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How reliable *is* a RAID 0 setup?

W

WCES Ryan

Gawd
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
Messages
723
I bought 2 250gb drives with my new system with the original intention of running RAID 0, but being worried about the notion that either drive failing would wipe me out, I wimped out and running them in a JBOD config.

Getting to thinking though... really, how reliable (or unreliable) would it be? Are most hard drives these days reliable enough to run in RAID 0 worry free? The drives I am running are Seagate Barracuda 7200.8. They DO have a 5 year warranty, so I imagine they should be pretty good.

If the general consensus is that I shouldn't have a problem, maybe I'll give it a shot. Would I be able to convert my system to RAID 0 even though I have data on the drives already, or would I have to start fresh again? Would it be an easy move going from JBOD to RAID 0 in my situation?
 
Some people has a problem some doesn't. It's all about your risks your willing to take. I had raid0 on a couple of gxp drives and they ran for years without any problems... it just depends.
 
It's not really possible to answer how reliable or not a RAID0 is. You do run a increased chance of data loss since half of everything is on one drive or the other, if either drive fails, ALL data is gone. The little benefits that RAID0 offers are overshadowed by the risk and cost IMO.
 
WCES Ryan said:
I bought 2 250gb drives with my new system with the original intention of running RAID 0, but being worried about the notion that either drive failing would wipe me out, I wimped out and running them in a JBOD config.
Click to expand...

Your own statement is your own answer, it depends on what risks you want to take. Would you rather lose 250GB or 500GB of data?

Trying to derive reliability by the warranty length is also pot luck. I've had drives DOA, die within a week, and others that are over 8 years old and still running.

Personally I wouldn't risk RAID 0.
 
I just had to ask myself: Have I ever had a mechanical drive failure? I also figure that I'll upgrade by the time that the drives could possibly fail anyways (probably to a 4 drive RAID5).
 
WCES Ryan said:
really, how reliable (or unreliable) would it be?
Click to expand...

Mechanically, it is a little less than 1/2 as reliable as a single drive setup.

That figure is likely to be reduced a bit more, due to the added complexity of a RAID-0 setup, i.e. drivers failing, hardware failure of the RAID controller, issues with the possible lack of TLER that may cause the controller to drop the drive, i.e. destroy the array etc.

It really depends how far you want to go with the analysis.
 
Volkum said:
I just had to ask myself: Have I ever had a mechanical drive failure? I also figure that I'll upgrade by the time that the drives could possibly fail anyways (probably to a 4 drive RAID5).
Click to expand...

FTW!!! no problems here "yet" hehe
 
It's actually a pretty easy decision. The list of negatives is long. The list of positives is very very short, if it exists at all (depending on the situation). Why put all of your data at risk for very very little if any gain?
 
Om1kron said:
FTW!!! no problems here "yet" hehe
Click to expand...
36 drives total, 5 failures, 3 no longer in use, 28 still working. Oldest drive in use for 6 years and 1 Qtr, newest in use for 2 Qtrs (received as RMA for a failed drive). Average time to failure (only failed drives) > 3 years. Unfortunately it is incomplete, as it does not include 2 or 4 drives that I had received as RMA for failed drives, which have failed again since then.
 
drizzt81 said:
36 drives total, 5 failures, 3 no longer in use, 28 still working.
Click to expand...

I've only had one hd go bad and that was in my 4 month old Dell inspiron 6000, my di novo keyboard fell from a shelf onto my laptop right where the hd sits after a few hours of me playing counterstrike. LOL

it stuttered for 10 minutes while I was playing, then bluescreened than sounded like a dodge truck anytime I tried to reboot lol.
 
Well since RAID0 has no benefits in the role of a desktop PC and that you double your chances of hardware failure make it a no brainer. RAID 0 is not good.

Of course, I ran a pair of 20gig drives in RAID0 for a couple of years with no problems until the motherboard died and my new motherboard didnt support IDE on the RAID controller. I haven't bothered with RAID 0 ever since. No point to it since it didn't do squat for performance and now all the noobs are onto to that fact and now it means nothing for e-coolness. :D (in fact, you may actually lose e-coolness by having RAID0)
 
Yeah I think my decision is basically made... no raid 0 for me.

Not because of lack of performance gains or increased risk of data loss.

Because I don't want to lose e-coolness :p
 
Isn't JBOD just as likely to lose data as RAID 0 with a drive failure? Since the RAID controller is enabling the drives to span across each other if one goes it isn't like you can just boot up with one of them and still read the data, is it?

WCES Ryan - to change any of your setup you'd have to reinstall Windows.
 
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