RAID vs more drives

boYce · 6 Nov 2010 at 12:45

i'm in the process of building a new system and considering how to setup my storage. I would like at least 1TB of storage and some form of mirroring / backup. I want windows and storage to be on different drives / partitions for ease of formatting later.

Options are;

2 x 1TB drives in RAID 1.
Giving a 300GB partition for windows + progs and 700GB for storage.
If more storage was needed later I could add 2 more 1TB again in RAID 1, give 1TB more storage.

or

2 x 1TB drives in RAID 1 for storage and 1 x 500GB for windows

or

4 x 500GB drives 2 x (2 x 500GB in RAID 1)

recommendation in terms of speed and storage management?

tibbsey · 6 Nov 2010 at 13:11

Speed for windows = probably single drive.
Speed shouldn't be a concern for data, otherwise you would be after raid5 or 10.

Out of those options, I'd probably go for 2x1TB in r1 and a 500GB for windows.

rpstewart · 6 Nov 2010 at 13:13

boYce said:
recommendation in terms of speed and storage management?

Depends what you want to do with the system.

Do you need large amounts of contiguous space? Do you do anything which is disk intensive and would benefit from having multiple spindles available to reduce I/O contention? How are you planning on backing everything up (remembering that RAID1 is an availability solution, not a backup)?

Zarf · 6 Nov 2010 at 13:13

If your RAID controller can do 4x 500GB drives in RAID10, that's the set-up I'd go for. I'd then partition the virtual drive the way you want, 300GB windows, 700GB storage or whatever.

boYce · 6 Nov 2010 at 14:33

tibbsey said:
Speed for windows = probably single drive.
Speed shouldn't be a concern for data, otherwise you would be after raid5 or 10.

Out of those options, I'd probably go for 2x1TB in r1 and a 500GB for windows.

I agree. 4 HDDs sounds a bit messy and the data is not SO important that it need backing up externally.

I was planning on using the 500GB WD Caviar out of my old machine as the windows drive. its about 3 years old so assume is still comparable to the current WD drives?

For the 2 x 1TB storage drives is it best to stick with Western Digital or are spinpoints now regarded higher?

tibbsey · 6 Nov 2010 at 14:58

Can't really comment on WD, I've been a Samsung man for the last couple of years...

3x320GB F1's, 2x500GB F1's, 1x640GB F1, 5x1TB F1's.

Levirginien · 6 Nov 2010 at 20:55

tibbsey said:
Can't really comment on WD, I've been a Samsung man for the last couple of years...

3x320GB F1's, 2x500GB F1's, 1x640GB F1, 5x1TB F1's.

+1

I am another Samsung man...After a single Maxtor hdd disaster, I went for Samsung and never looked back...(1x320gb F1, 1x 750gb F1, 3x 1Terabyte F3)...
Now to the OP, why not consider for example a 1 or even 2 terabyte drive for storage and perhaps the mighty OCZ Vertex2 for your system drive...That would be best of both world really (speed + space galore)...