Equal sized drives for RAID 0?
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Tenenbaum
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It's best to use the exact same hard drive for pretty much all raid setups.
But you can use whatever you want, two different drivers, different sizes.
If one hard drive is 300GB and the other is 200GB, you will lose 100GB off the 300GB for a Raid 0 Setup.
I'd wait for another answer, as I could be wrong.
But you can use whatever you want, two different drivers, different sizes.
If one hard drive is 300GB and the other is 200GB, you will lose 100GB off the 300GB for a Raid 0 Setup.
I'd wait for another answer, as I could be wrong.
mikesgroovin
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In short... No, they don't have to be the same size.
You would be limited to double the size of the smaller drive though for raid0
So, if you added a 100GB drive to the already existing 200GB you would have 200GB worth of total space rather than 300GB.
In my opinion, I dont know that it would be worth the risk.. you essentially are going to be running 2 drives and doubling the changes of a minor/major hardware failure. This may or may not end up in data loss... but it would most certainly take time to recover data. And you would be gaining speed during prolonged reads and writes... not necessarily initial file accessing times. That will, in most cases, take longer for 2 drives than just the single 200GB. But for reads and writes that take a long time... it would be faster, sure.
PROS -
Increased reads over long time transfers
Increased writes over long time transfers
CONS -
2x the hardware ware/tear risk
Slower access times than that of one disk... (this isn't read time... just the time it takes to FIND things on the array)
Limited to 2x the space of the lower capacity drive
On that laptop, I may try it for a while but would most likely go back to a single drive or mirror.
EDIT: @ Tenenbaum: no, you're absolutely right...in your scenario SubGum would have 400GB total
I'm slower at typing than you though, clearly...
2nd edit: SubGum, just checked your drive... it's a 7200 (in case you didn't know) I also found something about upgrading your BIOS on that model... but, you may want to look into it, I didn't because it's long and I'm sleepy.
Sorry...
Here's the link though The Official P-7811FX BIOS Version 9C.08.00 Download Is Here - Now with RAID! - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion
You would be limited to double the size of the smaller drive though for raid0
So, if you added a 100GB drive to the already existing 200GB you would have 200GB worth of total space rather than 300GB.
In my opinion, I dont know that it would be worth the risk.. you essentially are going to be running 2 drives and doubling the changes of a minor/major hardware failure. This may or may not end up in data loss... but it would most certainly take time to recover data. And you would be gaining speed during prolonged reads and writes... not necessarily initial file accessing times. That will, in most cases, take longer for 2 drives than just the single 200GB. But for reads and writes that take a long time... it would be faster, sure.
PROS -
Increased reads over long time transfers
Increased writes over long time transfers
CONS -
2x the hardware ware/tear risk
Slower access times than that of one disk... (this isn't read time... just the time it takes to FIND things on the array)
Limited to 2x the space of the lower capacity drive
On that laptop, I may try it for a while but would most likely go back to a single drive or mirror.
EDIT: @ Tenenbaum: no, you're absolutely right...in your scenario SubGum would have 400GB total
I'm slower at typing than you though, clearly...
2nd edit: SubGum, just checked your drive... it's a 7200 (in case you didn't know) I also found something about upgrading your BIOS on that model... but, you may want to look into it, I didn't because it's long and I'm sleepy.
Sorry... Here's the link though
The Official P-7811FX BIOS Version 9C.08.00 Download Is Here - Now with RAID! - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion
Hefemeister
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You can partition the raid array but it has to be inside the array. ie 400gb raid 0 with a 100gb partition and a 300gb partition.
kmote
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You mean in the situation where you have 1 200GB disk and 1 300GB disk could you use RAID 0 to give you 400GB and then get the 100GB drive waste as usable space? I have never had to do this myself but I understand it is possible whether you can do it or not depends on the controller. Also you would not partition it like this yourself it would appear to the OS as two seperate disks.
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SubGum
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Whoa, thanks for looking so much into my specs, mikesgroovin. I was actually wanted to buy another 320gig 7200rmp, and wanted to run RAID 0 (more so because I wanted to learn more about it through experience than actually get any performance benefits from it).
I guess it wouldn't even be worth it unless I were to buy 2 320's and replace the 200 I have, or add just another 200. Maybe I'll just throw the 320 in and run it old skool style as a seperate drive then.
Thanks for all the info though. I've never messed around with RAID 0 so it's good to learn from you all.
I guess it wouldn't even be worth it unless I were to buy 2 320's and replace the 200 I have, or add just another 200. Maybe I'll just throw the 320 in and run it old skool style as a seperate drive then.
Thanks for all the info though. I've never messed around with RAID 0 so it's good to learn from you all.
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