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[techme]

Ok I have dedicated windows box with Server Intellect and I am getting ready to upgrade my box. Before I was running with just 1 250gig hd and getting my backups done with them on seprate server. Now I want to install a raid setup for extra data protection and redundancy. I see there is like 4 different raid setups. I want to know which one is the best for data protection and load balancing. I dont just want a definition I need some layman's terminology so I can best decide ultimately which set up will be preferred. Thanks!

[Markb]

The Type of RAID that you get will depend on the number of disks that you have. As you are looking for redundancy you can straight away discount RAID 0. In most cases you will be looking at RAID 1, RAID 5 or RAID 6. RAID 1 is a simple mirror, which requires 2 disks and all data is written to both disks. 1 disk can fail and the other has all the data and can still work. When the failed disk is replaced the mirror is restored. With 2 x 250Gb drives you would have 250Gb space. RAID 5 is described as a "Stripe Set with Parity" suffice it to say that this requires a minimum of 3 disks if you have 3 x 250Gb drives you would have 500Gb space. If any of the drives fail, you can carry on working, and replace the failed drive. If you really want to know how it works I can explain. RAID 6 is similar to RAID 5 but can cope with up to 2 disks failing and still work.

The other question that you will want to ask, would be how the RAID is implemented. This Wikipedia page contains the descriptions of different RAID implementaions, Software RAID, Hardware RAID and Firmware RAID. The preferred would be Hardware RAID followed by Firmware RAID. Looking at the site, I suspect that you may have to settle for the Firmware RAID.

As you are looking to upgrade your server to a more corporate setup, it might be worth looking into the costs of purchasing your own equipment and then renting space in a data centre. This would probably give you a better hardware setup then they appear to be offering. You might even consider their virtual server offering as this may prove to have less hardware issues as they will be hosting them on high end equipment.

Hope this helps.