I’m installing 3x2TB HDDs into my desktop pc. The drives are like-new.

Basically they will replace an ancient 2tb drive that is failing. The primary purpose will basically be data storage, media, torrents, and some games installed. Losing the drives to failure would not be catastrophic, just annoying.

So now I’m faced with how to set up these drives. I think I’d like to do a RAID to present the drives as one big volume. Here are my thoughts, and hopefully someone can help me make the right choice:

  • RAID0: Would have been fine with the risk with 2 drives, but 3 drives seems like it’s tempting fate. But it might be fine, anyhow.
  • RAID1: Lose half the capacity, but pretty braindead setup. Left wondering why pick this over RAID10?
  • RAID10: Lose half the capacity… left wondering why pick this over RAID1?
  • RAID5: Write hole problem in event of sudden shutoff, but I’m not running a data center that needs high reliability. I should probably buy a UPS to mitigate power outages, anyway. Would the parity calculation and all that stuff make this option slow?

I’ve also rejected considering things like ZFS or mdadm, because I don’t want to complicate my setup. Straight btrfs is straightforward.

I found this page where the person basically analyzed the performance of different RAID levels, but not with BTRFS. https://larryjordan.com/articles/real-world-speed-tests-for-different-hdd-raid-levels/ (PDF link with harder numbers in the post). So I’m not even sure if his analysis is at all helpful to me.

If anyone has thoughts on what RAID level is appropriate given my use-case, I’d love to hear it! Particularly if anyone knows about RAID1 vs RAID10 on btrfs.

  • ShimitarAEnglish
    31·
    5 hours ago

    Setup a raid5 with mdadm, format that with btrfs.

    Using btrfs for raid is not recomended by btrfs itself.

    But setting up a raid5 mdadm array is very simple and let you use btrfs.

    I agree that zfs is too much.

    Edit: with three drives, raid1 doesn’t make sense. Raid10 i never seen it in over 20y being used by anybody.

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
      4·
      4 hours ago

      with three drives, raid1 doesn’t make sense

      In raid1c2 mode btrfs will give 3TB of usable storage with 3x2TB. It always stores two copies on two drives. Not three.

      • ShimitarAEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        Cool! I didnt know that… You still waste 50% but you can use 3 disks, good to know

    • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      5 hours ago

      with three drives, raid1 doesn’t make sense

      It’s perfectly usable with a btrfs setup. If one drive fails, you can mount in a degraded state.

      • ShimitarAEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        If you mean using three disks as two by wasting 66% of space to keep a spare drive… I think it’s a waste on a home pc

        If you mean to use three disks to get 6tb/2=3tb of available space, then it’s something I only recently got aware of (see previous comment to my comment) so yes.