Figured this would be the best spot for a question about RAID.
Right now, I have a terabyte hard drive in my desktop computer that I use for storage of...well, pretty much everything. It's a Seagate 7200.11 drive, like the ones with bad firmware, so I'm kind of wary about leaving so much data on it. The best way I can think of to back up the data off a terabyte hard drive is another terabyte drive, so I was considering buying another terabyte drive or two and setting up a RAID 1 or RAID 5 system (single extra for the first, two extra for the second).
Since the drive I have right now is part of the family with problems, I was hoping to buy a different brand or at least the next revision (7200.12). I'd heard that it's best to use identical drives in a RAID setup - would there be a large hit if I didn't?
Also, I'm somewhat pessimistic about my power supply. I recently upgraded it, so it's powerful enough, but it isn't the most high-end brand (it's a Rosewill that had a lower powered sibling on the "Best Bang for your Buck" list in the recommended PSU thread). If something were to go catastrophically wrong (*knocks on wood*), would it be likely to fry two or three attached hard drives? I can probably buy a new...everything, except graphics card and hard drives...and have it be an upgrade for $200 - it's really just the data I'm concerned about.
I was also thinking of just buying either an external enclosure for my current drive and replacing it with two others in RAID 1, instead of three in RAID 5.
If I were to buy just one other hard drive and set it up as RAID 1, could I add another hard drive later and switch to RAID 5 without losing data? Likewise, would I need to reformat or something to set up RAID 1?
Sorry for all the questions, but I'd rather ask now than be sorry later.
Right now, I have a terabyte hard drive in my desktop computer that I use for storage of...well, pretty much everything. It's a Seagate 7200.11 drive, like the ones with bad firmware, so I'm kind of wary about leaving so much data on it. The best way I can think of to back up the data off a terabyte hard drive is another terabyte drive, so I was considering buying another terabyte drive or two and setting up a RAID 1 or RAID 5 system (single extra for the first, two extra for the second).
Since the drive I have right now is part of the family with problems, I was hoping to buy a different brand or at least the next revision (7200.12). I'd heard that it's best to use identical drives in a RAID setup - would there be a large hit if I didn't?
Also, I'm somewhat pessimistic about my power supply. I recently upgraded it, so it's powerful enough, but it isn't the most high-end brand (it's a Rosewill that had a lower powered sibling on the "Best Bang for your Buck" list in the recommended PSU thread). If something were to go catastrophically wrong (*knocks on wood*), would it be likely to fry two or three attached hard drives? I can probably buy a new...everything, except graphics card and hard drives...and have it be an upgrade for $200 - it's really just the data I'm concerned about.
I was also thinking of just buying either an external enclosure for my current drive and replacing it with two others in RAID 1, instead of three in RAID 5.
If I were to buy just one other hard drive and set it up as RAID 1, could I add another hard drive later and switch to RAID 5 without losing data? Likewise, would I need to reformat or something to set up RAID 1?
Sorry for all the questions, but I'd rather ask now than be sorry later.