Questions about RAID 0 and storage more generally.

[My Pet Russian]

This is going to be a bit rambly, but I feel like it's necessary in order to get my questions answered the best. I have an NVMe M.2 256GB SSD, 2, soon to be 3, 1TB WD Blue drives, all the same model (WD10EZEX) and a Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon which supports RAID 0.

When I first upgraded to my new PC I set my HDDs up in Storage Spaces, but I had to undo that after Assassin's Creed Origins refuses to work on Storage Spaces, so I've just been using the droves separately ever since. Now, this is a minor complaint, I'm getting annoyed with having to juggle my installations over multiple HDDs, it would be more convenient for it to all be on one HDD, but I don't have the money to replace my HDDs with a 2TB+ drive, I do have the money for a new 1TB and I can make a RAID 0.

How I have my PC set up now is to have all my Downloads, Documents etc, are all saved on my HDD, but since that includes my University stuff I don't want to lose it if the RAID goes down, so are their any disadvantages to saving everything like that to my SSD? Will it reduce the life span of the SSD? The files aren't that big and the only thing my SSD is used for is OS and programs that I always need such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Office. Is it just that they are usually small capacity so it's better to store the files elsewhere?

Are there any disadvantages I need to be aware of when running RAID 0, besides backing up stuff?

Thanks for any help, I can clarify anything if needed

 

[asoroka]

You only need 2 disks for a raid 0 cluster.
That will give you a 2TB hdd, however the risk is that a disk failure on either one will lose all data.

You can add a third drive to make a 3TB disk, but of course risk of failure is now 3 times higher, so back up your data.

You can use the ssd for your work stuff, but you should back it up somewhere (offsite best)

 

[My Pet Russian]

You only need 2 disks for a raid 0 cluster.
That will give you a 2TB hdd, however the risk is that a disk failure on either one will lose all data.

You can add a third drive to make a 3TB disk, but of course risk of failure is now 3 times higher, so back up your data.

You can use the ssd for your work stuff, but you should back it up somewhere (offsite best)

Is something like Google Drive a decent back up? The only stuff I need to make sure I keep is a small folder of word documents. Everything else can be deleted and I wouldn't miss it/I'd reinstall it.

 

[asoroka]

Yes if you trust them not to spy, any cloud provider would do, either that or an external usb disk.

 

[My Pet Russian]

Yes if you trust them not to spy, any cloud provider would do, either that or an external usb disk.

Okay, thank you for your help!