Which RAID array?

Which RAID array as described in first post?

  • Total voters
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aggiestudd07

aggiestudd07

Gawd
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Oct 1, 2006
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I have one RaptorX 150 that I will continue to use as my primary boot drive, I currently have two 320gb sata drives and I am looking at purchasing a 750gb sata drive. Please give suggestions:

(1)
150gb boot drive
2x 320gb RAID 1 secure storage
750gb storage

(2)
150gb boot drive
2x 320gb + 750gb RAID 5 secure storage

(3)
Other, please describe
 
What are your requirements? I have no clue what you are trying to accomplish.
 
evandena said:
What are your requirements? I have no clue what you are trying to accomplish.
Click to expand...

i am really just looking for what people think about think about the two options. i guess just maximize data security and storage capacity
 
Well, RAID levels also pertain to what you plan to use these disks for as well. For raw performance without much need for redundancy, RAID0 with those 320GBs are going to be fine (I am also assuming they are the WD 1-platter disks, which makes their reliability and performance very good).

If you want storage without much need for write performance (you're only going to write a file to the disk once, right :)), with a need for redundancy, RAID5 would be ideal. However, if you plan to use a 750GB disk along with the 320s, you're going to lose 430GB in the setup, as RAID5 requires equal size disks. however, one trick you can do is to divide the 750GB disk into two 320GB partitions (with some remainder, which you can either make into some small storage partition or leave unused) so your array would see "four" 320GB partitions and you would then be able to utilize 320GB x 3. :)

However, note that this strategy won't provide redundancy if the 750GB hard disk were to fail, as that would contain two 320GB partitions in your RAID5 array, and RAID5 cannot sustain double disk failure.
 
iBP_James said:
Well, RAID levels also pertain to what you plan to use these disks for as well. For raw performance without much need for redundancy, RAID0 with those 320GBs are going to be fine (I am also assuming they are the WD 1-platter disks, which makes their reliability and performance very good).

If you want storage without much need for write performance (you're only going to write a file to the disk once, right :)), with a need for redundancy, RAID5 would be ideal. However, if you plan to use a 750GB disk along with the 320s, you're going to lose 430GB in the setup, as RAID5 requires equal size disks. however, one trick you can do is to divide the 750GB disk into two 320GB partitions (with some remainder, which you can either make into some small storage partition or leave unused) so your array would see "four" 320GB partitions and you would then be able to utilize 320GB x 3. :)

However, note that this strategy won't provide redundancy if the 750GB hard disk were to fail, as that would contain two 320GB partitions in your RAID5 array, and RAID5 cannot sustain double disk failure.
Click to expand...
RAID doesn't work off partitions. You dedicate the entire drive to it (with the standardized RAID levels). Even if what you suggested were possible, you might as well have all the drives in JBOD. The single 750gb drive would be the failure point and would make your array less reliable than a single disk. To answer the original question, why waste most of the 750gb drive to a RAID 5 array with smaller drives? Don't forget, RAID is not a backup solution, it merely provides uptime.
 
i am looking at having at least 320gb mirrored for drive images and personal media storage, the rest (movies and similar stuff) doesnt really merit the cost of redundancy
 
#3 other

150gb Raptor = boot
320gb = important stuff
750gb = movies
320gb = backup of important stuff in an external enclosure, turned off between making backups of other 320gb drive
 
[LYL]Homer;1032763837 said:
#3 other

150gb Raptor = boot
320gb = important stuff
750gb = movies
320gb = backup of important stuff in an external enclosure, turned off between making backups of other 320gb drive
Click to expand...

very good suggestion, one that i didnt think of. i would, however, prefer to keep everything inside the pretty *little* case i bought for my computer to *minimize* the amount of external wiring required for my system.
 
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