Re: RAID array for home

Bitstring <46fe6346$0$13941$fa0fcedb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, from the wonderful person GB <NOTsomeone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> said

"GSV Three Minds in a Can" <GSV@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:DLxggNEOdl$GFAbS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Bitstring <1i57tte.1eghku3cxa0yeN%me@xxxxxxxxxxx>, from the wonderful
person xmas <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> said
After a recent drive failure, I want to set up a RAID array at home both
for speed of data access and redundancy. Never set one up before, but
would like to do it in hardware rather than relying on Windows: any
recommendations?

'Don't' would probably be my first response.

'Do' would be mine!


Speed - you won't see much, if any, benefit unless you are routinely using
huge files.

RAID 1 is duplication, and there should be no speed improvement.

Which is why I assumed we were talking RAID 3, or 0+1.

Redundancy - So you have the data replicated across 2 (or more) hard
drives, but the whole thing still relies on one RAID controller, CPU,
motherboard, PSU etc. In particular if the controller goes South you may
be stuffed. If one disk fails (which is what you are guarding against) you
MAY be able to rebuild the array (assuming you can source an identical
disk), but several folks have discovered that isn't so easy either (you
don't find out until it fails, of course).

However, even if you can't rebuild the array, the one working disk still has
all the data on it, and it is still accessible. So, you still have your
precious data.

As you would if you had just copied it to another place on the network.

And this assumes your controller hasn't copied the cr&pped version to the second drive too, or that the power spike didn't take out both drives at the same time.

I agree that you still need backup, for example in case the controller
fails, but RAID 1 really helps. (See my post here a couple of weeks ago.)


If you really want speed, buy a Raptor (and ear plugs). If you really want
redundancy, copy everything to a completely separate PC, or server,
someplace else on the network (preferably in another building!).

Windows Home Server, or a NAS, look reasonable for backup, but I'd still
keep everything on my own PC as well.

--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
9,423 Km walked. 1,827Km PROWs surveyed. 33.2% complete.

Hmm, your newsreader can't <snip> .sigs??

You have not made much of a case for RAID - what is the advantage for Joe Average User? The advantage in the professional world is 'zero downtime' (lose a disk and keep flying), but in that world we also have redundant PSUs, and usually multiple systems we can steal motherboards from, or swap drives into.

Striping gives some minor speed advantages for people with huge files (video, for instance), but apart from that I'm pretty unimpressed with RAID for home users.

--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
9,423 Km walked. 1,827Km PROWs surveyed. 33.2% complete.
.

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