Does RAID make drives MORE likely to fail?

StarSolitude · 3 Oct 2009 at 23:24

I'm interested in setting up 2x 500GB HDD's in RAID-0, and I was just wondering if creating a RAID-0 makes drives any more likely to fail? That would be disastrous with a RAID-0 setup...

Jokester · 3 Oct 2009 at 23:28

No, it doesn't make individual drives more likely to fail, but it does double the likelyhood that the "drive" as a whole will die at any given time.

killari · 3 Oct 2009 at 23:28

I doubt it, however there is a larger probability of the array failing compared to if you just had a single drive.

StarSolitude · 3 Oct 2009 at 23:29

Alright. I'll just have to get some quality hard-drives.

Makhaira · 3 Oct 2009 at 23:31

Bottom line - unless you really need a 1Tb Raid-0 array, then get 2 smaller drives for the array, and slap in a big storage drive separately.

StarSolitude · 3 Oct 2009 at 23:51

Makhaira said:
Bottom line - unless you really need a 1Tb Raid-0 array, then get 2 smaller drives for the array, and slap in a big storage drive separately.

So I'd just install the OS and games and applications on the smaller RAID-0, and use the other HDD for music and video etc?

Hmm, could be better actually.

Edit: works out more expensive though. £93 for 160GB RAID-0 (2 drives) and a 500GB Storage drive. £76 for 1TB RAID-0. Tbh, I think I'll just go for the 1TB option.

wesley · 4 Oct 2009 at 00:40

one of the hard drive in my old RAID 0 failed few years back, lost everything

you want speedy C drive? get SDD which i did

jbloggs · 4 Oct 2009 at 03:11

You will only really see a real worthwhile performance increase in using RAID0 over a single HDD when you are working with large files (ie., copying/moving DVD Video files etc), or when you unzip large files on a regular basis; so if you do neither of those just stick with a single HDD (or SSD) for OS...

Paul11 · 4 Oct 2009 at 09:35

another vote for getting an SSD drive instead

much quicker access times makes windows much zippier..

mdjmcnally · 4 Oct 2009 at 11:41

This is the compromise I use

C: OS
D: Apps/Games
E: CD/DVD Images / data

All on physically separate disks.

As others have said RAIDing a drive doesn't increase the chance of a single drive failure, however a drive failure will lead to loss of what is on the RAID.

Biffa · 5 Oct 2009 at 11:29

RAID 0 is realy AID0 as it doesn't have the most important part of RAID (R stands for Redundant) and as its just a stripe it doesn't have any redundancy, so you lose one disk you lose all the data. Use it for data that isn't important to you, or that you back up on a regular basis.