RAIDing HDs

[infiltrator7]

I have 250gb hd, and I want to get another HD to put it into a RAID format. If i do this, will all of my stuff on the HD be erased when I set them up for raid, or will i be able to keep the stuff on my HD?

edit: do both HDs have to be exactly the same? I have a 250gb 8mb cache HD, but can I get a 250gb with 16mb cache and put it with the other one?

 

[Nitestick]

ideally i think you should have them the same but i think as long as they are both the same capacity it should work. whether or not you keep your data will depend on which RAID level you use. if its RAID 0 you will have to format and lose your data unless you do a backup. if its RAID 1 then you don't need to format. i'm assuming you'll want RAID 0 though.

 

[infiltrator7]

yeah i was going to go with raid 0, but i'll be able to back up my data somehow. just out of curiosity, will there be a performance gain?

 

[jeremy]

yeah and it will be very noticble , but be aware that when using raid0 if one of the hd's fail then all the data goes south.. so you really shouldnt use raid0 unless you got a third hd for backup purposes

 

[infiltrator7]

yeah and it will be very noticble , but be aware that when using raid0 if one of the hd's fail then all the data goes south.. so you really shouldnt use raid0 unless you got a third hd for backup purposes

so you wouldn't suggest raid0 then? i don't really wanna do a raid1 because i'd rather have more space than a backup.

 

[jseber1982]

Your machine will be as fast as the slowest drive.. yes like they said above, you should have ideal drives if possible.

The drives can be different sizes, If you have a 100gb drive and a 200gb drive,, when you stripe them, it will use the 100gb drive and 100gigs on the 200gig drive, wasting 100gigs.

Also, you have access times to think about. If one drive can access data in 7ms, and the other one takes 8ms, you will have a bottleneck issue and the system could seem sluggish.

As far as the drive cache, i am not surehow that works in raid. not sure if the cache works like a stripe or not.

And definitly make sure that the drives rotate at the same speed..

.............Just to reiterate what they said above

Raid0 = good performance, no redundancy.. Must have at least 2 drives

Raid1=crap performance, Good redundancy..Must have at least 2 drives

Raid5=good performance, Great redundancy..Must have at least 3 drives, and you loose some storage space


Help this was educational lol

 

[alexsabree]

wats redunancy??? thats a big word...