Larger Disk or JBOD Raid?

SpellowHouse

SpellowHouse

SpellowHouse

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I have two media PC's. One also serves as a network backup for the other media PC and my main PC.
One media PC has an 8TB hdd in it and the other has a 12TB. The second drive must be at least 2TB larger than the first.
Unfortunately, the 8TB is filling up and I need to replace the drive. 10TB should do me for some years.
There are two options -

1. Buy a 10TB drive to replace the 8TB drive. This will give me 10TB in one media PC and 12 in the other which meets my needs for some years. Probably the life of the drives. The 8TB drive gets put in a draw for who knows what.
2. Buy a RAID card and a 6TB. Use JBOD to add to the 8TB drive to make 14TB in one media PC and 12 in the other. Arguably this is too much space but I suppose at least seems more worthwhile for the money.

Option 2 costs the same as option 1, which is a few hundred quid.

Which would you buy?
 
Any specific reason for hardware raid rather than just software pooling them? Might change your mind in terms of costs, but presuming each are equal they seem to have pros and cons to me:

Jbod 14tb

Cons
- additional complexity and faff
- additional power/sound/heat
- when you expand again you'll need to jbod again or your card cost is sunk (unless you just software it)
- increased risk of loss of all data as you now have 3 single points of failure (card, disk 1, disk 2), one of which (8tb disk) is used so much higher risk

Pros
- if the drives last, they won't need replacing as soon due to being a higher total size vs 10tb


Single 10tb disk

Cons
- have to replace it earlier due to less total size vs 14tb

Pros
- same complexity as current
- same power/sound/heat as current
- same risk level due to only one failure point, of which none are used
- no sunk card cost if change from jbod setup later (unless you just software it)

Might be missing something but that's my 2p. If you're not fussed about any of the cons of the multi disk solution then it's a case of just estimating solution cost over its life.
 
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Thank you for the reply.
It seems that the JBOD is way to go.

Wait....
Can Windows 11 do JBOD?
I am watching a video that seems to think it can. That it can create a single volume that spans two drives.
If that's the case then the solution is a done deal. It means I don't need the RAID controller so expanding the 8TB to 14TB would only be £150.
 
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Yes it can. I had no idea. I thought RAID solutions were BIOS level but apparently not. As long as it's not boot drives then Windows can create JBOD type or Striped volumes over multiple drives.
Good enough for me! It's a cheap option and allows me a huge increase for only £150 for a new 6TB drive.
I am not bothered by failure. The systems act as backups for each other, so if one fails the other is a backup.
 
Yep easy enough, just convert to dynamic disk and boomshanka. Will lose all your data but as you say you can just restore from backup.
 
Windows storage spaces is much more versatile
Than software jbod made in disk management
More resilient too survives motherboard/hardware changes
Windows reinstall etc
Only thing to be aware of with it
When you set up a storage pool
You have to give it a size
Just tell it a much bigger size than the total sum
Of the disks used
That allows additional drives to be added in the future
You can have multiple storage pools too
If required
Can mix sata hdd ,ssd,m2 ,different sizes,speeds etc
If it could make bootable storage spaces or pools
Then it would be perfect
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Windows storage spaces is much more versatile
Than software jbod made in disk management
More resilient too survives motherboard/hardware changes
Windows reinstall etc
Only thing to be aware of with it
When you set up a storage pool
You have to give it a size
Just tell it a much bigger size than the total sum
Of the disks used
That allows additional drives to be added in the future
You can have multiple storage pools too
If required
Can mix sata hdd ,ssd,m2 ,different sizes,speeds etc
If it could make bootable storage spaces or pools
Then it would be perfect
Click to expand...
Ooh that's very interesting.
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Windows storage spaces is much more versatile
Than software jbod made in disk management
More resilient too survives motherboard/hardware changes
Windows reinstall etc
Only thing to be aware of with it
When you set up a storage pool
You have to give it a size
Just tell it a much bigger size than the total sum
Of the disks used
That allows additional drives to be added in the future
You can have multiple storage pools too
If required
Can mix sata hdd ,ssd,m2 ,different sizes,speeds etc
If it could make bootable storage spaces or pools
Then it would be perfect
Click to expand...

Really have to thank you for that post. I had no idea that Windows had that ability.... and it's really brilliant!

Shifted the 12TB in one media PC to the one that needed the extra space, replacing it with the 8TB and created a 30TB Storage Pool. Restored 7TB to the Pool.

I bought a 6TB drive, and when that arrived, added it to the PC. Storage Spaces found it and after one click incorporated it in to the pool bringing the pool to 14TB (unformatted). From that point it was useable but Windows proceeded to optimise the pool which tool several hours. During that time, restored the rest of the data.

I will get to see how reliable it is, but hopefully just as reliable as a JBOD.

So, basically, I ended up with a 12/14TB solution, which will last me until the drives break!

I think the next time I do this, though, I will have to fork out for a soultion that doesn't lose the data when a disk fails. Even with a 2.5Gb LAN it takes a very long time to restore that much data.
 
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SpellowHouse said:
Really have to thank you for that post. I had no idea that Windows had that ability.... and it's really brilliant!

Shifted the 12TB in one media PC to the one that needed the extra space, replacing it with the 8TB and created a 30TB Storage Pool. Restored 7TB to the Pool.

