Ok so i read a rule of RAID is that you should use identical drives... yet it seems that not everyone follows this rule.
I just bought a 3ware amcc 9650se-12ml (12port) raid controller to build a RAID 6 array. The data im trying to protect is VERY important to me, ie ~3TB of university phd data, so i need to get this right (and YES i am still backing up !).
I already have 2*seagate barracuda 500GB 7200.10 drives, and 3*western digital 500GB wd5000ks drives. However, these drives are full of data. So no matter what i need to buy at least 4 new drives so i can build the raid 6 array.
How critical is it that drives are of identical type (bearing in mind how badly it would screw my life over if i lost this data). So if i need to keep the drives of identical type, then are the wd5000ks drives completely different from the wd5000aaks drives that OcUK are now selling? (ie is it a bit like 7200.10 and 7200.11 drives?). Or is it ok to mix wd5000ks and wd5000aaks drives? Is it a bad idea to mix the 7200.10 drives with the wd5000ks or wd5000aaks drives?
If i cannot mix the seagates and western digitals, or wd5000ks with wd5000aaks, then what 500GB drives are the best atm?
Thanks !
I just bought a 3ware amcc 9650se-12ml (12port) raid controller to build a RAID 6 array. The data im trying to protect is VERY important to me, ie ~3TB of university phd data, so i need to get this right (and YES i am still backing up !).
I already have 2*seagate barracuda 500GB 7200.10 drives, and 3*western digital 500GB wd5000ks drives. However, these drives are full of data. So no matter what i need to buy at least 4 new drives so i can build the raid 6 array.
How critical is it that drives are of identical type (bearing in mind how badly it would screw my life over if i lost this data). So if i need to keep the drives of identical type, then are the wd5000ks drives completely different from the wd5000aaks drives that OcUK are now selling? (ie is it a bit like 7200.10 and 7200.11 drives?). Or is it ok to mix wd5000ks and wd5000aaks drives? Is it a bad idea to mix the 7200.10 drives with the wd5000ks or wd5000aaks drives?
If i cannot mix the seagates and western digitals, or wd5000ks with wd5000aaks, then what 500GB drives are the best atm?
Thanks !