Hard Drive Setup

A

atreidesgoldenpath

Gawd
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
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Currently I'm running everything off a 1 TB Seagate 7200 rpm drive. I've got it partitioned into an OS partion, apps partition, games partition, and data partition.

I'd like to upgrade my system over the holidays to increase performance and provide data redundancy.

First of all I'd like to get a 60gb-ish SSD to put Windows 7 on.

Second of all, my photo and video collection is growing by leaps and bounds thanks to my transition to 720p home movies. I'd like to provide a backup, either in an external hard drive; or by setting up a mirror RAID with another 1 TB drive.

I'd like for some of your input on this situation. Will I get good performance buying a new 1 TB drive and putting it in RAID with my older drive? Is that a good failsafe for my important data? Can I build a RAID array without losing my data (ie, on the fly)?

If there are downsides to RAID, I'll go shopping for the best BF deal on an external drive.

Thanks!!!
 
RAID provides uptime and is not a replacement for backups. It would be a better idea for you to purchase an external drive and back up everything to it. Either way though, creating a RAID array will wipe out any data on have on the drives.
 
I suggest buying a couple 2TB drives. Use one of them as your primary storage drive for your video files, and the other one as a backup. Even better is to get three 2TB drives. Then you could have a rotating backup -- have a nightly job that backs up your primary 2TB to one of the backup 2TB drives, then periodically (say, once a month) swap one of the backup 2TB drives for the other. You can then keep one of your backups in a safe place, either off-site or in fire and water proof storage.

By the way, the Samsung F4EG 2TB HDDs are on sale for $90 on newegg right now. They are listed at $110, but there is a promo code you can enter at checkout for $20 off.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245
 
Blue Fox said:
RAID provides uptime and is not a replacement for backups. It would be a better idea for you to purchase an external drive and back up everything to it. Either way though, creating a RAID array will wipe out any data on have on the drives.
Click to expand...

Yep, let's all say it together now - "RAID is not a backup".
 
RAID1 does provide some backup, as you'll have a duplicate of the drive if one should happen to fail. However, other than a single drive simply dying, it's not a backup. It doesn't help at all if your PSU freaks out and takes out the whole system. It doesn't help if you accidentally delete a file or directory. It doesn't help if a natural disaster hits your house and takes out your whole PC. It doesn't help if a virus corrupts all your files.

Just some things to keep in mind when planning how secure you want to be with your data backups. RAID1 is better than a single drive, but it's also not a full backup solution.
 
If it were me, I would buy 2, 2tb drives and 2 external enclosures. I like the external drive cases that have usb and esata to the pc and sata and ide to the drive ( never know what kind of goodies youll find on an old IDE drive before reformatting it or when youll need to get something off an IDE style drive for a friend, etc)


Just remember, if lightning hits your main pc, and BOTH externals are plugged into the pc, you may lose it all so just plug em in long enough to backup

Or you could build a freenas out of older equipment or new equip

Or you could build WHS box

Or you could build a linux based server

Just depends on what you are comfortable with money , time and experience wise. Think for you an external would be fine.

EDIT: Use the 1tb for a data drive inside the pc.
 
atreidesgoldenpath said:
Currently I'm running everything off a 1 TB Seagate 7200 rpm drive. I've got it partitioned into an OS partion, apps partition, games partition, and data partition.
Click to expand...

you silly kids and your over zealous partitioning. totally unnecessary and can actually be harmful to performance.

InvisiBill said:
RAID1 does provide some backup,
Click to expand...

RAID IS NOT A BACKUP
Do not ever call RAID a backup.
RAID is for uptime only, it gives you redundancy in the event of a disk failure.
using 'RAID' and 'backup' in the same sentence implies RAID is better then not backing up important files at all, or that you can get away without doing a backup, which is false.
 
I know it's easy to get into the chanting of "RAID IS NOT A BACKUP" but if you looked at the full statement of "RAID1 does provide some backup, as you'll have a duplicate of the drive if one should happen to fail." He's not incorrect in stating that RAID1 (with two drives) protects against single drive failure. In a very limited sense of the term "some backup" with the limitations of it detailed in the rest of his post, that's completely reasonable.

I would probably take out the "full backup solution" part though, as RAID1 isn't really even a partial backup solution.
 
Last edited:
Sorry in advance for feeding the troll...

ghost6303 said:
RAID IS NOT A BACKUP
Do not ever call RAID a backup.
RAID is for uptime only, it gives you redundancy in the event of a disk failure.
Click to expand...

Actually, "redundancy" is "backup" in the event of a single disk failure. If you can tell me any situation where you have a single disk failure, and having a duplicate of that drive is worse than having no other drive, then I'll take back my statement.

As I said, RAID1 doesn't help a bit if a virus corrupts all your files, someone accidentally deletes something, a power surge takes out both drives, or a disaster takes out the whole machine. However, for a single spontaneous disk failure, having a duplicate of that disk is a great backup. RAID1 is not a backup solution, but it does provide a backup copy of a disk in the event of a single disk's hardware failure.

ghost6303 said:
using 'RAID' and 'backup' in the same sentence implies RAID is better then not backing up important files at all
Click to expand...
I'd much rather have a RAID1 copy of a disk that fails than no backup at all.
 
Sigh.........You guys always scare everybody away.

Atreidesgoldenpath is probably scared to death.

Come back Atreidesgoldenpath.....then we'll tell ya about crappy pre-made external drives. :)
 
InvisiBill said:
Sorry in advance for feeding the troll...



Actually, "redundancy" is "backup" in the event of a single disk failure. If you can tell me any situation where you have a single disk failure, and having a duplicate of that drive is worse than having no other drive, then I'll take back my statement.

As I said, RAID1 doesn't help a bit if a virus corrupts all your files, someone accidentally deletes something, a power surge takes out both drives, or a disaster takes out the whole machine. However, for a single spontaneous disk failure, having a duplicate of that disk is a great backup. RAID1 is not a backup solution, but it does provide a backup copy of a disk in the event of a single disk's hardware failure.


I'd much rather have a RAID1 copy of a disk that fails than no backup at all.
Click to expand...

He wasn't saying RAID1 is worse than no RAID1. He is saying that it is not a backup as in a snapshot of data from a specific time that is not being updated in real time.

Which you seem to agree with each other using that definition.
 
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