I bought a 6TB drive, and when that arrived, added it to the PC. Storage Spaces found it and after one click incorporated it in to the pool bringing the pool to 14TB (unformatted). From that point it was useable but Windows proceeded to optimise the pool which tool several hours. During that time, restored the rest of the data.

I will get to see how reliable it is, but hopefully just as reliable as a JBOD.

So, basically, I ended up with a 12/14TB solution, which will last me until the drives break!

I think the next time I do this, though, I will have to fork out for a soultion that doesn't lose the data when a disk fails. Even with a 2.5Gb LAN it takes a very long time to restore that much data.
Click to expand...
Always surprised how few people know
About windows storage spaces

Have used it for about 12 years
Multiple motherboard, cpu etc changes
Probably hundreds of windows reinstalls and image backup restores too
It still survives it
As long as you don't accidentally format the wrong thing
When reinstalling or restoring an image
Only ever became corrupted and unreadable once
but of course I had a back up in another storage pool
I am a bit OTT with backups
But if something is important enough
Then 3 or 4 backups is the way I go
Luckily my most important stuff is under 2TB
So has been relatively inexpensive to get a few 512gb ssds
To make pools
Given I mess around in windows doing stuff I shouldn't
That's pretty impressive only 1 total failure

Yes with mechanical drives it would take ages
To optimise it
I haven't used mechanical drives in over 10 years
Every time I got a new m2 nvme
The sata ssd it replaced were put into storage spaces
The only limit really is how many sata ports
And m2 slots on your motherboard
Can probably also add a pcie sata card
Which could give another 6 sata ports lol

If you use more than 2 drives
Then yes it can also do redundancy
Assuming the data isn't more than the total size of 2 of
The drives
Then it will be possible to have 1 drive fail
But all the data be safe
Can't remember if you have to set it up for redundancy
When you initially set it up
Or if you could add another drive then make redundancy
Most likely though have to do it at the start
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Always surprised how few people know
About windows storage spaces

Have used it for about 12 years
Multiple motherboard, cpu etc changes
Probably hundreds of windows reinstalls and image backup restores too
It still survives it
As long as you don't accidentally format the wrong thing
When reinstalling or restoring an image
Only ever became corrupted and unreadable once
but of course I had a back up in another storage pool
I am a bit OTT with backups
But if something is important enough
Then 3 or 4 backups is the way I go
Luckily my most important stuff is under 2TB
So has been relatively inexpensive to get a few 512gb ssds
To make pools
Given I mess around in windows doing stuff I shouldn't
That's pretty impressive only 1 total failure

Yes with mechanical drives it would take ages
To optimise it
I haven't used mechanical drives in over 10 years
Every time I got a new m2 nvme
The sata ssd it replaced were put into storage spaces
The only limit really is how many sata ports
And m2 slots on your motherboard
Can probably also add a pcie sata card
Which could give another 6 sata ports lol

If you use more than 2 drives
Then yes it can also do redundancy
Assuming the data isn't more than the total size of 2 of
The drives
Then it will be possible to have 1 drive fail
But all the data be safe
Can't remember if you have to set it up for redundancy
When you initially set it up
Or if you could add another drive then make redundancy
Most likely though have to do it at the start
Click to expand...

I think Windows is using a term that not many people know. Had they used the word "RAID" in there somewhere then people would probably click.

The only one question I have remaining is that in several years time I will want to replace the pool primary drive, and I am not sure the primary drive can be cloned.
But, anyway, thanks again. It's an excellent solution. Saved money and works great.
 
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SpellowHouse said:
I think Windows is using a term that not many people know. Had they used the word "RAID" in there somewhere then people would probably click.

The only one question I have remaining is that in several years time I will want to replace the pool primary drive, and I am not sure the primary drive can be cloned.
But, anyway, thanks again. It's an excellent solution. Saved money and works great.
Click to expand...
It doesn't see them as primary, secondary etc
You can remove any drive individually
That you want
As long as the total amount of data doesn't exceed
The capacity of remaining drives

For example
I have 4 x 1TB ssds in a pool
I can pick any to remove if say I wanted to
Use the drive for something else
As long as total data over the 4 drives can be moved
To fit on the remaining 3
So in that example as long as 3TB or less total data
Tell it which drive you want out the pool
It prepares it for removal by redistributing the data
To the other 3
Yeah probably a leave it overnight job for large
Mechanical drives with a lot of data on there not much can do about that

if you only have 2 drives and wanted to replace 1
You would add the new replacement first
Then proceed to remove which drive you wanted to
As already mentioned
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
It doesn't see them as primary, secondary etc
You can remove any drive individually
That you want
As long as the total amount of data doesn't exceed
The capacity of remaining drives

For example
I have 4 x 1TB ssds in a pool
I can pick any to remove if say I wanted to
Use the drive for something else
As long as total data over the 4 drives can be moved
To fit on the remaining 3
So in that example as long as 3TB or less total data
Tell it which drive you want out the pool
It prepares it for removal by redistributing the data
To the other 3
Yeah probably a leave it overnight job for large
Mechanical drives with a lot of data on there not much can do about that

if you only have 2 drives and wanted to replace 1
You would add the new replacement first
Then proceed to remove which drive you wanted to
As already mentioned
Click to expand...

I see. At the moment there isn't the space to move the larger drive, but that's brilliant news. At any point in the future I can renew the drive in question then by first adding it to the pool then "preparing to remove" the old drive. Course it will take a long time to do that, but at least it's fully automatic and I don't have to sit there.

Really happy with this solution. It's amazingly clever.
 
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