RAID setup with 3 drives

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Gracodana

Gracodana

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Jul 4, 2013
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So I remember ages ago talking to a guy who had a storage setup that had a form of RAID in three drives. IT partitioned the storage so it ended up being a mix of RAID 0 and 1, I think it worked by having 2/3 of the data stored on each drive so it could sustain 1 total drive failure and still have all the data. It was also much faster.

Does anyone have any clue how to do this because I want to get a RAID setup but dont want to get 4 drives for RAID 10 and RAID 0 feels a bit dodgy(might do it in the end though).
 
Solution
USAFRet


Yes, it might decrease load times. At the expense of greater fail potential.
You can if you want.

I wouldn't. And absolutely not with used drives from ebay.
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A RAID array of any type is not a backup.
It is only to (probably) ward off the loss of a physical drive.

RAID 5 with 3 drives = ~2/3 the total space.
3 x 1TB drives + RAID 5 = ~2TB actual usable space. Maybe a little less.

What is your desire for this RAID? What will you be using it for?
 
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Personal use, mostly games storage.
 
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Then a RAID array is probably not your best solution.
It only helps in the rare case of a physical drive fail. There are much better ways to safeguard your data.

What drives do you have in the system now, and what are you looking to change?
 
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I have a 240gb SSD, 1TB 5400RPM Hitachi drive, 2TB external Seagate drive(the connection broke so I took it out of the casing to put in my pc) and a second 2TB drive that makes a weird crackling noise(looking to getting rid of it soon).

I was thinking of getting a 500gb SSD as I dont think a 250gb one would quite be enough(dont see the point in getting a half assed solution) but I want to keep the upgrade within £100
 
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For one...you need similar size and performance drives.
For instance, 3 x 1TB HDD. You can't put mixed size drives in a RAID array, nor do you mix HDD and SSD.
 
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Oh no I was just telling you what I had in my pc right now. I was planing to buy 2-3 WD blue drives for RAID.
 
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I want to get more fast storage for my pc. I dont want to spend the money on getting a 500gb SSD so I thought two 1TB drives in RAID 0 would be better. I was wondering about RAID 5 because it would give more reliability but tbh I dont really want to buy a third one. I'll have a look at some other drives, any particular recommendations(or maybe more importantly ones to avoid)?
 
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Oh does it not decrease load times? eh the 240gb ssd is just about enough but I like to have all the total war game installed(150gb) and BDO(nearly 50gb) and if i'm playing another single player game like the witcher or something you can see the problem....
 
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Yes, it might decrease load times. At the expense of greater fail potential.
You can if you want.

I wouldn't. And absolutely not with used drives from ebay.
 
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Solution
USAFRet has been giving you some good advice.
I would Like to emphasize - You do NOT use WD Blue drives for Raid - they are not designed for that. For Raid you need the more expensive line of drives (In all brands).
Prior to SSDs all My systems Had Raid 0 configurations, did Not have any problems. With the current crop of HDDs (Except the models designed for Raid config) I would never trust. them even in a raid 5 config.
PS Raid config does very little to boost performance for read/writing of small files. Raid 0/5 only provides a performance boost when file size is > than stripe size (ie if Stripe size is 128 Kb than any file smaller than that would one be on one drive (Raid0) and would have to be written to the 2nd drive in raid 5 (Slight performance hit).
 
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Hmm kinda looking like I should just hold out for an SSD upgrade in the future. I'll have a look at some higher quality drives, I didn't really know about specific RAID drives(would they be WD red and such?). Just to say I wasn't really thinking as a defo on the second hand HDD I was more seeing how negative the response would be to see if it was worth or not(can confirm I wont try it unless I know the drive first hand).
 
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Yes, I'd go for the SSD to improve performance.
More on HDDs and Raid. Quote "When an error is found on a desktop edition hard drive, the drive will enter into a deep recovery cycle to attempt to repair the error, recover the data from the problematic area, and then reallocate a dedicated area to replace the problematic area. This process can take up to 2 minutes depending on the severity of the issue. Most RAID controllers allow a very short amount of time for a hard drive to recover from an error. If a hard drive takes too long to complete this process, the drive will be dropped from the RAID array. Most RAID controllers allow from 7 to 15 seconds for error recovery before dropping a hard drive from an array. Western Digital does not recommend installing desktop edition hard drives in an enterprise environment (on a RAID controller)." End Quote
 
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In addition, NAS drives are designed to be run at full speed, in close proximity. Vibration, etc.

My current Qnap NAS box started (Jan 2017) with a random collection of 3TB Seagate and WD drives, because that is what I had around. RAID 5.
I used those drives, because I wasn't convinced I needed or wanted to keep this Qnap, and didn't want to invest $500 for drives in a failed experiment.

I switched to 4 x 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS drives a few weeks ago, still RAID 5.
Performance is noticeably better.


But back to an answer to the original question:
RAID of any type is rarely the answer in a consumer desktop PC.
 
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You've been given some great advice by the users on this thread. It's true what others have said here that RAID is not a backup. The prevalent backup strategy is the 3-2-1 method, which is to have 3 copies of your data, 2 stored locally but on different mediums (i.e devices), and 1 stored somewhere offsite to protect against disaster such as a fire, flood, etc.

As far as which hard drives to go with if you do decide to go that route, we agree you want drives that are "NAS-branded". These drives are typically branded with red labels/color schemes. Our current branding in this category is called IronWolf and IronWolf Pro. These drives are rated for 24x7 use, up to 180 TB of data per year for standard IronWolf and 300 TB for IronWolf Pro (standard desktop drives are typically rated for only 55TB) and, as mentioned, the firmware is engineered to detect vibration and mitigate issues both in performance and longevity, which is important because multiple hard drives operating in small enclosed spaces can really beat up on and wear each-other out if these considerations are not taken into account. Some larger capacity models even have physical RV sensors built into the drive for added support of these same considerations. The firmware is also more robustly prepared for multi-user access and cloud storage situations. NAS drives typically have longer warranties than regular desktop drives, with a standard BarraCuda having a 2 year warranty, a standard IronWolf having a 3 year warranty, and the IronWolf Pro having a 5 year warranty.

Good luck in finding the best solution for your needs!
 
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