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Re: [LUG] OT:To Raid or Not Raid (That is the Question)

 

Dave wrote:
> Hi,
>  
> Just wanted to garner people's opinion on whether or not to use RAID for 
> my Media Server.
>  
> Basically I am not interested in Data Redundancy, Hot-Swapping etc - If 
> the machine goes down then I will restore from a regular backup and if 
> that takes a couple of days then so be it.
>  
> What I am interested in though is fast I/O Throughput for Reading Data 
> because I want my Media Streaming (Music, Video etc) to be as fast as 
> possible and I am not sure whether it would be better to remain with a 
> normal Drive (probably SATA?) or to use RAID.
>  
> My thinking behind this is that with certain modes of RAID you can have 
> the Data Striped across different disks and was wondering whether that 
> would offer any advantage during reading of data - Note either RAID or 
> not I'm not too bothered about Write Speed since most of the stuff will 
> be encoded once and simply stored (except obviously for TV Recording).
>  
> Thanks in advance for your views.
>  
> Regards,
> Dave.
> 

I'd be surprised if it made much difference TBH for media streaming.  I 
stream HD content (720p) from my PC which has a standard SATA disk in 
there (Seagate 750GB SATA300) and it works fine.  MP3's and Standard 
Definition video stream fine on a 10Mbit wired or 54Mbit wireless 
connection.

I would have thought it would only really make any real difference if 
you're streaming multiple streams (say 3 or 4 HD streams) at once.

Rob

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