Quoting Kulju:

Quote:

But did you notice that two of those 300GB ones were 15K and one 10K, you can't build RAID group from those.

I don't understand the speed difference either but a RAID controller worth its salt will allow you to build a RAID with the mismatching speeds but it'll run the 15k drives as if they were 10k drives.

The RAID10 vs RAID5 argument (for database drives) is really down to several factors
1) Read/Write ratio of the database access
2) Budget
3) Usable space required with limited quantity of disks

If your database is mainly used for reading from, then RAID5 makes more performance sense, as the striping is across [N-1] disks, whereas RAID10 is [N/2] (depending on reading algorithms, and whether they individually read from different members of the sub-RAID1 sets).
If your database is mainly used for writing, then RAID10 makes more performance sense, as the write-penalty for RAID10 is just [2 writes], whereas RAID5 is [2 reads+2 writes] due to parity calculations (assuming write size fits in one strip size).
However, the write-penalty for the RAID5 set can often be offset by having a large, decent write-back cache, so things really need checked in "real world performance".
And in general, the more spindles the better  although manufacturers normally have some recommended disk numbers for RAID sets that hit sweet spots in performance (EMC recommend 5 & 9 disk RAID5 sets in CLARiiONs, for example).

Budget is always a concern, because RAID10 sets require [2N] disks to achieve N useable space, whereas RAID5 is [N+1] for N usable space. Example: assuming 400GB disks and 2TB usable space required, then RAID5 needs 6 disks while RAID10 needs 10.

Usable space required when the quantity of disks is limited is another driver. There is only so much you can do with 6 disks in a server, for example, if that is all the server can take (due to available slots). RAID10 becomes very expensive in terms of disks, and not giving you as much usable size as a RAID5 option on the same disks.

Transaction Log drives are mainly pure writes, as transactions are recorded, so RAID10 is preferable (RAID1 if on a budget).

Anyway, with that all said, the mix of disks does sound odd, as there are not really enough matching disks to make anything very robust  For a hosted server, I would have thought that resilience was essential, so at least RAID1 with no JBODs.

Unless the hosting service offers some top-notch "continuous backup & restoration service" 

New server seems to work perfect - lolcat and loldog approved! 

Site still doesn't show up with SSL.

Has anybody else noticed that Forum Search now works? Blindingly fast at that!   

That's good, because I think the search used to freeze up the site.

SSL is still not functional.

Is this means of access going to be permanently revoked?