To Raid 0 or not Raid 0 - worth the risk?

[BlueHeaven]

So I need another hard drive (down to my last 19g, filling up fast).
I was origianlly going to buy this $219:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (2nd Generation Perpendicular Recording) 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s NCQ Hard Drive OEM ST31000340AS
https://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=CA3407002

or, I could get 2 of these and run raid 0 $93:
ClubIT Product - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (2nd Generation Perpendicular Recording) 500GB 7200rpm 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s NCQ Hard Drive OEM ST3500320AS
Which would actually be cheaper.

Or should I not raid 0, so as to not have the risk of loosing all my data if one drive fails. Also anyone have any opinions about these drives. The prices seemed good, but I always open to suggestion.
Not sure if I would really need the faster drive access, as I would mostly be storing media (movies, music, recordings, and more movies).

 

[NightSurge]

Have you considered one internal HDD and one external? You can use the external to save backups, or use it as a more mobile data storage, and it is very inexpensive now. What size was your original HDD and how long did it take you to fill it?

 

[b1gapl]

RAID 0 isn't really risky, because you should always have a backup regardless. RAIDing or not. And I think hard drives don't fail as much as they used to.

Even though you wouldn't need the speed, because you're just storing, those hard drives are very good for the price. So in your case, RAID 0 isn't necessary, and I would go with surgeVel's plan.

 

[BlueHeaven]

Have you considered one internal HDD and one external? You can use the external to save backups, or use it as a more mobile data storage, and it is very inexpensive now. What size was your original HDD and how long did it take you to fill it?

Original HDD was 320g, took about 6 months to fill (download tons of movies and TV shows). Maybe I'll go with your idea, externals always nice for mobility, any recommendations?

 

[NightSurge]

That depends on the size you want. Basically look for anything that is USB 2.0 standard, has 7200rpm, and if listed, a low seek time (around 9ms or lower) and high Cache size (8MB - 16MB).

 

[Dakaggo]

That depends on the size you want. Basically look for anything that is USB 2.0 standard, has 7200rpm, and if listed, a low seek time (around 9ms or lower) and high Cache size (8MB - 16MB).

Well if he's simply storing backups on it seek time doesn't really matter much does it?

 

[mgcook]

i ran RAID 0 with two seagate barracudas for over 6 months with no problems.

i only run 1 now, and i can tell how much slower it is.