2 x RAID 1's or a RAID 10?

[AmongTheChosenX]

Trying to move to a redundant setup of drives for my home computer.

I need about 1-1.5TB of storage (Pictures, Movies, Music, etc). I also want at least 500GB (Preferably 1TB) for my OS, Games, etc.

I was going to go for 2 x 750's in a RAID 1, and 2 x 1TB Green's in 2nd RAID 1.

Now that I think about it, I'm wondering if it would be viable to go for either 4 x 750GB or 4 x 1TB in a RAID 10 instead.

Thoughts? I know the differences in redundancy, I'm just curios as to whether or not the upgrade to RAID 10 over RAID 1 is worth it, in the case of a desktop.

I will be keeping compressed Windows System Backups to a 1TB External drive (No redundancy) in either case

 

[hotcrandel]

Answer this question: Why do you want to use RAID?

Because everything I have read is you're using it in a less than ideal situation and you're just setting yourself up for more work/pain/disappointment than you need or want to experience.

Put your second corresponding drive in an external enclosure and do backups once a week/month

 

[asgards]

id go for 3x 2tb
if needed 7,2krpm drive for sys/data/misc
and two drives for offline backups one localy and second preferably keep offsite, lets say work or neighbors/family place

going raid at home only pays off if you're interested in speeds, but today ssds have surpased that

 

[AmongTheChosenX]

Answer this question: Why do you want to use RAID?

Because everything I have read is you're using it in a less than ideal situation and you're just setting yourself up for more work/pain/disappointment than you need or want to experience.

Put your second corresponding drive in an external enclosure and do backups once a week/month

The idea is so I have not only backups (on my external), but redundancy as well...

So to answer the question as to why I want it... Yes, the performance increase (though not expected) is a nice plus, considering the expense. But in all honestly, mostly due to the redundancy. Just backups makes me feel a little eh... Either way, I don't have another drive for backups right now anyway, so I need to purchase at the least 1 drive at this point regardless...
I'm only running a 1 x 1TB External for storage, and 1 x 640GB for System/Everything else. Other than that, I'm dependent on cloud storage for my pictures at the moment, and I'm not comfortable with that anymore, since I'm outgrowing it much quicker than I used to since I'm now dating, and taking lots of pictures and videos, since I want to actually remember my 20's.

 

[AmongTheChosenX]

Here is what I've decided instead.

I'll continue to use my WD6400AAKS in single drive mode. Popping Windows 8 on my machine, and matching with Classic Shell would probably provide the same increase (which is minimal to begin with) that Windows 7 would see with a RAID 0 array.

Beyond that, it just isn't really necessary to go for a RAID 0. I don't game very often, and even when I do, I have a pretty quick system (Stock clocked i5-2500k on a Z77 Biostart Board and 8GB's of RAM), therefore I don't really incur times where I'm like "damn this is taking forever to load"...

Instead of spending the extra $$$ on hard drives for RAID 0, I'd probably be better opff buying another 4-8GB's of RAM for even less $$$ and seeing even more performance increase.

Topping all of this off, I'll go for either 2 x 750GB or 2 x1TB WD Green drives in a RAID 1 for storage.
Everything will be backed up using Windows Backup to my Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme (with eSATA, which is important to me), and that way easy restore is just ahead of me. This works out wonderfully, because I'll be able to toss all of my music, videos, ISO's, etc on the 1TB Array, and then games and disposable data (Dropbox, Steam, etc) on my 640GB...

Definitely the most cost effective as well, seeing as I can get 2 x 1TB's for $70 shipped, or even 2 x 750GB's from work for minimal $$$....