Is This 'Safe'?

hp7909 · 18 Apr 2006 at 12:59

Got 2 hard drives in a JBOD (Spanning) setup, Maxtor 160GB + Western Digital 80GB (the latter new). Created a 60GB partition on the 80GB for backups.

Just wondering if that was safe?

In old setup, 160GB SATA + 40GB PATA (IDE or whetva its called) I knew if the 160GB failed my XP & My Documents partitions would remain safely backed-up in the 40GB and I can recover them on any computer apart from mine. Does the new/above setup give me the same guarantee?

ajgoodfellow · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:04

AFAIK JBOD is like RAID 0 in that it doesn't offer any redundancy

If one of your hard drives in the array fails you will loose all of your data so it isn't safe for your data

hp7909 · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:08

In a nutshell, if the Maxtor 160GB fails it takes out the Western Digital 80GB + my Backup partition, despite it being on it?

Any other/better setup you could recommend?

ajgoodfellow · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:10

Yep if they're configured in a JBOD array

Just have them as seperate disks. JBOD doesn't offer any speed improvement - it's only useful if you have a lot of small disks and you want a large partition

If you have them as seperate disks then if one fails it cannot affect the other

hp7909 · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:21

cheers m8

had them like that in the first place but assumed this other setups better. will try & change it

StefanHolmes · 18 Apr 2006 at 16:00

I cobbled together 5 or 6 drives into a 300GB JBOD on a little server machine. Windows installed on an 8GB drive (not part of the array) and the rest are 40's and 60's and a 120.

It doesn't get switched on very often and there's nothing stored on there that I particularly need. It's just a dumping ground prior to burning to DVD-R. It used to be a 24x7 server and internet gateway until I changed ISP's and disposed of the need to NAT everything.