Only just realising the potential benefits of RAID...! Advice?

peanutismint · 28 Jul 2015 at 22:31

So all this time (since I heard it existed) I just thought having drives configured as a RAID array was just about redundancy, i.e. the same data is written to multiple drives so if one fails you have backups....

But only recently (to my embarrassment!) did I realise it could also be used to combine several drives into one large combined 'virtual' drive. This is something I've been thinking about for a while as, like a lot of people I'm sure, I have many drives of varying sizes....

I edit and store a lot of video content so I've always bought the largest drive I could afford and then expanded when I ran out of space... So now in my Windows machine I have a 120GB SSD, a 1TB and a 3TB drive. My content is really messily spread across all of these; in the (good!) old days I'd put my OS, programs and important data on my smallest drive, and then store all of my media content on a larger drive. Nowadays, I have my OS/programs etc on a 120GB SSD, and then games/media (like music and photos) on my 1TB drive, and then ALL of my video content on my 3TB drive, but the 1TB drive also has some rendered movies on it, and the 3TB has some larger music files like sample libraries etc... In addition to that I also have a 2TB external drive with system backup stuff... It's all very confusing!!

So with the upcoming Windows release meaning I might do a fresh install, I'm wondering whether I might make use of a RAID array to give me one system drive (probably still the SSD) and then everything else on one massive conglomerated device....?

Can anybody offer any advice on this? Is RAIDing your drives into one big drive a sensible thing to do? Or should I be more worried about hardware redundancy and just use one drive to back up the others? Or is there a good middle-ground somewhere in between?

jasonmorris · 29 Jul 2015 at 14:18

Raiding drives of different sizes will result in an array of the smallest disk size. So, a 1tb + 2tb RAID 0 array will end up as 1tb. Always try and use identical drives when raiding.

Steveocee · 29 Jul 2015 at 15:13

Right stick, not the wrong end but probably half way up.

RAID is not and I can't stress enough NOT a built in backup solution. If data is valuable you should always have a separate backup, never trust a spinning platter.

RAID works really well on similar disks, mixing a 1 and 3 would not be of much benefit, you'll either generate a 2tb waste of space or you'll raid 0 the, so it'll be a single slightly faster drive that a failure would devastate and lose all data from.

If it was me I'd forget raid and just tidy up your current file storage (and ensure you have a good backup or 2)

***my mistrust in spinning platters is as follows; media is stored on a 3tb in my rig, copies to a 4t. Raid 10 array in my media server (most Plex and home stuff is served from here), the raid array backs up to a 3tb wd red in the same server for a quick backup, the backup then backs up to a separate server at home on a Ubuntu based micro server with raid 5.
All my important media (photos of family etc) backup from my main server to a colo server monthly in case the house burns down. Overkill, certainly but at least my data will survive.

zola25 · 29 Jul 2015 at 15:16

Rather than RAID itself it looks like what you really want is JBOD (just a bunch of disks). Most raid controllers will allow you to do this, or you can use windows storage spaces on 8/8.1/10, but as described above it's not something I'd particularly recommend.

peanutismint · 29 Jul 2015 at 16:10

Thanks guys - so having read a bit more about it, it sounds like JBOD is really what I want, but also to back up all of my REALLY important stuff elsewhere...

Am I right in thinking that with JBOD if one drive fails I lose all data from every drive?? I haven't looked into Windows Storage Spaces but with 10 coming out that may be better for me (if all it does is combine several drives into one big 'virtual' drive??)

zola25 · 29 Jul 2015 at 16:40

Yes, if you loose one drive in a JBOD then everything in the volume is gone. It's possible drive recovery tools could recover some of the data from the remaining drives, but I'd by no means rely on that. I've only dabbled with storage spaces, but yes it's basically software RAID with a simple GUI interface. You can combine drives to create larger storage pools, and you can mirror drives similar to RAID1.

Edit: With both JBOD and storage spaces you'd likely need to format the drives before beginning, i.e. I don't believe you can just combine drives whilst keeping the current data intact.

CaptainCrash · 30 Jul 2015 at 20:17

peanutismint said:
Thanks guys - so having read a bit more about it, it sounds like JBOD is really what I want, but also to back up all of my REALLY important stuff elsewhere...

Check out StableBit DrivePool - it will combine any mixture of drives into a single large storage volume, and you'll still retain access to each one individually if it all goes pear-shaped (unlike RAID or MS Storage Spaces).

You also get optional file duplication across separate physical drives on a per-pool or per-folder basis, although obviously this still isn't as dependable as a proper backup stored in a different location from your primary data.