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To RAID or not to RAID...

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  • 27-02-2007 9:54pm
    #1
    WetDaddy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,399 ✭✭✭


    So, I've just received my two new 500GB WD Caviars (7200rpm) from Komplett (along with most of the rest of my new build: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/barrelhousecat/build07b.jpg) and I'm trying to decide what way I should set them up.

    The PC itself will be my own desktop machine, my main computer apart from my work laptop. So, it'll be used primarily for gaming, watching movies and, in my case, recording music. I'll also be using it for some design work (Photoshop mostly), but not a huge amount.

    I was thinking of going for a RAID 0 array, but the only advantage I can see would be faster seek times. Since I'll be putting an E6700 in there and the machine's going to be fairly fast anyway, I'm beginning to consider RAID 0 not really being worth. I know the chance of 1 of the 2 disks failing is pretty slim, but if I'm not really going to be getting any advantage out of it, RAID 0 probably isn't worth the hassle.

    So, my options would be to go with a RAID 1 (500GB should be plenty for the moment) and not worry too much about backups, or else just keep the drives separate and have, say, media on one drive and the OS / games & apps on the other drive. The latter being partitioned accordingly.

    Anyone got any suggestions? I'm open to all sorts of configs here! Cheers!


Comments

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    #2
    zilog_jones
    Registered Users Posts: 6,641 ✭✭✭zilog_jones


    I'd steer clear of RAID 0 - anyone I've heard of who's tried it ended up with one of the disks failing. I think it's cursed.


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    #3
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭BostonB


    RAID 0 is fine if you have a backup in place.


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    #4
    WetDaddy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,399 ✭✭✭WetDaddy


    BostonB: Cheers for the advice, but I don't plan to have any backups in place since really, I'll be using the machine for lots of different purposes and therefore, would like to back up pretty much everything.

    zilog_jones: Think you're probably right. I'm of the opinion I don't really need RAID 0 (but I'm waiting for someone to try and convince me!), and will probably go with RAID 1 instead.


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    #5
    jester77
    Registered Users Posts: 11,262 ✭✭✭✭jester77


    I have Raid 0 running flawlessly for 3 years. It has 3 OS's on it at the moment. No problems but I have all my data and images of each OS backed up on an NAS server. IMO Raid 0 is too risky unless you have backups in place.


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    #6
    joshcork
    Closed Accounts Posts: 161 ✭✭joshcork


    Yea I was interested in setting up some kinda RAID mostly for nerdy purposes. After looking at it all I thought RAID 5 was cool you get the speed of RAID0 and the redundancy of RAID1.
    But the only thing is you need a minimum of 3 disks. I was thinking 3 250Gig drives which gives us 500Gigs in the end.


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