Need opinion, raid 0 & raid 1 on parittion two 3TB HDD.

[jek_748]

Planning to buy two 3TB HDD and partition both as 2TB on Raid 1 and 1TB as Raid 0 is it advisable or not?

 

[Ijack]

It's not possible.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, jek_748!

Unfortunately, what you want to do is literally impossible as Ijack mentioned. You can either do RAID 1 or RAID 0 with those 2 drives, but you cannot do both.
Before you buy the two 3 TB HDDs make sure they are the same identical drives.
Also it's advisable to put HDDs that are specifically designed for RAID systems like the WD Red drives. Such drives are tested in 24/7 environments and have a specific feature TLER (time-limited error recovery). With coordinated error handling, the hard drive is not dropped from the RAID array, thereby avoiding the entire RAID recovery, replacement, rebuild, and return experience.
Otherwise you are risking voiding the warranty of any other regular HDD in your system, plus higher possibility of failure.
So I guess what you need to decide is whether you want the reliability of RAID 1 or the speed of RAID 0 with the two HDDs.
You can have both in RAID 10 but you will need a minimum of 4 HDDs.

Hope this was helpful. Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[jek_748]

Thanks for the answer! Just an additional question, what if I just let the two HDD run on their own and have like an application(if there such) to create a backup and let it sync to one another, if I remember correctly like the briefcase tool in previous windows. At least it will double the capacity and have a backup, but will loose the true reliability of raid 1 right?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Thanks for the answer! Just an additional question, what if I just let the two HDD run on their own and have like an application(if there such) to create a backup and let it sync to one another, if I remember correctly like the briefcase tool in previous windows. At least it will double the capacity and have a backup, but will loose the true reliability of raid 1 right?

It's not a good idea, though. If your whole system crashes you will lose everything on those drives.
I'd rather back up either to a cloud storage or an external hard drive.
If you plan to set up the RAID 1 array, you should also consider what will happen if you accidentally overwrite an important file that's automatically mirrored to the other HDD. You also never know what can happen to your computer. Even if you decide to go through with the RAID 1 option and build the 2 drives in such an array, you definitely need to keep a backup to an external media that's physically separate from your computer.
This way the odds will be in your favor if you lose a file, an HDD or the entire computer system, because you will be able to retrieve the data from that media.

Hope this answers your questions!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[DataMedic]

It actually is possible if you're planning to run Linux, in fact that's the setup many NAS devices use (RAID 1 OS Partition + RAID 0 or 5 Data Partition). I believe it's called a Matrix RAID.

However I don't think it would be a good solution for a Windows machine unless you have a hardware controller. Windows software RAID 0 offers virtually no benefit over a single drive.

 

[DataMedic]

Here's an article about how to set it up as a hardware RAID using a few select Intel controllers: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022648.htm

So it's actually possible for other non-linux OS too. Might be a nice option in some select circumstances. However, I still think you'll get more bang for your buck by just adding a decent SSD for your OS and programs and using a simple RAID 1 for the data.