Should I partition my shortstroked raid like this?

[Joeyb8775]

Hello,
I will be setting up my first RAID. I have four 1TB Samsung F3R's. 4TB total space. I plan on making my first partition 400gb (outer 10% of the disks if I am correct.) for my OS and common games. I then plan on making a second partition of 600gb for extra gaming space. That way I am still in the first 25% of the disks for good performance. Does this make sense? I plan on not using the remaining 3TB.

 

[WyomingKnott]

A) If you mean to partition before setting up the RAID, I have never heard of a RAID controller that will eat partitions instead of whole drives. Community, please enlighten me if I have missed a common practice.

B) Hmm. 4 GB of total disk space, 1 GB of the RAID used, 3 GB of the RAID free - you are doing a 4-drive RAID0, yes? Please do regular backups, since the loss of one drive, or the RAID controller, means the loss of all data.

 

[sminlal]

The principle is sound - if you create your RAID volume and then partition it to use only the first part of it, you'll actually be using only the outermost cylinders of each of the physical drives.

From the sizes you listed it sounds like you're using RAID-0. It seems to me like you're putting an awful lot of stuff onto a RAID volume that's four times more likely to die than a single disk is, so make sure you have a sound backup strategy.

 

[Joeyb8775]

That is correct. I will be using raid 0 for ultimate performance. It is a gaming PC so I am not too concerned with data loss. I was thinking about using a WD mybook external as my backup solution.

 

[adampower]

I like it.

 

[Joeyb8775]

Best answer selected by Joeyb8775.