Hard disk for Music Server

I spent over 42 years in IT with over 30 years in the performance end of things including storage systems costing over million dollars (EMC storage), the last 10 years actually working for a solid state/hard disk manufacturer. You always need a backup no matter what raid array you use or even if you spent over a million $$ on a disk subsystem.
If I was going to build an array for music and even for video, I would go with a raid 5 or 6 which gives you better reads at the expense of slow writes. But I also don’t like using software raid, if I was going to build a raid system I would buy a 4 or more disk system that provides the difference raid configurations.
All of my systems at home, either Linux or OSX, use an ssd for the system disk but use your typical 5400 rpm drives for the other uses.

Just FYI, you do not need speed, but if you plan to store 10TB, you probably want reliability.  I suggest an external, network enabled NAS.

Doing RAID with a PC is a dangerous affair.  If the motherboard dies, you may not be able to recover the RAID set. 

I'd go with cheap drives in a decent NAS enclosure connected via Ethernet.

I’d go with cheap drives in a decent NAS enclosure connected via Ethernet.

That’s certainly a reasonable suggestion, Erik, **if** (IMO) it is supplemented by an additional backup on a completely separate drive or set of drives. For example, if the power supply in the NAS enclosure goes berserk it could simultaneously wipe out all of the drives that are contained. Or if the controller circuitry in the enclosure fails at some point in the future, and the same or a similar enclosure is no longer available, depending on what RAID mode is being used the data may be unrecoverable.  Or if there is a latent bug in the controller firmware, that would only surface rarely, who knows what can happen.

Over the years I’ve seen user comments at NewEgg describing exactly those sorts of experiences with various such enclosures, resulting in loss of all of the data.

@rbstehno had it right:

You always need a backup no matter what raid array you use or even if you spent over a million $$ on a disk subsystem.

Best regards,
-- Al

Again raid 1+0, look at how it works. Very fast, redundant, and hot swappable...Stripped, and mirrored. Yes I’ve built a hot rod or two..

In other words you could pull a drive, replace it. Take the drive you pulled and start a migration, to build another complete system. Space shuttle crap, and a fast way to RE-build a downed system......I would never need it...

The biggest difference between RAID 5 and RAID 10 is how it rebuilds the disks. RAID 10 only reads the surviving mirror and stores the copy to the new drive you replaced. ... However, if a drive fails with RAID 5, it needs to read everything on all the remaining drives to rebuild the new, replaced disk.

I’m not to fond of Software RAID either, I like SCSI, and onboard, disk low level management... The OS or NOS, well you can get as teckie as you like...LOL I like easy... Not lines of code to just create a BOOT strap, to see a disk, to read a disk, then boot from a 60 POUND, 60 meg hard drive. An IBM 36 was that way, that I maintained for quite a few years...

When were talking Backup, that should be a given, guys.. Really, who doesn’t have a tape backup, or at least a CD backup. A HD or SSD will ALWAYS fail, it’s just a question of when...

Another thing, a PS failure, very seldom leads to a drive failure. I’ve never seen one, lower quality PS of old could lead to drive failures, very rare though. Like MFM, RLL, and ESDI drives, before SCSI, and WAY before, any IDE stuff. Again it is a single failure, BUT no data loss. One of a few reasons for RAID to begin with.
Speed, Reliable, not expensive, redundant, and not necessarily a proprietary part needs to replace a failed one...
Replace a Seagate with a Maxtor, give it a physical ID, terminate, and away you go.....
Regards..

One other thing, even though software raid is not the best... It’s still pretty good. The problem, the software usually complements the drive spec only, not the interface between a SCSI driver board (with its own onboard buffer, ROM, and HI speed RAM). So if you lose a drive, you need to replace with the same or use a software patch.. Even more proprietary..
Good place to get malicious, if you’re handy with a GOOD keyboard break routine, and a few other tricks, to speed the console up...Wipe someone elses drive pretty quick. Command line access is pretty hard on a good SCSI board..You ain’t gonna do it over a phone/LAN/WAN/WiFi, or any way. It would be real tough...You gotta be there to access the bios.

Now think, three board per server each board can run 14 devices and one ID for the boards, you have 5 servers. Each drive is 10T, spinning at 10,000 rpm....I wonder how many miles that is in a year? 2.5" or 3.5" 2-6 platters, Sorry I ran out of fingers and toes... It's a lot....Carry the 1, geez that one hell of a cipher!!! Ok brainiacs, step up, way out of my league.. I'm simple.

I’ll ponder that while I feed the chickens...

Regards