Recommended storage scheme for home server? (LVM/JBOD/RAID 5...)

Posted by j-g-faustus on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by j-g-faustus
Published on 2010-12-26T12:10:21Z Indexed on 2011/01/02 10:59 UTC
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Are there any guidelines for which storage scheme(s) makes most sense for a multiple-disk home server?

I am assuming a separate boot/OS disk (so bootability is not a concern, this is for data storage only) and 4-6 storage disks of 1-2 TB each, for a total storage capacity in the range 4-12 TB.

The file system is ext4, I expect there will be only one big partition spanning all disks.

As far as I can tell, the alternatives are

individual disks

  • pros: works with any combination of disk sizes; losing a disk loses only the data on that disk; no need for volume management.
  • cons: data management is clumsy when logical units (like a "movies" folder) are larger than the capacity of any single drive.

JBOD span

  • pros: can merge disks of any size.
  • cons: losing a disk loses all data on all disks

LVM

  • pros: can merge disks of any size; relatively simple to add and remove disks.
  • cons: losing a disk loses all data on all disks

RAID 0

  • pros: speed
  • cons: losing one drive loses all data; disks must be same size

RAID 5

  • pros: data survives losing one disk
  • cons: gives up one disk worth of capacity; disks must be same size

RAID 6

  • pros: data survives losing two disks
  • cons: gives up two disks worth of capacity; disks must be same size

I'm primarily considering either LVM or JBOD span simply because it will let me reuse older, smaller-capacity disks when I upgrade the system. The runner-up is RAID 0 for speed.

I'm planning on having full backups to a separate system, so I expect the extra redundancy from RAID levels 5 or 6 won't be important.

Is this a fair representation of the alternatives? Are there other considerations or alternatives I have missed? And what would you recommend?

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