- Sep 2, 2013
- 6
- 0
- 10,510
Hey, all. You know how they always say RAID isn't backup? Well, I can say with absolute certainty that it is not.
For the past 5 years, I've run my computer in a RAID 10 with four 4 TB HDDs using my motherboard's RAID controller. The goal was to have fast performance, redundancy, and easy recovery in case of disk failure. The biggest flaw was how much strain RAID 10 puts on the disks. There is so much writing that I go through hard drives significantly faster than conventional usage. The inconvenience is mitigated with Western Digital's excellent warranty, which had me only paying for shipping costs for probably about $1,500 worth of replacement drives, but it's still pretty annoying.
The part nobody told me is that I could still lose the array if I lose two drives, even if it says everywhere I can lose two drives. I think it's because two drives are 0, two drives are 1, and I can only lose a 0 and a 1, but I can't lose two of the same. I'm not sure what happened, but I had to reboot and I got an error saying that two drives are degraded. I was in Windows and I checked the serial numbers and I was in the process of swapping the drives to start the rebuilding process when Windows crashed and that was the last time the computer was working. I'm going to try to recover the RAID after I install a fresh copy of Windows on another drive, in case there's still something I could do.
In case there is no hope, I will pay for a recovery service. I would appreciate any suggestions for some good, affordable options.
What I liked the most about RAID 10 was that I could resume productivity immediately. There would be significantly degraded performance until the rebuild completed, but it was seamless, I never lost data, and I could still use the computer, more or less. It's not just data that I need permanently archived, I need my system to be available at all times. I do a lot of video editing, for example. Even if I backup the source files, how am I supposed to backup something I'm working on that's stored within a Windows environment? I need redundancy for both my files and my workspace within Windows, which can have a lot of moving parts. What are my options?
Would a NAS system be worth looking into? I always see Newegg sales for WD Red drives, but 5400 RPM seems slow for what I need. I'm thinking maybe a hybrid solution, with Windows running in a smaller RAID 10, large work files in use will be on a separate RAID 10 (or maybe RAID 1 or something else), and a big ass NAS for longterm storage. USB 3.0 or eSATA or maybe a PCIe controller?
What about video games, though? I can't be bothered to uninstall programs regularly and games easily take up a TB by themselves. I don't think redundancy is horribly important, but I'm not sure I can separate any program installs from the Windows environment.
If I'm going to use any form of RAID, are there things I can do to avoid wear?
In short, here's what I need:
For the past 5 years, I've run my computer in a RAID 10 with four 4 TB HDDs using my motherboard's RAID controller. The goal was to have fast performance, redundancy, and easy recovery in case of disk failure. The biggest flaw was how much strain RAID 10 puts on the disks. There is so much writing that I go through hard drives significantly faster than conventional usage. The inconvenience is mitigated with Western Digital's excellent warranty, which had me only paying for shipping costs for probably about $1,500 worth of replacement drives, but it's still pretty annoying.
The part nobody told me is that I could still lose the array if I lose two drives, even if it says everywhere I can lose two drives. I think it's because two drives are 0, two drives are 1, and I can only lose a 0 and a 1, but I can't lose two of the same. I'm not sure what happened, but I had to reboot and I got an error saying that two drives are degraded. I was in Windows and I checked the serial numbers and I was in the process of swapping the drives to start the rebuilding process when Windows crashed and that was the last time the computer was working. I'm going to try to recover the RAID after I install a fresh copy of Windows on another drive, in case there's still something I could do.
In case there is no hope, I will pay for a recovery service. I would appreciate any suggestions for some good, affordable options.
What I liked the most about RAID 10 was that I could resume productivity immediately. There would be significantly degraded performance until the rebuild completed, but it was seamless, I never lost data, and I could still use the computer, more or less. It's not just data that I need permanently archived, I need my system to be available at all times. I do a lot of video editing, for example. Even if I backup the source files, how am I supposed to backup something I'm working on that's stored within a Windows environment? I need redundancy for both my files and my workspace within Windows, which can have a lot of moving parts. What are my options?
Would a NAS system be worth looking into? I always see Newegg sales for WD Red drives, but 5400 RPM seems slow for what I need. I'm thinking maybe a hybrid solution, with Windows running in a smaller RAID 10, large work files in use will be on a separate RAID 10 (or maybe RAID 1 or something else), and a big ass NAS for longterm storage. USB 3.0 or eSATA or maybe a PCIe controller?
What about video games, though? I can't be bothered to uninstall programs regularly and games easily take up a TB by themselves. I don't think redundancy is horribly important, but I'm not sure I can separate any program installs from the Windows environment.
If I'm going to use any form of RAID, are there things I can do to avoid wear?
In short, here's what I need:
- Fast reading/writing
- Bulletproof redundancy
- Windows environment redundancy
- Lots of space
- Easier/reduced maintenance
- No SSDs (too expensive, space shrinks, and data cannot be recovered upon failure)
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram