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raid 0 or 1

B

bmdean

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 30, 2004
Messages
88
Hello all,
I am about to get a bunch of old parts from my brother and will be getting a dual processor mobo and a raid card with some drives, not sure of sizes). And was wondering which raid setup to use. I am the main person that puts things on the server in my house (still in hs). I just keep stuff backed up to the current 80gig. Any ideas much appreciated.

Brandon
 
The RAID option you select should reflect your priorities with the data you will be storing. First, let me explain the terms

RAID 0: Two hard drives are abstracted into one, with the combined capacity of both the drives.
Benefits: Double space in one letter. Makes storage easier, no need to split things across two letters. Improves performance, how much depends heavily on what is being done and the setup that you're using. (two write arms each acting independently, theoretically twice the read and write capacity)
Drawbacks: Failure of one drive will (practically) destroy the data on the whole array.

RAID 1:Two hard drives are combined as one, but the data on the drives is identical. Data is mirrored across both drives, and either drive contains all the data of the array.
Benefits :Data is redundant. Failure of either drive will not destroy the data. The theoretical read speed is doubled (two copies to read from, once again the speed boost is negligible to significant, depending on a variety of factors.)
Drawbacks: You must purchase twice as many drives to hold the same capacity.


With this said, choose whatever option fits your needs and equipment/budget best. For home use, look into RAID0, its not like you're storing business critical files or running an important public webserver off that machine.
 
First make sure the drives are the same model and size or else it wont be smart to do a RAID. Second figure out if you really have a need for RAID. Unless you have alot of vital data that needs to be backed up RAID 1 mirroring is a waste because it cuts your storage space in half, while RAID 0 offers no backup and would be very minimal increase in transfers from a single drive (despite what popular HD benchmarks show). RAID 0 can be beneficial if your dealing with very large files, such as editing video files.
 
m11,
thanks for the detailed info on each setup. already had a rough idea though.

killerD,
i'm getting this stuff for free from my brother. don't know model #'s or sizes. and i'm also not just gonna have it sitting around like he does. i want to set this up for the expierience as well.

on a side note, i'm just wondering, is there any way to just use them independently? i've always wondered, but never been able to fiddle with them myself.

Brandon
 
My experience with striping (RAID 0) has been very good, but
that's with four disks. The performance increase with only two
disks isn't going to be very interesting.
 
EnderW, this will be a server that sits in the corner of my room so i can save a keyborad, mouse and monitor by just vnc'ing it. as i said before, i am really the only one who uses it.

Brandon
 
look at a 4-way raid5 card; it'll cost a few hundred bucks :( but give you redundancy and speed. :D
other than that, go raid1. having a disk die sucks, but raid5 helps.
 
unhappy_mage, i'm gettin' this stuff absolutely FREE. maybe if i had a need for raid 5 and the money i would do it. but raid 0 or 1 is find with me. kinda leanin' towards raid 0 right now. but not gettin' the stuff 'til this weekend. even then i gotta build it and put the os on a normal ide drive first anyways.

Brandon
 
Just lost a disk while running raid0
go Raid 5 unless you don't value your data
but don't do it via softare...

spend a few hundred, get at least 4-5 drives
and make yourself happy.

All depends on your budget though...

If you go raid0, Backup/Backup/Backup!!!!!
 
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