Question Best way to setup disks

[ilikekitkat]

Hi,

I have setup a PC based on a Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi + 2700X. I have the following disk attached:

500GB Samsung nvme disk on m2.1

Sata0: Samsung 250gb ssd
Sata1: Samsung 250gb ssd
Sata4: WD RED 3TB
Sata5: WD RED 3TB

Obviously the two WD disk are for storage / backup.

Any suggestions are welcome. If RAID - should I run legacy or uefi raid mode? What's the difference? If RAID can I mix ahci and raid array?

Thanks.

 

[davidgirgis]

OS on the NVMe
RAID 0: Two Samsungs
RAID 1: Two WD's

The RAID 0 setup will give you fast, 500GB, with less redundancy.
The RAID 1 setup gives you redundancy. In case one drive fails, you may still re-build the RAID volume.

Just backup your important data.

I think UEFI everything should work fine.

 

[ilikekitkat]

Thanks!

My initial thought was to run os on nvme, then use the ssds as standalone in a non raid configuration and have the two WDs in raid1 and use it for storage / backup.

What's your view on this?

 

[davidgirgis]

Whatever you want to do is fine...

SSDs in RAID 0: if either drive fails, you lose all data on the array.
SSDs no RAID: slower than when in RAID 0, but if one drive fails, you lose only the data on that drive...

no biggie either way...

just follow standard backup best practices...
which is basically, have your most important data in two places...it's that simple really...

 

[Satan-IR]

You already have a fast drive for the OS. Personally, I agree with your "initial thought" and don't think you need to make SSDs 'even faster' using RAID. It won't hurt either if you do.

If you're into games and such installing them on either SSD would give you faster load times and such and you can archive your files/data on the HDDs.

RAIDing them, depending on the RAID type you implement, would give you some faster data read/write. But a RAID is really not a replacement for backups as I think you know. As davidgirgis said keep at least two copies of your important data/files on seperate media and in different places.

 

[USAFRet]

SSD + RAID 0 - Don't.
Some of the benchmark numbers look great, but you gain zero user facing benefit.

This, from several years ago. Things have not changed:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html