RAID 0 or 1 question

[Lars_Coleman]

I just set up my RAID Array with two Maxtor 7200rpm 30gig ATA100 drives. I want to store data on it for basically a backup and I was thinking that RAID 1 is going to be the best for that ... Then I thought that I have 60gigs there for the taking if I put it in a RAID 0 and that just seemed really cool ...

Main question would be what is more reliable? I know that if a drive fails in a RAID 1 you can add another one at the same capacity and rebuild it and that the RAID 0 is mainly for speed. I'd like to have the Array for both backup and games, but I don't want to sacrafice reliability for speed? Am I screwed?

<font color=red>"Can you deal with that!"</font color=red>

 

[camieabz]

Yep! LOL!

You know the score. One alternative is to have CD/RW back-ups of your RAID 0. Another is to get two more drives and have RAID 0+1. Combining for performance and mirroring for data integrity.

One other option is to create a system partition of about 2GB on your RAID 0 and then get a 2GB disk for the back-up of it. This might not be ideal, depending on how much system stuff you use, but you never know.

<b>
If the best things in life are free, why do I keep upgrading my system?
</b>

 

[shuke]

Raid 0+1 will gives you data security but will negates the speed improvement. I'll just add another old harddisk to backup whatever data I had on the raid and also a ghost image of the original setup on the raid.

It don't come easy.......not always.

 

[camieabz]

If RAID 0+1 negates the speed improvement, why do we have RAID 0+1?

RAID 0 Speed
RAID 1 Security

RAID 0+1 Both combined.

<b>
If the best things in life are free, why do I keep upgrading my system?
</b>

 

[shuke]

Assuming an ideal condition. You half the time taken to write to disk with Raid 0. Improvement in speed. Then in Raid 1, you copy whatever is written to another location making the writing operation a little longer. Unless the writing and backing-up is written at the same time and at the same speed as Raid 0 alone.

It don't come easy.......not always.

 

[Guest]

The same goes for 0+1.. Writes are a little longer but reads gain the benefits of RAID 0 sometimes even better access times at a cost of minimal 4 drive requirement

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***

 

[Lars_Coleman]

I just decided on going with the RAID 1. Just because I wanted to store my data on it and have it be somewhat safe. I don't need 60gigs at this point anyways, so once I do I will just set up RAID 0.

Thanks for all the help!

<font color=red>"Can you deal with that!"</font color=red>

 

[killall]

for raid 0 + 1 you would need 4 hard drives... 4 drives in raid 0... now that is potentially incredibly fast...

you do not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong

 

[FatBurger]

Not totally true, Shuke. Remember that it's the controller that is doing the extra work. The same reason that RAID 0 is faster prevents RAID 1 from slowing you down.

-----------------------
Quarter pounder inside

 

[shuke]

Point noted, but for home use and the need for 4 drives, personally, I rather not. Then again it's a matter of choice, I prefer simplicity and don't mind doing the backup. Actually I place in a line in the autoexec.bat file to copy just the very important files.

It don't come easy.......not always.

 

[shuke]

In raid 0+1 both the ide channels are occupied. Unless the bandwidth for each channel is more than adequate to write and mirror at the same time and at equal time as writing in raid 0 alone, then there's really something to shout about, raid 0+1 that is otherwise it's just another backup.

It don't come easy.......not always.

 

[FatBurger]

The fact that two drives are in the same channel is a moot point, since the drives work in tandem. You won't be writing or reading asynchronously, or even reading and writing different data.

-----------------------
Quarter pounder inside

 

[shuke]

That's why I use raid 0 setup with both drives as master on different channels. The backup drive is on the on-board ide.

It don't come easy.......not always.

 

[Guest]

The two channel would be a bottleneck for RAID 0 and 4 drives (They have the FastTrak TX4 for this where it has 4 channels and controllers are on board to handle sychronous communication from each and limited to one drive per channel) but not RAID 0+1. As this array never reads off 4 drives, only 1 drive per channel if set up properly. But you do get 4 drives looking for the start of the same data.. so access times can sometimes improve over RAID 0 with the same read benefits of RAID 0 and redundancy of RAID 1, which is what I said before at a hefty cost of a minimal 4 drive requirement.

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***

 

[FatBurger]

That's what I do too, but remember we're talking about 4 drives, RAID 0+1

-----------------------
Quarter pounder inside

 

[shuke]

I dunno about that FasTrak TX4. If it has 4 separate channels, then its really something. I'll try to read on it.
Thanks.

It don't come easy.......not always.