first time raid w/2 drives+different sizes

I've had this disk for a while now http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218 but I'm running out of space. I've been paying attention to the SSD prices and was considering getting one of those, but then I read in a few different places that if you put regular HDDs into raid format they can get over 200MB/s R/W which is just as fast(even faster then some) as SSDs.
When moving large files my current average speed is about 25MB/s without ACHI and 45MB/s with. So it seems like I'd get over 4x my current speed if I used RAID.

When I saw this drive on sale for $55 I bought it http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185 now I'm just trying to learn what the best raid array for me would be.

I've been reading about raid tonight and this is what I've gathered so far:
raid0 - fastest, but if 1 drive fails I lose all data on all drives?
raid1 - doubles read speed, if 1 drive fails I have all the info on the 2nd drive still?
raid2,3,4 - obsolete?
raid5 - you get the benefits of raid0 & raid1 but you need at least 3 HDs?
raid6 - similar to raid5, not sure the exact differences


Right now I use 1 partition for backup, storage, etc., another partition for windows 7x64, and sometimes I use a 3rd partition for windows xp(mainly for troubleshooting). Is the fact that one drive is 640GB & the other 1TB going to cause problems? If I raid them will it make the 1TB drive size down to 640GB?

raid0 is faster then raid1 but with raid1 you don't lose any data unless both drives die right?

The 1TB drive is slightly faster with it's latancy, seek time, etc. so if I ended up not going raid at all would it be fastest to partition the 1TB drive and use 80 or 90GB for OS/games/video editing, etc. & the rest for backup, files, etc. and then only use the 640GB drive when I run out of space?

Thanks guys =)

Well, what i can get from this is, you want speed.
If it's simple work/usage speed, get the SSD for your main drive or work drive.
Raid can be used to increase speed but at a risk (unless you have a bunch of drives)
Since you have 2 drives it's not really an option.

I'd say, put your OS and data on your 1tb drive, back up to the 640 gig drive & get an SSD as 'work' drive (working folder for your apps, movie editing, games,..)
depends on how much money you have to spend you can get a bigger ssd & put the os on it too.

just my 2cent ^^

Do not trust RAID to protect your data, and you should be fine. That means that you should consider anything you store on a conventional RAID to be gone the next morning. If your backup scheme can cope with such an event, i see no mistake in using RAID. If you rely on RAID to protect your data, you have outsources your data security to one of the worst reputable technologies and will likely experience a huge surprise one day.

even raid1? doesn't raid1 just double the read speed and have identical copies of your data on both drives? wouldn't that be safer AND faster - but only for read speed?

isn't raid0 the dangerous one where you trade data for speed? raid5 seemed to be the best of both worlds but you would need at least 3 drives, I thought raid6 said it was like raid5 but you could use less drives(only need 2 then?)...

In theory RAID can protect you, sure. But due all the problems with Hardware RAID controllers dropping disks out of the RAID and problems with uBER and low-quality onboard RAID or "FakeRAID" the original promise of RAID doesn't hold up anymore. RAID was about creating a more reliable device than the original. While in the end we introduce a new layer that can fail your data: the RAID engine itself. If something goes wrong with it, and it does wrong time to time, your data is in jeopardy.

So do not rely on RAID and consider that a normal unprotected disk. Use backups to protect your data instead, external backups which usually are powered off are ideal and easy solution far superior to any single conventional RAID.

Well that's not what I'm getting raid for anyways. I'm interested more in speed then in data safety. Currently I have only 1 disk with all my programs and data on different partitions. If I used raid1 then both of my drives would have the same data on it, write speed would be the same but read speed would be doubled right? So this should be both safer and faster then just having 1 drive.

My concerns are the different sizes of the drives as well as the different seek times and latencies. Also, when do you notice read speed and when do you notice write speed?

MaximilianKohler said:

If I used raid1 then both of my drives would have the same data on it, write speed would be the same but read speed would be doubled right? So this should be both safer and faster then just having 1 drive.

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Theoritically, read speed should be doubled but that doesn't always happen depending on the controller, hard drives, OS, and other factors.

MaximilianKohler said:

My concerns are the different sizes of the drives as well as the different seek times and latencies.

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Well the Samsung F3 1TB is roughly 35% faster than the WD6400AAKS drive. If using a RAID 1, you would only be able to use 640GB out of that 1TB of space.

MaximilianKohler said:

Also, when do you notice read speed and when do you notice write speed?

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Write when you're installing apps and games. Read usually when loading up a game or app or transferring/streaming files from one drive/PC to another.

If I put the drives in raid1 until I needed the rest of the 1TB space how would the Samsung F3 1TB being roughly 35% faster effect anything?

MaximilianKohler said:

If I put the drives in raid1 until I needed the rest of the 1TB space how would the Samsung F3 1TB being roughly 35% faster effect anything?

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Well if you put the drives in a RAID 1 array, you would be negating that 35%. So in other words, that F3 1TB drive will perform roughly the same as that WD6400AAKS drive.

Just use them as separate disks. RAID 1 isn't any faster than single disk for most onboard controllers.

I wouldn't raid those because the platters are different sizes. The 640 has the 333GB platters and the 1TB Samsung has 500GB platters. Raid 0 especially would cause hiccuping.

Software RAID 1 will not net any performance gains as far as I'm aware. However, FakeRAID and hardware RAID 1 will give the read speed bonus that really helps. If two drives are used, the read speed normally increases by 80-90% on average, which really helps when loading lots of programs or files and is great for server OSes.

Also, even though you may be able to mix and match HDDs with certain types of RAID, I would recommend against it due to different cache sizes, specs, platters/heads, etc. which may cause reliability problems. When mixing and matching HDDs, JBOD is normally the option of choice, though there are no performance gains, there also won't be any problems.

Ok, thanks guys. I guess I'll just stick to ACHI then get an SSD when they get cheaper.

SSDs are a great choice, just make sure to go with Corsair or Intel and stay away from any of the second/third gen OCZ stuff. Best of luck.