Which RAID array(s) would be practical?

[Morg141]

Hello there!

 

My current WD 1TB green is on it's last legs, displaying S.M.A.R.T events and needs replacing, so I thought it'd be a wise idea to have it replaced. I've ordered a new WD 2TB black drive, as well as a new Samsung 850 pro SSD (my current SSD is getting a bit on now, and is probably due an upgrade or will begin to degrade soon enough). However, to avoid losing over 920GB of data in the future, I thought it would be interesting to give RAID a go. I haven't done RAID before, so I'd like to ask a few questions and get some general feedback and advice on the matter.

 

I'm currently thinking of purchasing a second WD 2TB Black, and running the two in RAID 1. I'm aware this give no performance boost (a small amount to reads?), and essentially will half the storage space potential, but will help build redundancy as I am terrible for running backups. Does this seem like a practical idea for someone unable to run automatic backups overnight (I'm not really able to leave the computer on during the night due to noise)?

 

My main questions come down to my SSD. Currently, I use my SSD for my OS, my favourite games and demanding programs, and my HDD for other games, programs and data storage. I was wondering if it would benefit me at all to run 2 SSDs in RAID 0, increasing performance and speedy storage space for more games and such? I'm aware this essentially doubles the risk of data loss, however, the data stored on my SSDs would only be games, programs and my OS - Things that can be easily reinstalled.

 

Is it even possible to run both a RAID 0 on the SSDs AND a RAID 1 on the HDDs at the same time? Could I run this off my Rampage IV black edition's RAID controller, or will I need a dedicated card?

 

Might I also add that cost isn't a major factor.

 

Many thanks!

[Syte]

If you run 2 SSDs in RAID 0 over normal SATA II/III you will likely hit the SATA Bus limit. Even though cost isn't a factor RAID 1 is not meant to be a consumer feature, and WD Black drives are something I recommend against every chance I get as these days they make practically no sense at all. If cost isn't a factor for you just purchase a solid HD or two for the HD space you need, if you wanted to run them in RAID 0 for increased HD performance I'd recommend reliable drives but nothing on the crazy side of hardware, generally it's best to have Solid State Storage for all of your fast-storage needs and then standard Hard Drives without RAID for simple storage needs and easy replacement if you need more or if problems show up.

[ChineseChef]

I'm currently thinking of purchasing a second WD 2TB Black, and running the two in RAID 1. I'm aware this give no performance boost (a small amount to reads?), and essentially will half the storage space potential, but will help build redundancy as I am terrible for running backups. Does this seem like a practical idea for someone unable to run automatic backups overnight (I'm not really able to leave the computer on during the night due to noise)?

 

My main questions come down to my SSD. Currently, I use my SSD for my OS, my favourite games and demanding programs, and my HDD for other games, programs and data storage. I was wondering if it would benefit me at all to run 2 SSDs in RAID 0, increasing performance and speedy storage space for more games and such? I'm aware this essentially doubles the risk of data loss, however, the data stored on my SSDs would only be games, programs and my OS - Things that can be easily reinstalled.

 

Is it even possible to run both a RAID 0 on the SSDs AND a RAID 1 on the HDDs at the same time? Could I run this off my Rampage IV black edition's RAID controller, or will I need a dedicated card?

 

For the last question there, yes, you can normally run a raid 0 and a separate raid 1 array using the onboard controller of your motherboard as long as you have enough ports.

 

For the question of data protection, that's a tricky one.  Raid 1 will protect you against a hard drive failure, and I see no problem with do it.  But do remember it is not a backup solution; so if you accidently delete or corrupt or otherwise modify your data, you can't undo those changes.  But again, I don't see any reason not to do a raid 1 if you want to protect against hardware failure.

 

As far as raid 0 on SSDs, eh, this is really a personal thing.  I have been burned with raid 0, but modern SSDs are way more reliable than most HDDs, at least in how they *usually* fail.

Honestly, I would suggest keeping the smaller SSD you have as just an OS drive, and put your games and programs on the larger SSD.  And then use the magnetic as extra storage and space for backups.  This way, even if one of the SSDs fail, you only have to recover part of your data. 

[Morg141]

Thanks for your replies!

