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11/17/2013 06:26:30 PM · #1 |
The more I read about this stuff, the more confused I get. I'd be happy to hear from anyone with experience configuring multiple hard drives for RAID.
Here's what I have:
Drive 1: 500GB hard drive - This is what I'm currently using. It has my OS and all my data. It's three or four years old.
Drive 2: 1TB hard drive - Purchased by my son about a year ago, and used in his own PC for about six months. He's upgraded, and now it's mine. The drive is clean.
And here's what I plan to purchase:
Drive 3: 1TB or 2TB hard drive
I want to take advantage of the redundancy (in the event of file corruption or a drive failure) and realize some performance gains at the same time, if possible. But redundancy first. The board I have supports RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10. I'm running Windows 7.
Suggestions?
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11/17/2013 06:29:01 PM · #2 |
RAID 1 - get a second 1TB drive and mirror them as your data drives, while using the the 500GB for your OS and programs.
You'll end up with 1TB of redundant data.
Stay away from RAID 0. It offers no redundancy.
Message edited by author 2013-11-17 18:30:57. |
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11/17/2013 08:18:33 PM · #3 |
| Good idea. I didn't realize that was an option (mirroring just the data). |
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11/17/2013 09:24:31 PM · #4 |
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11/17/2013 09:55:59 PM · #5 |
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11/17/2013 09:58:03 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by bvy:
Huh? |
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11/17/2013 10:14:08 PM · #7 |
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11/17/2013 10:29:28 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by LN13:
RAID 1 - get a second 1TB drive and mirror them as your data drives, while using the the 500GB for your OS and programs.
You'll end up with 1TB of redundant data.
Stay away from RAID 0. It offers no redundancy. |
I second that
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11/17/2013 10:49:15 PM · #9 |
Brian, I've only a little experience several years ago on a PC I assembled myself with an ASUS motherboard and nVidia RAID controller; so here goes. Raid 1 is two drives mirrored for redundancy. RAID 0 is striped for speed, that is, data is split between the two drives. I can't remember the other RAID configurations.
Take your pick according to your priority. I have two raid 1 drives for the OS and applications, i.e. the C: drive is raid 1. I have another two drives on raid 0 for data speed of saves and retrieval. But for safety, I always use an extermal USB drive for data backup since my C: drive crashed several years ago when I lost two years of photos before I built the computer with RAID.
Due to the nature of RAID, all drives have to be the same capacity. Probably better to be the same access speed as well.
Frankly, I didn't notice the benefits of RAID and now that older 8 yr old homebuilt PC tells me the RAID array is corrupted although it still works the rare times I use it.
After all that is said, my latest PC (DELL) has only one hard drive and two external USB drives for backup. In my opinion, more important than RAID is the processor, a generous amount of RAM and backup drives. A backup PC helps too, which you will have as the fallout of growing old and upgrading from time to time.
RAID was developed for industrial applications. Multiple drives (usually eight I think) were arrayed with a ninth drive for parity. Data was striped equally across the other drives. If any of the other eight drives failed, It could be hot swapped and rebuilt from the parity drive. If the parity drive failed, it could be rebuilt from the other drives.
Message edited by author 2013-11-17 23:08:44. |
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11/17/2013 11:17:32 PM · #10 |
| PS. I just read that RAID 10 is a a combination of RAID 0 and 1: mirrored and striped so requires four drives. |
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11/18/2013 01:55:29 AM · #11 |
| For several years I have used a software package called Mirror folder to back up my data. It let's you designate individual folders on any drive as a source and mirror those folders on any other drive. The drives can be different sizes. With internal drives (IDE, SATA, etc) you can choose to mirror in real time. I did that for years and never saw a speed issue. With my current configuration I am using 2 external USB drives. I found that the access speed is too slow on these for real time mirroring. Instead I now have the mirroring set in the program to occur every 10 minutes. This solution is very flexible and doesn't require that I mirror entire drives, just important data. Works for me. |
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11/18/2013 03:32:48 AM · #12 |
Originally posted by tvsometime:
I have another two drives on raid 0 for data speed of saves and retrieval. |
One should be aware, though, that with RAID 0, if one drive fails, the data on the whole raid (both disks) is lost. So your data are actually less safe.
Originally posted by tvsometime:
But for safety, I always use an extermal USB drive for data backup |
One should do that in any event. RAID 1 protects against one drive failing, but not against accidental deletes.
Originally posted by tvsometime:
Due to the nature of RAID, all drives have to be the same capacity. Probably better to be the same access speed as well. |
Ideal, but not absolutely necessary. If you combine a 1TB and a 2TB disk to a RAID 1, you have only 1TB - the rest of the bigger disk is not used for the RAID.
Originally posted by tvsometime:
Frankly, I didn't notice the benefits of RAID and now that older 8 yr old homebuilt PC tells me the RAID array is corrupted although it still works the rare times I use it. |
I would suspect that one disk failed, but the data is still available because the other one is still working. That actually is the purpose of the RAID, but you would have to replace the failed disk and rebuild the RAID to have the redundancy again.
Originally posted by tvsometime:
RAID was developed for industrial applications. Multiple drives (usually eight I think) were arrayed with a ninth drive for parity. Data was striped equally across the other drives. If any of the other eight drives failed, It could be hot swapped and rebuilt from the parity drive. If the parity drive failed, it could be rebuilt from the other drives. |
That is a RAID5, the minimum for that is 3 disks. One disk may fail and you still have your data, if 2 disks fail all data is lost.
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11/19/2013 08:29:09 PM · #13 |
| Make sure your computer has a raid controller or the idea is DOA. |
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11/19/2013 09:09:43 PM · #14 |
| I use Black Flag. Much better redundancy, positive duplication negation, negative replication control, population consistency of over 99.99%. Can't beat that. Even controls pests of some sort or another. |
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11/19/2013 09:50:27 PM · #15 |
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11/19/2013 10:02:52 PM · #16 |
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11/19/2013 10:03:50 PM · #17 |
| I apologize...I couldn't resist. |
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11/20/2013 10:42:05 AM · #18 |
Thanks (most) everyone. I think I'd like RAID 5, but the board I have supports RAID 1 at best. So in addition to a new drive, I'd be looking at a new controller or board.
Can anyone speak to how significant the performance gains are with RAID 5? |
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11/20/2013 12:11:32 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by bvy:
Can anyone speak to how significant the performance gains are with RAID 5? |
I'm sure there are others that have a lot more experience than I do, but I don't think I'm misstating facts to say that:
- A separate controller is a good idea. Hardware-based controllers will be superior in performance to software-based controllers.
- With a good controller, the performance gains from RAID 5 will be significant, but will not approach the theoretical gains possible due to overhead.
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