can I put 3 disks in RAID1 . . .
- Thread starter khushy
- Start date
No.
You can have two drives mirroring each other, or multiples thereof
If you want to use three drives for safety, why not go RAID 5, so one is lost to parity. You'd gain in space, reliability and speed
EDIT: The more I think about this the more I think it is possible but why would you want to? For example, with 3 500Gb drives, you would only have 500Gb usable space, with 2x500Gb lost to the mirror. Is your data really that sensitive that you need to keep 2 copies of it?
The other issue you would have is that at least two drives will be on the same controller. What happens if the controller is faulty, and you don't find out until you need to break the mirror for use.
If you want to use 3 disks, go RAID 5 for speed and reliability
If you want to use 2 disks, go RAID 0 for speed or RAID 1 for reliability
You can have two drives mirroring each other, or multiples thereof
If you want to use three drives for safety, why not go RAID 5, so one is lost to parity. You'd gain in space, reliability and speed
EDIT: The more I think about this the more I think it is possible but why would you want to? For example, with 3 500Gb drives, you would only have 500Gb usable space, with 2x500Gb lost to the mirror. Is your data really that sensitive that you need to keep 2 copies of it?
The other issue you would have is that at least two drives will be on the same controller. What happens if the controller is faulty, and you don't find out until you need to break the mirror for use.
If you want to use 3 disks, go RAID 5 for speed and reliability
If you want to use 2 disks, go RAID 0 for speed or RAID 1 for reliability
Last edited:
you can but you will be limited to the size of only 1 disk.so if you got 3 500GB in raid 1 you will only get 500GB.maybe you should try looking into RAID 5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks
Yes it's possible, very popular on Linux pure software RAID setups to make the boot partition RAID-1 across all drives, since then it doesn't matter what drive you boot from/which one has died/which one the BIOS wants to boot from, it'll always at least load the kernel.
You CAN do it no problem...
But its completely pointless and you'd be better off using RAID5.
That way you get twice the space, almost twice the speed, reliability would also be fully covered by RAID5 if any disk were to fail.
a 3 disk RAID1 setup is completely pointless for any consumer use. period...Except possibly for the paranoid, but that doesn't make it right
But its completely pointless and you'd be better off using RAID5.
That way you get twice the space, almost twice the speed, reliability would also be fully covered by RAID5 if any disk were to fail.
a 3 disk RAID1 setup is completely pointless for any consumer use. period...Except possibly for the paranoid, but that doesn't make it right
Associate
- Joined
- 2 Nov 2007
- Posts
- 488
The above is the truth!
There is no point in 3 disk RAID1, you are just wasting a drive.
There is no point in 3 disk RAID1, you are just wasting a drive.
RAID 5 would likely see a substantial speed reduction. If it were me I would look at a RAID 1 volume using two drives, and then a daily or weekly backup onto the third drive. This is the best way to ensure that your data remains safe. You have to remember that RAID 1 does not protect your data from corruption, virus damage or accidental deletion, regular backup does.
Mount the 3rd drive in a decent esata box too. When your not making a backup you can power the thing down. Unconnected, unpowered drives are well known for their (logical anyway, it still won't survive e.g a house fire) reliability.
RAID 5 should give you a performance increase over a single drive as you are reading data back from 3 disks.
However on the flip-side write performance should be lower.
As the "majority" of your HD work is reading then there is certainly nothing wrong with a RAID 5 array - they are used a lot in file servers where the majority of operation is reading.
However on the flip-side write performance should be lower.
As the "majority" of your HD work is reading then there is certainly nothing wrong with a RAID 5 array - they are used a lot in file servers where the majority of operation is reading.