Should I RAID

I know there have been a lot of these posts and I've been reading through them and just getting more confused. In the past I have only done RAID0 with 2 HDDs. Now that I have a SSD I figured that I would do away with my RAID and just use a 2tb drive for storage. The problem is my 2tb drive crashed and I've lost a ton of music and movies. I've heard that this is a common problem with the larger HDDs and happens less frequently with the smaller HDDs.

So, here is my question. For stability is it worth it to have 3 or 4 500gb drives stripped and then mirrored with a larger 2tb HDD? I get all the speed I need from my SSD and at 256gb I can put most of my programs on there. What are my best options for my music and movie files?

In terms of power usage, space and general convenience, I'd recommend something like either 2 x 2 TB in RAID1 (tolerates one drive failure) or 3 x 1 TB in RAID 5 (also tolerates 1 drive failure).

This would still give you 2 TB, and would allow you to tolerate a drive failure.

... or make raid 10 on 4x hdd that is faster than 5 ... or 2x hdd in RAID0 + backup on 3rd hdd without raid ( any backup soft like acronis ) that is also faster
but really I think that if you have SSD for system and mainly used files then RAID1 on 2 hdd for data files is good enough

I finally bit the RAID bullet and went with RAID5 about 6 months ago.. Its been great so far. 4 * 1TB for my array gives me 2.8 TB of free space and will allow for a drive to fail. I will never go back to a single drive for storage until SSD's become the norm.

Woomack said:

... or make raid 10 on 4x hdd that is faster than 5 ... or 2x hdd in RAID0 + backup on 3rd hdd without raid ( any backup soft like acronis ) that is also faster

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This is exactly what I am considering. I can RAID 5 or 10, or just do a RAID 0 and do a backup.

For those that are using RAID, are you using the onboard controller or buying a RAID card?

Tokae said:

I finally bit the RAID bullet and went with RAID5 about 6 months ago.. Its been great so far. 4 * 1TB for my array gives me 2.8 TB of free space and will allow for a drive to fail. I will never go back to a single drive for storage until SSD's become the norm.

Click to expand...

Why do you like it so much? Is it the speed/ performance? Do the 1tb have less chance of failure or bad sectors than the 2tb?

Ironman129 said:

This is exactly what I am considering. I can RAID 5 or 10, or just do a RAID 0 and do a backup.

For those that are using RAID, are you using the onboard controller or buying a RAID card?

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Onboard controller is good enough for home use and 1-4 drives. If you wish to make bigger raid like 5-8+ drives then better is to get card with cache etc ( but good card isn't cheap ).

I've read that there is no performance difference in RAID 10 vs 5. Would RAID0 plus a backup drive just as effective as any of the other options? Cuz I can easily do 2 1tb drive RAID0 and an external 2tb as backup

Ironman129 said:

Why do you like it so much? Is it the speed/ performance? Do the 1tb have less chance of failure or bad sectors than the 2tb?

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I like it because its faster than a single drive for sure:





Its a bit more reliable than a single drive also.. I went with the 1tb drives because its cheaper for 4 of them mainly. If I were to do it again, I would use 2tb.

Ironman129 said:

I've read that there is no performance difference in RAID 10 vs 5. Would RAID0 plus a backup drive just as effective as any of the other options? Cuz I can easily do 2 1tb drive RAID0 and an external 2tb as backup

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From what I was testing in servers, RAID10 is faster than 5 but you need 4 hdd+ while for RAID5 you can start from 3 hdd and add +1 more each time you want to make bigger array. Storage cost for RAID 10 is higher so RAID5 is more popular in small servers that often have external backup anyway.

RAID0 on 2 hdd and backup on external one can be best idea for home use.