RAID or not to RAID

deeem

deeem

deeem

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Joined
7 Dec 2007
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44
Hi guys,

I currently have a maxtor 160gb SATA2 drive sitting in my machine and wondered whether I should get another one and raid them to (0)?. Is it a good idea or not?

Also what are the performance gains involved as I will be finally moving from XP to Vista 64bit.

And the last question... How do I set it up? :)

Thanks in advance.

Damon
 
Depends on how bothered you are if a raid 0 setup fails really? It IS more likely to go wrong than 1 single hard disk and because it is not mirrored if one disk goes down or something gets corrupted then you could lose all your data. Of course if this is a gaming rig or something then who cares?:p
 
deeem said:
Hi guys,

I currently have a maxtor 160gb SATA2 drive sitting in my machine and wondered whether I should get another one and raid them to (0)?. Is it a good idea or not?

Also what are the performance gains involved as I will be finally moving from XP to Vista 64bit.

And the last question... How do I set it up? :)

Thanks in advance.

Damon
Click to expand...
Aside from the performance question there are other issues which you need to think about:

1) Can you get another matching disk? Maxtors are increasingly difficult to locate and while you can run mismatched drives in a RAID0 array it's not the optimum solution
2) Does your existing board support RAID? If it doesn't then you're stuck before you start
3) You will have to reinstall everything because creating the array wipes both drives. Do you have backups or the ability to take them to another storage medium?
 
Its one of those things you have to try for yourself to decide if the risks outweigh the benefits. On 2 machines I have tried raid0 but always ended up going back to individual drives.
One of the main reasons was the sata dvd drive was not bootable when raid was configured on my board so I always had to use an ide device when trying a new os, plus then os's not regonising the disk array (xp & linux) & the risk of it all failing & me loosing data.
It just was not worth it for me :)
 
rpstewart said:
Aside from the performance question there are other issues which you need to think about:

1) Can you get another matching disk? Maxtors are increasingly difficult to locate and while you can run mismatched drives in a RAID0 array it's not the optimum solution
2) Does your existing board support RAID? If it doesn't then you're stuck before you start
3) You will have to reinstall everything because creating the array wipes both drives. Do you have backups or the ability to take them to another storage medium?
Click to expand...

1. If necessary I would probably end up buy 2 new matching drives as they are quite cheap nowadays.

2. Yeah I have just upgraded my machine so my board does support the following (which I know nothing about): SATA1-6 RAID 0/1/0+1/5 or JBOD.

3. I will be starting from scratch anyway as I have just changed motherboards and would like to try vista out.

Thanks for the advice.

Damon
 
Just my 2p worth, having moved to RAID 0 from a single disk setup, first with XP and now with Vista x64. I really like it, I've ran this raid setup on TWO machines, my old P4 and this current one, up until two days ago both setups were XP, which was noticably faster with the raid (on both machines) When my old mobo died I kept the drives and used them as raid for my new setup - ran flawlessly, no problems. I then got brave and put Vista 64 on it - screams.

What drives am I using ? 2x150 GB WD Raptor :D Yes I know they're expensive, but WD offers a 5 year warranty on them which is what sold them to me - if the manufacturers are THAT confident, the drives must be up to it!

I also built a new system for a friend and advised them to do a Raid 0, again with Raptors - no problems (well apart from the usual "new build" teething troubles, but the drives worked fine and the Raid was a breeze to get going)

As for a "Storage" drive I have a Maxtor 80 Gig, which is basically one I had lying around...(I barely use it so "size" isnt important ;) my friend bought an external 500Gig... so it is up to your individual requirements.

This is not a "OMg get a Raptor raid setup 1one!" post, just my experience with Raid 0 I'm sure with another 160 Gig drive you'll do well.

cheers

Andrew
 
You know how many times this is asked ? (go and count search results).

Running 1 HDD gives you 1 chance of failing, running 2 HDD's in Raid or non Raid gives you 2 chances of failing,

For anyone not a n00b, running 1 HDD or 2 in Raid or non Raid, you always have a backup and there is no real excuse as External HDD's are cheap as chips today.

HDD's are alo a lot better made these days so less change of issues than says 5-10years ago.

I have used Raid0 for years now and have the Raptor X's from the day they launched when they were the fastest SATA HDD's, they still are for SEEK, and I wont be using a 7200rpm or non Raid ever again.

I crash my PC all the time when testing new Overclocks sometimes need to pull power and reset bios etc, and its never ever cost me the Raid set up.
 
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as good as onboard raid chips are getting i would never use a raid 0 set with one, i have done in the past and been burned.
ive managed to get 3ware cards (2 port and a 4 port) through work, we use them in computational servers and also nas boxes and they are very reliable, in fact in the 3 years my home server has been running (24 / 7) one of my Raid 0 sets has never failed me once
iirc its a 8600 2 port sata card with 2 160Gb Maxtor drives

just my 2p worth :)
 
I've got a load of digital photos that are irreplaceable and am now wondering if a raid array is a good idea for added security. I'll be backing up my pics every so often, but would like the added safety. What raid setup would best suit this scenario and how many disks should be used.

Also, I'm running my OS on a 74Gb Raptor. Would this need to be part of the array, or can the array be made up of another seperate set of disks?
 
All a RAID array will give you is hardware redundancy so it's not the same as a backup. While it will provide a modicum of protection all it boils down to is that if a drive fails you can continue to operate while you replace the failed drive.
 
It depends on the RAID level being used. With 3 disks you're limited to using RAID0 or RAID5 (RAID3 & 4 are also possible but very rare these days).

RAID0 provides no data redundancy so a drive failure will mean the entire array is lost. RAID5 sacrifices one drive to provide some redundancy so a RAID5 array can survive the loss of a single disk without any data loss.
 
Well I have being using Raid 0 for many months now, January last year, When I upgrade to the Penryn coming soon I will be then using 2 off http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-142-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940 "
2 boot off using raid 0 , putting my other 2*250 as raid 1 ,

very happy plus it is a good idea to have an external backup I'am using 2 external backup's using bridge boards running firewire 800 put into 2 external scsi boxes modded.
or simply buy external usb HD enclosure etc
 
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