition will be slower than a single drive.

This is not correct. It depends on number of spindles and raid controller you have.

ExtremePC · **10th September 2008, 11:49 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vlad

This is not correct. It depends on number of spindles and raid controller you have.

Agreed, at work we use 16 or 32 drive RAID 5 setups and they are VERY quick.

everlast24 · **12th September 2008, 10:55 AM**

Thank you for your replies.

I have had HDDs die in both RAID and stand alone. I am in the practice of backing up anything valuable onto external HDDs. (I have two that I swap every fortnight, yes I have lost valuable data once.........never again)

I will use try a single Samsung 750GB HDD 32MB Cache SATA II 7200rpm, if my PC loads movies faster or I need more storage I will just reformat with a RAID setup.

Thanks again guys.

krypto · **12th September 2008, 11:12 AM**

I am using a Samsung eco green (5400rpm) 1tb drive. It handles for simultaneous streams with capacity left over. The key is to have a dedicated drive for recorded TV storage.

As someone above said less heat = less noise. I also suspect that the 5400rpm drive will last longer.

DDH · **12th September 2008, 11:12 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vlad

This is not correct. It depends on number of spindles and raid controller you have.

You are quite correct. I should have been more specific. At the lower, often used home end with controllers and the small number of spindles it is often slower.

Certainly with VRAID5 which I have on the screen to the right of me across 90 spindles with massive caching and top line controllers its nice and fast. It is nice to play with other people's toys.

vlad · **12th September 2008, 12:26 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExtremePC

Agreed, at work we use 16 or 32 drive RAID 5 setups and they are VERY quick.

It is not recommended to have RAID5 volumes of more then 16 drives, as parity wrights will slow it down.
In practice, I normally would have no more then 8 drives in one RAID5 volume. Then you can stripe multiple volumes together.
If you cannot stripe, a simple OS concatenation will do, It will give you much better performance than one large RAID5