Redundant data disk setup for new computer - motherboard RAID / Storage Spaces / something else

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timmmay

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#279879 14-Nov-2020 16:26

I'm moving to a new computer soon, and considering changing my current data drive setup which is two 4TB HGST disks formatted ReFS with a storage spaces mirror. It works fine, but defragmenting takes about 7 days to run, and new ReFS volumes aren't supported on Windows 10 pro and there's probably a reason for that. I like ReFS because of the built in integrity checking / error correction (though it keeps the disks busy at times which can be loud with spinning disks), and I figured storage spaces being Microsoft would work if I had to move the disks to another machine. I run RAID 1 (mirroring) to increase uptime if a disk fails. I have a fairly good backup system as well.

I'm considering a couple of main options, but open to other suggestions:

Keep my existing ReFS storage spaces mirror
2x NTFS with storage spaces mirror
1x NTFS with a nightly mirror to the second drive
Another software solution that does RAID type mirroring like DriveBender
Gigabyte motherboard hardware RAID mirroring - this apparently uses the CPU and an OS driver, so not that keen on it

Does anyone have any experience to share about what might be best?

Dynamic

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#2604030 15-Nov-2020 12:17

I like simple solutions that you can see working, but are not intrusive.

How about a startup script or a scheduled task that does a robocopy from Drive1 to Drive1, but does it visibly so you can see it has happened or see errors?

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timmmay

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#2604032 15-Nov-2020 12:32

I already have daily incremental backups to a third internal disc. The redundant discs are for uptime and ideally error and integrity checking.

richms

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#2604045 15-Nov-2020 13:38

refs is just not supported because they want you to spend more on a workstation windows version.

I have issues with storage spaces that have happened twice now. One volume on the space will just start to constantly corrupt, chkdsk will move random files into a found.nnn folder in the root of the drive. All other volumes are fine on the same spaces. I can make a new volume and move things from the one that is perpetually corrupting into the new volume (all on the same drives so really slow to do so) and that volume will be fine. Even with the old one empty other than a lot of found.nnn folders that I cannot delete without taking ownership of, it will still have regular demands to check it for errors on the next reboot. Thats why I am going away from just making giant 64tb volumes one for each media type and going to many many smaller volumes. These are all NTFS, and I made them 64tb because if you make it smaller then you cant enlarge it past whatever the max for the sector size is, and 64tb is the largest you can make.

Richard rich.ms

timmmay

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#2604258 15-Nov-2020 17:10

Interesting, Rich. I just ran chkdsk on my mirror but apparently ReFS doesn't need to be checked. I've had zero problems with it, never seen any warnings or errors despite checking the windows system logs occasionally, the only reason I'm considering changing is because defragmentation is slow. I don't even know if defragmentation of two ReFS volumes in a storage spaces mirror is something that should be done.

richms

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#2604274 15-Nov-2020 18:21

I dont think that the volumes are allocated in order on disc when going thru the storage space so I do not think that it would do anything. For media storage defragging is IMO pointless as its not seeking massivly between files or pulling stuff off at a great speed. May help to have free space defragmented to fill it up faster but with storage spaces trash parity write speeds I dont think so.

I wonder if I can get a refs partition image and re-write over an NTFS one inorder to set one up?

Richard rich.ms

timmmay

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#2604372 15-Nov-2020 20:00

My ReFS mirror isn't media storage, it's all my non-media data - personal photos, documents, videos, software purchased, everything except media and a bit of stuff on SSD for speed. Windows Defrag doesn't do anything, takes about 10 mins, so I use defraggler which is fine for NTFS. Could be that ReFS doesn't need defragmenting, but Microsoft doesn't release any information. Defragglertakes about 4 hours to do the "analyse" phase of defrag to work out what needs to be defragmented, then the actual defrag if I let it do it takes 3 - 7 days. The disk isn't all that busy during defrag, 5 - 10MB/sec.

Rich, sounds like you'd just keep things as they are then, ReFS with a storage spaces mirror?

timmmay

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#2605669 17-Nov-2020 20:43

Any other thoughts? What's the best option for reliable data storage for a home system?