I just upgraded my servers raid5 drives and figured I'd post my cost analysis. Put that way it almost sounds scientific…
Goals:
- increase my storage. Currently 500GB using raid5
- preferably only use 2 drives as it costs money to spin an extra drive
- not spend too much
I'd have preferred going with only 2 drives (raid1) but the cost per GB is just too high. Possible choices are in green, but I went with the blue one. All prices from the only computer store in Calgary, Memory Express.
| Brand | Size | Cost | $/GB | # Drives | Total GB | Raid Cost | $/GB Raid |
| Hitachi | 160 | 53 | 0.33 | ||||
| 500 | 214 | 0.43 | 3 | 1000 | 642 | 0.64 | |
| 750 | 185 | 0.25 | 2 | 750 | 370 | 0.49 | |
| 1000 | 260 | 0.26 | 2 | 1000 | 520 | 0.52 | |
| Seagate | 160 | 63 | 0.39 | ||||
| 250 | 70 | 0.28 | |||||
| 320 | 90 | 0.28 | |||||
| 400 | 120 | 0.3 | |||||
| 500 | 130 | 0.26 | 3 | 1000 | 390 | 0.39 | |
| 750 | 225 | 0.3 | 2 | 750 | 450 | 0.6 | |
| 1000 | 320 | 0.32 | 2 | 1000 | 640 | 0.64 | |
| 80 | 50 | 0.63 | |||||
| WD | 160 | 70 | 0.44 | ||||
| 200 | 90 | 0.45 | |||||
| 250 | 84 | 0.34 | |||||
| 320 | 150 | 0.47 | |||||
| 400 | 150 | 0.38 | |||||
| 500 | 100 | 0.2 | 3 | 1000 | 300 | 0.3 | |
| 500 RE | 160 | 0.32 | |||||
| 750 | 175 | 0.23 | 2 | 750 | 350 | 0.47 | |
| 750 | 175 | 0.23 | 3 | 1500 | 525 | 0.35 | |
| 80 | 55 | 0.69 |