Should I Raid 4 500gb harddrives?

Crogotti · Aug 8, 2011

Raid Help!

I built a pretty solid computer about a month ago..Radeon HD 6950, I5 2500k, 8g memory, and a P67 EXTREME4 motherboard. The problem I am having now is storage. I only got 500gb at the time because I wanted more money going into a better gpu. this is my current hard drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

I am currently running programs like autocad, cinema4d, adobe after affects, and alot of music production like ableton and associated plugins. is a Raid 5 recommended? And i understand it is wasteful to raid a bigger harddrive with a smaller one, so should i buy another 3 500gb hardrives and raid all 4?

Crogotti · Aug 8, 2011

I built a pretty solid computer about a month ago..Radeon HD 6950, I5 2500k, 8g memory, and a P67 EXTREME4 motherboard. The problem I am having now is storage. I only got 500gb at the time because I wanted more money going into a better gpu. this is my current hard drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136769

I am currently running programs like autocad, cinema4d, adobe after affects, and alot of music production like ableton and associated plugins. is a Raid 5 recommended? And i understand it is wasteful to raid a bigger harddrive with a smaller one, so should i buy another 3 500gb hardrives and raid all 4?

Automata · Aug 8, 2011

RAID 5 would work fine, but it will not be ideal. Since your programs do a lot of random writes, RAID 10 would be a better option. Your motherboard may not have this, though.

If you don't have the drives, I would suggest getting something larger. I can't see how much the hard drive you linked was, because it is broken, but the Hitachi 2 TB is an excellent option. This is geared more towards space than speed. If you want to keep your current drives and RAID 10 isn't an option, get another 500 GB (if price appropriately) and put them in a RAID 0. Then, get a pair of 2 TB drives and put them in RAID 1 for redundancy.

Knufire · Aug 8, 2011

I'd go with a 60/120G SSD for all your programs and OS, keep all the data on the 500GB. If you need more space, just get another large HDD for storage. SSD will tear up a RAID volume anyday.

Crogotti · Aug 8, 2011

Thanks for the response, i just checked to see if my motherboard (P67 EXTREME4 ) can do a raid 10 and it can. So would you still recommend me using 1 existing 500gb drive and 3 new identical 500gb drives? Also, would i lose any data from my existing 500gb drive during the process of raiding?

Automata · Aug 8, 2011

I wouldn't buy such low capacity drives, no.

I do like Knufire's suggestion, though. A solid state drive for the OS and program, then using a RAID array for the storage.

TiZakit · Aug 8, 2011

You will lose all the data on the existing drive when you create the array.

Janus67 · Aug 8, 2011

For the price of drives that may work, although I'm not sure what requirements WD has been putting on their drive in order for them to be RAID-enabled. I believe they made it so that the only ones that work in RAID have to be the 'RE' versions (raid enabled) because they changed the TLER of their other drives causing them to drop out of the RAID. If you want to raid a few drives I would check out the Samsung F3 1TB drives, you could toss a couple into a Raid1 or if you wanted to get 3 you could do that and it would run you around $150-160 for all 3 if you find them on sale.

DaPoets · Aug 9, 2011

I love a raid 0+1 w/ a 4 hard drive set up. cut out about 15% of the drives as your C: as the raid 0 then the rest to the raid 1. save all your files on the D: and programs you run on the C:

I have done it this way for years.

cw823 · Aug 9, 2011

DaPoets said:
I love a raid 0+1 w/ a 4 hard drive set up. cut out about 15% of the drives as your C: as the raid 0 then the rest to the raid 1. save all your files on the D: and programs you run on the C:

I have done it this way for years.

or if you want even more points of failure, why not do a 10drive raid0?

TiZakit · Aug 9, 2011

Yes, better idea. Make all four drives into a raid 10, then partition.

Recoverable.

jason4207 · Aug 9, 2011

If all you want is more storage than get a 2TB drive for storage and run the 500GB for your OS & programs.

RAID5 is more trouble than it's worth on the Intel controller imo. And you can get 2TB HDDs for $60-$70.

rollincoaster · Aug 9, 2011

RAID 10 would be your best bet (4 x 500 GB HDDs). You will lose all data so if you can go with it, buy all 4 drives new and build the array.

mbentley · Aug 10, 2011

i have merged your two threads into this one since it seems you are asking for help on the same problem.

Should I Raid 4 500gb harddrives?

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