graid3 or graid5? with or without gjournal?

[DA Forsyth]

Hi all

I am busy putting together a new server.  I want to avoid using the 
motherboards raid 'hardware' (intel matrix raid) and rather do it all 
in software so if anything goes wrong with the motherboard, the 
drives can work in some other box.

I have 4x 1TB drives available for the main data array.
graid3 can only use 3
graid5 can use all 4, but is it production ready?
any ideas?

The advantage of using graid3 at this point is that the extra 1TB 
drive I have can then go into the backup server which needs more 
space anyway.

Having suffered data loss on the previous raid5 (intel matrix) array 
when UFS went bananas due to one drive failing, I am looking at 
solutions/preventatives.   Will gjournal be useful?

Thanks


--
       DA Fo rsyth            Network Supervisor
Principal Technical Officer -- Institute for Water Research
http://www.ru.ac.za/institutes/iwr/