How to Maximize the Life of My RAID 1 Array

[Guest]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum, though not to Tom's Hardware. I have more of a hypothetical question as opposed to a specific problem.

My system consists of one SSD set up as a Windows 7 boot drive and two HDDs in RAID 1 configuration being used for file storage. I access files on the hard drives at least a few times every day. When I do access them, it usually takes about 5-10 seconds for the hard drives to spin up from idle before I can view the file.

It got me thinking about disk reliability. I'm not so sure that making the drives spin up multiple times per day would be good for them; maybe it's better to keep them spinning in a low power state. In your opinion, which is better:

a) Let the drives remain idle until I need to access the files on them, each time letting them take a few seconds to spin up
OR
b) Force the drives to keep running for as long as the computer is on

Or are there other options that would maximize the life of this array? Thanks for your input.

 

[drtweak]

I would say a. The more they are on the more wear and tear gets put on them. If you dont like the lag time then leave them on. If all you are doing is light reading and writing to them then i wouldn't worry about it either way really. The thing is in an enviroment when their is a lot of usage on them like in a server, most RAID hard drives NEVER spin down EVER. They are ALWAYS on so long as the server is on.

Now the thing is a RAID 1 is for redundancy. If you ALWAYS need access to those files, and you can not risk having to power down your PC, replace the drive, and restore for a backup, then a RAID 1 is right for you. RAID 1 is NOT A BACKUP! If you are doing it to Protect your files you are doing it wrong. If one drives file system gets corrupt, so does the other. if one drives files get deleted. So does the other. Unless you have a backup on top of this RAID 1, i wouldn't use a RAID 1 if the the two above aren't true. If you don't have a backup already, and the files are important, and you don't need it to have a 100% uptime, i would break the raid, just use the 1 drive and then use the other for a backup.

That is just my 2 cents.