Everyone should buy Hard drives in pairs now.

Just make sure you backup any important data, as RAID'ing drives is expensive, and not worth if from a performance point of view unless you use something expensive like RAID-5!

I just make sure that anything crucial I have is also backed up on my NAS (and vice-versa from my NAS to my desktop), some of it is also backed up to DVD, and not had any problems. I mean these days exactly how much of that data isn't irreplaceable with some time downloading?
 
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It's a Maxtor

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inactionman said:
Just make sure you backup any important data, as RAID'ing drives is expensive, and not worth if from a performance point of view unless you use something expensive like RAID-5!

I just make sure that anything crucial I have is also backed up on my NAS (and vice-versa from my NAS to my desktop), some of it is also backed up to DVD, and not had any problems. I mean these days exactly how much of that data isn't irreplaceable with some time downloading?
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That is not strictly true.
If you are indeed willing to accept the loss of storage capacity from RAID 1 (so for example buying 2x 500GB drives and only having 500GB of storage) then RAID 1 will actually give you a slight read performance increase.
This is because it's possible to read the data from the two seperate disks so can make seeking quicker.
Write performance shouldn't be effected as the actual mirroring doesn't happen until after the data is written to the first disk - data isn't written to both disks at exactly the same time.

RAID 5 will give you a read performance increase, however because of the way parity is stored and has to be written there is a performance decrease to write speeds when using such a RAID configuration.
This is why RAID5 is almost exclusively used in servers where read performance (from the many network users) is a lot more important than write performance.

RAID 10 or RAID 0+1 will give you a performance increase too due to again the ability to read data back from multiple locations at the same time.
However the minimum 4 disk, loss of 2 capacity putsmost people off this configuration.
 
johnnyfive said:
Trust me I lost a 500gig MAXTOR and I've learned my lesson.

500gig and upwards you need a backup drive just incase. Raided mirrors all the way.
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If I had money I would RAID 1 (I think it's RAID 1 that's mirror?) - for now I just backup onto my external :)
 
True, but for home use RAID is generally overkill (although obviously not always). I'd prefer to have resiliency in different boxes which gives you flexibility (like my NAS which is also my Media Center/PVR, although it is setup with 4x300Gb disks in software RAID 5), than having redundant hardware in my desktop (taking up more space, drawing more power) in RAID.

RAID 5 makes more sense to me anyway (as you only lose one drive to parity), unless you need the speed of RAID 1+0 or RAID 0+1, and you only really see that in AV work.
 
what about matrix raid thats available on some intel boards? 2 hdds, make the OS, Apps and games partitions raid 0, and the data portion of the disk that needs to be safe, raid 1.

its cheap (only needs 2 hdd min), it provides performance where needed, and provides backup where needed too.
 
Ive gone through 3 Maxtor drives in the past few weeks.
Western Digital ones and Seagate ones have always lasted for me, dont think one has ever died on me while been in a computer of mine.
Whereas Maxtors take the mick, even my housemate is starting to have problems with hard drive, asked him what make it was, have a guess :\

Not slating them as im sure people would have good things to say about them, but with Maxtors it seems to be you get what you pay for, and i know for sure to get WD as they have 5year warranty and are very good at RMAs
 
If you don't back up your data it can't have any value to you. The cost of HDDs is so low now that RAID1 is a no-brainer IMHO, providing your hardware supports it. I used to backup to DAT but that's just not practical with modern drive capacities.

Jonathan
 
Best idea IMHO is say 500gb in PC and then a second in a usb drive that way you just copy the data weekly/monthly and then shove it around a friends/parents house that way if you have a power surge, flood or fire your safe..

I have a back up HDD in my works locker!!
 
It's true that sometimes RAID is handy at home, but exactly how much of the data is irreplacable if lost? Knowing people, most of the data on home machines is audio/video/pr0n/game installation files/ISO images/etc. all of which could be eventually replaced by downloading/installing them again. In those circumstances RAID is silly, as you could probably fit the really irreplacable stuff on a USB flash disk, which is much cheaper and more reliable than a hard disk (due to there being no moving parts), and do a backup of the basic system to a DVD. So that if it goes wrong, then you just restore what you need, and do some downloading to get the rest. If it's really important to you it should be backed up to a DVD or something, like my MP3 collection is. I'd hate to have to re-rip all those CD's again! From a cost/benefit point of view, it just makes no sense to use RAID in these circumstances, unless you just want to muck around with it (which is fair enough).

However if you are dealing with large amounts of data which really is irreplacable, then RAID makes sense (although obviously not RAID 0, or AID 0 really, as MTBF is halved. The number of people that do this for a small performance increase, ask for help when a drive fails, and then cry when they find out the data is lost scares me).

If you are using RAID 1 then you should have 3 disks not 2 (1 spare for easy replacement if one fails, as you are more likely to have another disk fail in a RAID array if one already has, and if that is your only backup strategy you are SOL) and you should source them at different times, preferably from different resellers, in case they are all from one faulty batch and fail at, or around, the same time. This is all common practice in larger corporate installations, but is normally overkill for home use.
 
I don't think my life would be over if I lost everything.
Would be somewhat annoyed if I lost the last five years worth of digi camera footage but ho hum..

The attic PC has all my valuable stuff on, spread about over four non raid IDE discs, always on.

However the desktop pc under my feet is a different matter.
Two raptors in RAID0 and *** the consequences of game save data loss. :D
 
Just to put in a good word for Maxtors... I have one which has survived three different rigs and has been going for at least five years. It's a bit noisier than it used to be, but other than that it's perfectly fine. I doubt Maxtor HDs are any less reliable than other makes in general... if a much higher percentage of them were dodgy, Maxtor would go out of business.

Conducting regular backups, however, is very good advice - whichever make of drive you have. You may never have had a Samsung/Seagate/whatever make of drive fail, but one day it might just happen. All makes of HD sometimes fail, it's in the nature of a precision device with (very quickly) moving parts.
 
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Why don't any of the manufacturers do a two in one drive.

I.e. two distinct sets of platters and heads in the same drive casing together with hardware to handle RAID0 or RAID1. Sort of like the HD equivalent of a 7950GX2... :D
 
Mattus said:
Just to put in a good word for Maxtors... I have one which has survived three different rigs and has been going for at least five years.
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The older maxtors were fine, Ive been using one for 6 years constantly now (I bought the biggest size available at the time) and its as good as it ever was. Apparently quality has dropped recently along with a reduction in their warranty
 
silversurfer said:
The older maxtors were fine, Ive been using one for 6 years constantly now (I bought the biggest size available at the time) and its as good as it ever was. Apparently quality has dropped recently along with a reduction in their warranty
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incorrect, Seagate bought Maxtor and is continuing the Diamondmax etc lineup as budget drives and extended the 1yr warranty to 3.
 
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