Newbie Raid Question

[AndrewPE28]

Hi

My only previous experience with Raid was a while back with SCSI drives. I used them in Raid 0 I believe (striping), one died after a month and I lost everything and since then i've not bothered.

I'm currently using a 4 yr old Weston Digital WD800-JB, the 8Mb cache IDE version which was the dogs doodas back then and TBH is still a cracking drive.

I've on the verge of doing a full upgrade so am considering SATA raid but would like some advice on whats best for performance/reliability.

Is it worth it or should I just get a new WD drive and stick with what I know?

 

[Deleted member 64478]

From my personal experience Andrew, I can say that if you wanted just performance Sata Raid0 would be the way to go. If you wanted performance/reliability then Raid5 would be another way to go. If you wanted just reliability then Raid1 would be the way forward. If you however wanted faster speed and greater reliability Raid10 would be the way forward. This depends on budget and what your motherboard supports.

Personally what I would do is Raid0 (Stripe) and a big usb drive attached or even e-sata for speed for all your personal data. This way your data is safer if your computer broke. Hope this was a good explination for you and if you would like more you can visit the raid environment.

http://www.acnc.com/index.html (Raid.edu link)

 

[jbloggs]

There is really only performance improvement using RAID0 (over IDE mode) if one is working with (and) or unzipping large files (like video files)....I have found that a stripe size of 32KB is about the best for "general" use.

If you use RAID0 a good backup system is essential, apart from USB, and eSATA, you could also use an internal HDD for it.

Also have a look Here