Question about RAID setup

[zenmastar]

I would look at one SSD for the boot and OS drive, and two 2TB drives (no RAID), one for software that does not need to be on the SSD (most) and documents/data. Use the other 2TB for automated backups like Time Machine.

Then get a RAID1 NAS on the network.

[mecam]

Are those consumer grade drives?

If so Raid 5 is safer choice.

Raid 0 is like looking down the barrel of gun and pulling the trigger to see if it is loaded.

I have a RAID 0 2TB for scratch disk for video editing. Total waste of disk space cause I don't use it for storage and never exceeded 5GB of data on it ever. I always move the data to a single drive cause it is like looking down the barrel of a gun. I might switch them out to two 500GB of HDs and use these 1TB drives for storage.

-

[Invicta]

Buy 1 smallish SSD for the OS/apps and then a 2TB drive for your data. Use BackBlaze for unlimited online backup and voila - speed, storage and backup.

[mindwip]

Simple, buy two huge external drives, back up all your data onto each one, ship one out of your house. Use the other to back up weekly/nightly your choice, rotate as you see fit. Even better is somthing like dropbox or any of the other "cloud" online backups. Solves your offsite backup issue nicely. I have a website/server i pay for for personal use. It has FTP access that i have a backup of all my really important docs.


Raid is not a backup. I repeat raid is not a back up. To make it clear raid is not a backup solution. A/Any/All HDs that are in your current tower are not backups. They are information waiting to be stolen, crashed, deleted, water spilled, power spike, etc.

But, in my experience, it seems even identical drives have random lifespans. I would guess the chance of two or more failing at essentially the same time would be pretty low.

Raids can get errors with in them self's, so even if a hd fails and you replace,you will still have the error. Also something most people never think about what happens when a raid HD fails, you have to pop in a new hd right? Its going to take hours to transfer the data well guess what this puts a strain on your other HDs. So how many do you think buy all there raid HDs at the same time. You already had one old HD fail, another would could fail easily, there the same age, stressed the same etc. And yes i have had this happen at work. So we just ordered back our off site backup, ran a restore problem solved. This has happened to many IT techs i know. Yes it does not happen often, but it only takes once.

I never recommend Raids for home under most cases. The exception is raid 1, but again dont treat raid 1 as a back up its NOT. You still need to back up your data, off site is better.

Not heard much about 9-11 but many of those companys from the WTC only had back ups stored onsite. There is millions of dollars that companys cant account for simply because they did not back up offsite. This is a huge issue and cant be stressed enough for individuals or companys. Some companys have a complete duplitcate of there servers in other states or countrys. A lot of CA companys including banks have live backups in NV. Why incase CA falls into the ocean. Really they do. There is a huge backup center there, there is also one in the middle of Australia, in fact i forget but there was a world wide view of a virus outbreak i saw on line with different color for how bad it was. The middle of Australia had this huge colored out circle in the middle of nowhere. lol


PS i still think raid 1 is bad, not the raid its self but people say hay i dont need to backup i already have one and dont. This does not reflect on the raid just people.

[jmlivingston]

No, not in the sense that OP was asking. RAID 5 would be 3 (or more, n) drives of same size, with data written across the first 2 (or n-1) and the parity bit on the last drive.

You're describing RAID4. With RAID5 the data is spread across all active drives, as is the parity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID5#RAID_5

[balzak]

Why 640GB? How much did you pay? I just purchased two 2TB Hitachi for $80 each.

RAID5 uses 3+ drives of the same size. Adding a 3rd 1.5TB will only use 640GB.

Your idea of a backup drive for the important data is not going to work. You will end up with 1 copy on your 1.5TB backup drive. That's when it will fail! Happened to me...

Funny you mention that. I got the 640's because it seemed like a good deal. But, I've changed my mind and now I'm sending them back and snagging up two 2TB drives as well. Price difference isn't huge considering the difference in capacity. I also figure that with just two drives in RAID 1 I would be ahead of where I would have been with three 640's in RAID 5. Safer, more space, less power/heat.

Even if RAID 5 was faster, I don't feel like squeezing every bit of speed should be a priority considering there is a really good chance I will finally buckle and pick up an SSD sometime this year.

[ironcross]

Like others have said. RAID performance with today's HDD's are little to nothing better. Given the fact I have not learned up on RAID technology. But when the transition from IDE to SATA first came out it would of been a big boost (Even using SATA over IDE was a big boost ).

