raid 0+1 .... 3 drives ?

karlos103

karlos103

karlos103

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Hi
Can you raid 0+1 with 3 drives ?
if say i raid 0-
2 Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS)
could i then use a -
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31500341AS)
as backup for the 2 on raid 0 ???
i read that if you raid 0+1 you need 4 identical drives ....but did read somewhere that you can do it on 3 as long as the third drives is bigger than the raid 0 setup ?
is this possible or it it just easier to raid the 2 drives and put all your backup stuff (pics etc ) on the third drive ?
many thanks
karl
 
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for performance reasons best to use 4 of the same disks (raid 0+1 needs 4 disks) but you can use other disks

also raid is not an backup its redundancy (well raid 1 and higher is, raid 0 is perfoamce with no redundancy)

the last option you say is an back up (copy the data from raid to an single disk or off the pc completely like an server)
 
so best to raid the 2 drives and put backup stuff on the third one then ....so if 1 drive goes down all i will need to do is fit new drive and re-install windows and all backup stuff is on my third drive ....probably the easiest route ...done really want to spend another £120 on 2 more drives lol
 
Ghost your SSD often to your HDD as an file or windows 7 is easy as it has an Full HDD backup option all you have to do is remake the array and put the windows 7 disk back in and pick repair and pick Complete pc restore option
 
not got a SSD but know what you mean ...sounds good idea ....might just do that .
Basically i think i will be using the system just for games so if it goes **** up all i need to do is reinstall ....no major problem...will see how that goes and will probably try doing a ghost image every month or so just incase .
Thanks for your help
 
Just to add, I do not believe you can use three drives in RAID 0+1. It is a mirror of striped drives; you need two drives to mirror to, and if you use a larger drive for the mirror it will only use up to the size of the drives it is mirroring - i.e. your 1.5tb drive would become a 640GB drive.
+1 for RAID 0 with regular backups.
 
miniyazz said:
Just to add, I do not believe you can use three drives in RAID 0+1. It is a mirror of striped drives; you need two drives to mirror to, and if you use a larger drive for the mirror it will only use up to the size of the drives it is mirroring - i.e. your 1.5tb drive would become a 640GB drive.
+1 for RAID 0 with regular backups.
Click to expand...

Ah right ...well thats it then :) you have answered my question .
Looks like raid 0 and backup often to my 1.5tb drive .
thanks
 
I might be able to clear this up a bit. You can do a raid 0+1 with three drives, two of size a and one of size 2a. You raid 0 the smaller two, and mirror this to the larger one. The result is an array of size 2a, which runs at the normal speed of the larger drive.

So it can be done, and it'll work, but it's unlikely to be what you want. All the speed bonus of raid 0 is gone but the risk remains. Raid 0 two of them and use the other for backup is far better.
 
JonJ678 said:
I might be able to clear this up a bit. You can do a raid 0+1 with three drives, two of size a and one of size 2a. You raid 0 the smaller two, and mirror this to the larger one. The result is an array of size 2a, which runs at the normal speed of the larger drive.

So it can be done, and it'll work, but it's unlikely to be what you want. All the speed bonus of raid 0 is gone but the risk remains. Raid 0 two of them and use the other for backup is far better.
Click to expand...

yes i think raid 0 and backup regularly to another drive is the best route to take
cheers
 
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