Questions about RAID

Pepperami · 16 Feb 2009 at 12:35

Hiya guys

I have never used RAID before, Im about to build a System to replace my 5 yr old one, and I thought I would ask about RAID so someone could enlighten the noobie

I have ONE 1TB samsung F1 HD, and i know that to use RAID requires an additional HD as well...

Now, does the 2nd HD have to be the same as the first?

What exactly IS raid, how will my system benefit?

If I partition my drives like I have before so for instance I have a 200GB main system, and 600GB Games and MP3 partition, and the rest for backup mebbe, do I need to partition the second drive the same??? Or is it done automatically if I change the first?

Any help appreciated guys if you can spare 5 mins

Chris

domthecondom · 16 Feb 2009 at 12:49

Raid 1 clones harddrives and is generally used as backup,

Raid 0 makes the PC see 2 or more harddrives as one and increases performance.

but if one drive fails say good bye to your data.

Pepperami · 16 Feb 2009 at 12:52

so I havent missed much then lol

I use one drive usually, then make a backup of data once a week, after the initiial backup is made it just adjusts the original backup image to mirror what i've changed

Yes/no to have a raid system?

Do a lot of people use them on home systems you think?

Glaucus · 16 Feb 2009 at 13:03

raid is only good if you need it. A lot of us have raid 0 or 1 for faster game loading as the harddrive is pretty much the slowest component. But as said it does increase the risk of losing all your data with raid 0. but as an os drive with just programs on it's not a problem.

Pepperami · 16 Feb 2009 at 13:06

Well i will be installing some games on the HD, but I was going to partion the HD as said, so will BOTH HDs in a raid setup need to partitioned the same?

The sammy F1 drives are suppose to be fairly quick lol I hope so!

Glaucus · 16 Feb 2009 at 13:14

Pepperami said:
Well i will be installing some games on the HD, but I was going to partion the HD as said, so will BOTH HDs in a raid setup need to partitioned the same?

The sammy F1 drives are suppose to be fairly quick lol I hope so!

It depends on which raid you set up.
TBH doesn't sound like you need it..

Pepperami · 16 Feb 2009 at 13:17

Nope I dont think so, I will stick to what I know lol

EsaT · 16 Feb 2009 at 20:19

domthecondom said:
Raid 1 clones harddrives and is generally used as backup,

Raid 0 makes the PC see 2 or more harddrives as one and increases performance.

RAID1 (or any other) isn't backup but redundancy against failure of drive. (and gives some read performance increase)

Again strictly speaking RAID0 isn't even real RAID because of lack of redundancy and if that's not enough it even doubles the chance of loosing all data because of drive failure.

Rob456 · 17 Feb 2009 at 11:02

RAID 5 is RAID 0 with parity, but requires 3 or more disks... this has the security of reduncancy if one disk fails. Overkill for a desktop though. RAID1 mirror set is the way to go to ensure you don't lose anything, but it has its issues. If you change the RAID chipset (ie change motherboard / RAID controller technology), then the RAID can be lost. The data is maintained as you can still boot from one of the drives, but the RAID link itself is gone and can only be reinstated by formating the drives.... at least that is what happend to me LOL

I've stuck with a single drive in the PC now, and looking for a RAID1 NAS box of some description.

JonJ678 · 17 Feb 2009 at 12:51

Expanding somewhat. The most likely way you'll use is the onboard controller. This is something you access through the bios.
For partitioning, the raid is at a level below what the operating system can see. You don't partition one and then have to do the same to the other, you partition the single 1tb volume you can see in My Computer. You probably have to reinstall windows.
If you raid 0, then everything is quicker, and you get a 2tb volume to play with, so no hard drive capacity is lost.
As stated before, if a drive fails and you're on raid1, all you need to do is replace the broken one with a new 1tb drive and be patient with a slower than normal system as the array rebuilds itself. With raid 0, all the data is gone if a drive fails.

So raid0 is risky, and raid1 requires more hard drives than the storage capacity you get so is more expensive.

I have a 4 disk raid 5 in my desktop, whether that's overkill or not. This gives the capacity of three of the drives, and will keep working if one dies. But my operating system is not on this, its on a separate 30gb drive.

p.s. you probably don't want raid

Pepperami · 20 Feb 2009 at 16:37

JonJ678 said:
p.s. you probably don't want raid

LOL i think, just for the slightly longer amount of time it takes to boot, i'll stick to a single system

I dont mind waiting a bit for games to load, and its not like im a l33t gamer that will lose my reputation coz my HD is slowing me down, I game online just to enjoy and for the fun