Best RAID layout for OLTP Oracle DBs

[a128]

I have six 36GB drives under _ONE_ RAID controller and am trying to decide which setup is best for my two OLTP oracle DBs. I've been reading discussions in this forum and think one of the two wouuld be the best. The main goal is to minimize downtime while maximize performance.

Consideration 1: all 6 drives form a RAID 10. That is, drive 1 & 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6 are mirrored between each pair and then stripe over the 3 arrays. Of course, OS(Win2k), Oracle binary, and everything are on the RAID 10.

Consideration 2: drive 1 & 2 are mirrored and drive 3 to 6 form a RAID 10. In this case, I will put OS, Oracle binary, redo and archived logs on drive 1 & 2 and datafiles on the RAID 10.

I know performance reduces with redo & archived logs on a striped set but am not sure how significant it is.

Any advices are welcome. And thank you for your input.

[pando]

if you only have 6 disks and you want to set up RAID 0+1 then you would have like 3 disks only...

[a128]

I know it's not efficient in terms of space utilization but the goal here is availability(top priority) and performance so I am not sure what else I can do.

[marist89]

With only six drives and one controller, I'd probably go with three mirrored pairs. It will give you the ability to balance your I/O a little better.

[ggnanaraj]

IMHO, I would go for this...

Originally posted by a128
Consideration 2: drive 1 & 2 are mirrored and drive 3 to 6 form a RAID 10. In this case, I will put OS, Oracle binary, redo and archived logs on drive 1 & 2 and datafiles on the RAID 10.