If you're only worried about backing up. I'd say use a HDD for primary and have one for back up. Two separate logical drives. Or get yourself an external drive. IMO: RAIDs are more for server applications where HDD access is in high priority.

With a backup drive just make roots of folders

IE:
-Reformat
--Applications
---Adobe, Browsers, ETC
--Games
--Folders
---My Docs, Etc
--Setup
---Antivirus, MOBO Apps, ETC

Like I said, I haven't been up and up with all the new fancy computer stuff. I'm still using an old PC that has AGP . As I don't play games on the PC anymore.

YMMV

[NytWolf]

The 3 HDD configuration would be RAID5 I believe.

No, not in the sense that OP was asking. RAID 5 would be 3 (or more, n) drives of same size, with data written across the first 2 (or n-1) and the parity bit on the last drive.

What about a 3 HDD configuration? I was thinking about snagging up a third 1.5TB HDD and using it as a mirror (for the 2x 640GB HDDs in RAID0). I don't know if you can do this using RAID (anyone?).

Won't happen. Your mirror has to be identical to your source. Meaning, you can get 2 more 640GB HDDs to mirror your original 640GB HDDs. But I don't know if you can mirror RAID 0 setups. You can however, mirror two RAID 5 configurations. That would be a RAID 10 (not "ten", but "one-zero")

But, I figured if nothing else I could just get a backup utility that automatically makes a backup every night, ...

Any notable shortcomings with the 3rd HDD nightly backup method?

That is possible, with a 3rd HDD to be used as a backup-only disc. Just keep in mind, you will be backing up only the data and not the parity bits. But wouldn't that scenario defeat the purpose of RAID?

[mike452]

Why 640GB? How much did you pay? I just purchased two 2TB Hitachi for $80 each.

RAID5 uses 3+ drives of the same size. Adding a 3rd 1.5TB will only use 640GB.

Your idea of a backup drive for the important data is not going to work. You will end up with 1 copy on your 1.5TB backup drive. That's when it will fail! Happened to me...

[balzak]

Yes, physically it is a hardware connect (even with a bios to look real...LoL), but it is software controlled.
Nothing RAID onboard is real hardware (real hardware->(chip/CPU/memory) would cost about ~200 for a cheap one to get decent RAID5 performance).
Software @ RAID5...really not that great.
I might be wrong with these faster CPU's and memory these days, but they still do make dedicated controller cards for servers for a reason

Oh, yes SSD is the way to go if you want real fast boot/app opening

Yeah, SSD is awesome. But, the prices for that technology will probably need to drop around 50% before I hand over the cash.

[MA2]

The mobo I will be using supports RAID 5. I wouldn't consider using a software RAID setup.

Yes, physically it is a hardware connect (even with a bios to look real...LoL), but it is software controlled.
Nothing RAID onboard is real hardware (real hardware->(chip/CPU/memory) would cost about ~200 for a cheap one to get decent RAID5 performance).
Software @ RAID5...really not that great.
I might be wrong with these faster CPU's and memory these days, but they still do make dedicated controller cards for servers for a reason

Oh, yes SSD is the way to go if you want real fast boot/app opening

[meaty-btz]

Because you have twice the chances of a failure, right?

not just failure chance... its that its unrecoverable in the case of any failure. My jest was more to point out that it is considered suicidal to run 0.

[KaHuNaZ]

what kind of drives did you get?

[balzak]

RAID-0 on new/modern hard drives will yield not much difference for normal usage.
Just test it out for about a couple of weeks if RAID-0 is worth it for you.
Power consumption, (windows?) just use the power features to power down the hard drives, or hibernate the pc.

(only 3-drives;RAID-5 on a software controller; not sure if there is even much performance gains)

The mobo I will be using supports RAID 5. I wouldn't consider using a software RAID setup.

After reading about RAID 5, it sounds like a good option. Three HDDs would provide the same amount of space as two HDDs in RAID 0, but with the redundancy advantage.

It seems the biggest drawback of RAID 5 is the "rebuild" time when one fails. From what I've read, it could be 5-10 hours for the size of drives I plan to use. If another of the three drives fails during that window you're screwed. But, in my experience, it seems even identical drives have random lifespans. I would guess the chance of two or more failing at essentially the same time would be pretty low.

[NorCal Einstein]

You MUST try SSDs. They are just absolutely amazing. I replaced most of my computers with SSDs, but I made the mistake of buying them all at around the same point in time. With the prices coming down and storage space coming up....that was a decision I'm kicking myself over.