RAID 5 Hardware

[wgtwo]

Thinking of setting up a nice RAID 5 for myself to replace my 2x1GB RAID 0 + backup setup. I should get an external enclosure, yeah? Any recommendations (preferably on the cheaper side)?

 

[arniepix]

Connected how?

 

[wgtwo]

Wired, probably USB 3.0 if that's fast enough. Could easily buy a thunderbolt PCI-E card.

 

[David W. Jones]

Not sure what platform you are on, but I have used raid 5 setups before and have had issues, so what I am doing now is this. 3 x 3TB thunderbolt drives as a fast raid 0 9TB, and then I perform regular scheduled backups to usb3 drives.

if you are set on raid 5 hardware, have a look at OWC.

 

[arniepix]

Wired, probably USB 3.0 if that's fast enough. Could easily buy a thunderbolt PCI-E card.

You will need an enclosure with the RAID controller built in. Areca, Promise, Sonnet & others make such things.

 

[wgtwo]

Exactly. My question is, do you have any recommendations for good, reliable enclosures?

 

[tired]

Synology

 

[wgtwo]

Doesn't Synology only make NAS? I only need this to be connected to a single computer.

 

[arniepix]

Areca, Promise & Sonnet are all good, reliable brands.

 

[wgtwo]

Thanks.

 

[egproductions]

I have a sansdigital tower-raid with a Raid 10 configuration connected via USB 3.0. No problems so far although eventually might want to upgrade the drives to SSD and the connection to thunderbolt or maybe usb 3.1 down the road.