Best Hard Drives for RAID (0,1 and 10)

[IamTimTech]

Hello everyone, thanks in advance for all your help! Plain and simple, I am looking for the best drives to use in my new machine. I would like to use a RAID 10 with 4 or 6 2TB drives. I want to use only Western Digital. I normally prefer Black drives, but had heard that Black drives are not optimized for RAID purposes, so would I use Blue, should I shell out the extra money for Reds? I have no idea so I figured I would ask the community for your input

 

[IamTimTech]

I'll have to mull this one over, it may come down to how I intend to control my RAID 10. What are your suggested methods? I normally just use Intel's Rapid storage technology.

 

[USAFRet]

Wait, so will I see a performance increase from a RAID 0 SSD configuration or not?

In certain limited operations, yes.
For instance, if you were using that SSD RAID 0 array as a target for large file video rendering.

For a boot drive and normal applications? Not so much.

 

[IamTimTech]

Then I will conserve my money and motherboard sata ports by just using a single SSD for my OS and games. I also should mention I have been debating using an M.2 SSD for my O.S to open up sata ports on the MOBO. Input?

 

[IamTimTech]

I am still very interested in knowing what the best way to run this RAID would be.

 

[USAFRet]

I am still very interested in knowing what the best way to run this RAID would be.

That depends on exactly what you want it to do.

RAID 0 for this, RAID 1 for that, some other combination for something else.

Different drives or arrays for different uses.

 

[IamTimTech]

Well I will have 4 2TB WD Red drives in a RAID 10, I imagine Asus's intgrated Raid controller will work just fine?

 

[USAFRet]

Well I will have 4 2TB WD Red drives in a RAID 10, I imagine Asus's intgrated Raid controller will work just fine?

Probably, yes.

What I meant for 'different uses' is...what exactly what it will be used for.

For instance, I have a Samsung 250 GB SSD, specifically for photography work.
I don't use that drive for a backup target. That is relegated to an older HDD, and a whole different PC.

 

[IamTimTech]

The 4 2TB drives will house all of my movies, music, books, documents and above mentioned family history.

My OS, games, and active programs will be installed on my 500GB SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

The 4 2TB drives will house all of my movies, music, books, documents and above mentioned family history.

My OS, games, and active programs will be installed on my 500GB SSD.

Well...I have similar data spread across a couple of drives. As do a lot of people.
A simple file copy application such as SyncBack Free can provide an easy copy set of your files/data.
No RAID needed.

 

[drtweak]

I use a Dell SAS 5 card that just does RAID 0 and 1 and have my 2 2TB in a RAID 0 and the 4TB backup. Last weekend i moved and a drive fell out. The drive died. RIP good old samsung spin point, and bought another RED. Took the other RED i had, and used those as my new RAID 0 and my old Samsung and made it the stand alone drive.

All i have are Video on it. Write speed is nice and fast. My OS drive on both my media server and Gaming PC are the Crucial M500 256 GB and when i copy for them to the RAID 0 i get about 150 MBps which is nice when coping over a freshly converted Video file. From drive to drive i get about 80 or so.

The built in RAID should be good, but I've always been a fan on True Hardware RAID.

Also once you get this build save up some money and get a single 4TB and have that as a backup that you keep in a safe or something, because, knock on wood, a fire, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, what ever natural disasters you have where you live happen and they are in a good safe everything won't be lost.

 

[IamTimTech]

Thanks for the advice. After reading reviews on newegg I can see that a lot of people have problems with the Red Drives being DOA, I think I am either going go a couple of these, or a couple of Caviar Black drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136579&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=