Raid Question

coldfused

coldfused

coldfused

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If I have:

2x 500GB F3 Samsung Spinpoint in RAID 0 Configuration
can I add
1x 1TB F3 Samsung Spinpoint in RAID 1 Configuration

to provide redundancy for the other two?
 
I don't have a RAID setup at the minute, never used it before to be honest.
I'm looking to buy a second F3 500GB. I saw the 1TB Samsung for only £10 more.
I want the 500GB purely for redundancy. But for the future I might exceed the capacity.

So I was wondering whether I could get a 500GB now and when I exceed its capacity, RAID 0 the two 500GB drive and add 1TB later for redundancy, when and if I need to.

Also I have a Win7 64BIT system if that helps?
 
Last edited:
You are probably better off forgoing RAID and setting up a backup script to copy what you need to the other drive.

This has a number of benefits:
less complex to setup and administer
More easy to recover data if a disaster happens.
Can use 2 or more external drives and rotate them in an offsite manner, can't really do that with raid.
Cheaper, as no additional hardware is required. (if you go hardware raid)
If you go hardware raid, no card required, which could fail leaving you with a duff array.
Can more easily upgrade your system and keep your data intact
can use the hard disk mounted as a slave in a secondry system without needing to mess about with raid.

Pros of RAID 1
Increased epeen
higher uptime if a failure happens (only if you use hot swap drives.)
Possibly higher read performance, but with 2xF3 raid0 your read speeds are likely to be high enough anyway.


My opinion formed over the years is that RAID in a home setting is a waste of time, and people are better off spending their time and effort on a proper backup system.

Raid is for business/companies/enterprise that require high uptimes or greater performance from multiple users hitting their disk.

In the home, raid can have benefits, such as raid 0 to increase speed of a scratch disks (video / photo / sound editing) or non-essential data such as game installs etc. (possibly)

The time spent managing/configuring an array, rebuilding it, expanding it, monitoring, is wasted in a home environment.

Single disks these days are pretty fast enough for most normal uses.
If you really need speed go SSD.
If you really need redundancy go server grade hardware with proper disk enclosure and redundant PSUS with hotspares and hotswap

Spend your time on proper backups.

As for raid options in win7 I don't know.
 
I don't agree with what you say.
In my opinion, from purely a redundancy point of view I look it as:

Create RAID 1 array.
One hard-disk crashes. Restore from another.
Not difficult. How do you manage RAID?
You don't. It takes a few minutes to setup and then you leave it.

Finding backup scripts that use system resources. Thats worse.
Dedicated RAID chips found on many motherboards these days uses its own processing power and does not use system resources, so it'll be faster and won't interfere with whatever you're doing.

Sure RAID is a must in the business environment.
But, the fact it is incorporated into motherboard for personal use shows that mainstream users are embracing RAID as a better alternative to software backup.
 
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