 

If you run 2 SSDs in RAID 0 over normal SATA II/III you will likely hit the SATA Bus limit. Even though cost isn't a factor RAID 1 is not meant to be a consumer feature, and WD Black drives are something I recommend against every chance I get as these days they make practically no sense at all. If cost isn't a factor for you just purchase a solid HD or two for the HD space you need, if you wanted to run them in RAID 0 for increased HD performance I'd recommend reliable drives but nothing on the crazy side of hardware, generally it's best to have Solid State Storage for all of your fast-storage needs and then standard Hard Drives without RAID for simple storage needs and easy replacement if you need more or if problems show up.

 

What is it about the WD Black drives that you strongly oppose to? Is it the lack of TLER?

 

For the last question there, yes, you can normally run a raid 0 and a separate raid 1 array using the onboard controller of your motherboard as long as you have enough ports.

 

For the question of data protection, that's a tricky one.  Raid 1 will protect you against a hard drive failure, and I see no problem with do it.  But do remember it is not a backup solution; so if you accidently delete or corrupt or otherwise modify your data, you can't undo those changes.  But again, I don't see any reason not to do a raid 1 if you want to protect against hardware failure.

 

As far as raid 0 on SSDs, eh, this is really a personal thing.  I have been burned with raid 0, but modern SSDs are way more reliable than most HDDs, at least in how they *usually* fail.

Honestly, I would suggest keeping the smaller SSD you have as just an OS drive, and put your games and programs on the larger SSD.  And then use the magnetic as extra storage and space for backups.  This way, even if one of the SSDs fail, you only have to recover part of your data. 

 

Sounds like a good idea. However, as tedious as it can sometimes be to reinstall the OS and all applications and such, I'm not too worried about redundancy here. After all, these are things that can be reinstalled with just a little time. In that situation, if the OS SSD failed, I'd have to reinstall everything anyway, as with if the applications SSD failed it goes without saying. I know I'd be passing the SATA III limits, it being around 750mb/s and each 850 pro having sequential reads and writes up to 550mb/s and 520mb/s respectively, but surely I'd still be getting some form of performance boost, if just an extra 200mb/s?

 

I was also thinking about the HDDs. If I have the money, what about 4 HHDs in RAID 10? Then I'd get my redundancy with all my important data, as well as double the theoretical reads & writes.

[Dredgy]

RAID is not a backup replacement.

I run a 4X4Tb in RAID 10, but also backup to another array, and certain folders to an external drive.

There are many circumstances where both drives can fail. For instance, I had a batch of bad drives from Samsung once and all SIXTEEN of them falied in the space of 72 hours.

Didn't learn my lesson and both drives in my next RAID 10 array of 4 Seagate drives and all 4 failed before I could order the replacement for the first one that failed.

So order from different places if you can to avoid going what I went through.

You are better off getting an external drive or USB or SD card and scheduling for backing up your important data to that. It's more cost effective and less can go wrong and you should be doing that even if you have a RAID array.

[Captain_WD]

Hello there!

 

My current WD 1TB green is on it's last legs, displaying S.M.A.R.T events and needs replacing, so I thought it'd be a wise idea to have it replaced. I've ordered a new WD 2TB black drive, as well as a new Samsung 850 pro SSD (my current SSD is getting a bit on now, and is probably due an upgrade or will begin to degrade soon enough). However, to avoid losing over 920GB of data in the future, I thought it would be interesting to give RAID a go. I haven't done RAID before, so I'd like to ask a few questions and get some general feedback and advice on the matter.

 

I'm currently thinking of purchasing a second WD 2TB Black, and running the two in RAID 1. I'm aware this give no performance boost (a small amount to reads?), and essentially will half the storage space potential, but will help build redundancy as I am terrible for running backups. Does this seem like a practical idea for someone unable to run automatic backups overnight (I'm not really able to leave the computer on during the night due to noise)?

 

My main questions come down to my SSD. Currently, I use my SSD for my OS, my favourite games and demanding programs, and my HDD for other games, programs and data storage. I was wondering if it would benefit me at all to run 2 SSDs in RAID 0, increasing performance and speedy storage space for more games and such? I'm aware this essentially doubles the risk of data loss, however, the data stored on my SSDs would only be games, programs and my OS - Things that can be easily reinstalled.

 

Is it even possible to run both a RAID 0 on the SSDs AND a RAID 1 on the HDDs at the same time? Could I run this off my Rampage IV black edition's RAID controller, or will I need a dedicated card?

 

Might I also add that cost isn't a major factor.

 

Many thanks!

 

Hey Morg141,

 

First for the SSDs, I would say that a single SSD is already fast enough for regular consumer usage. RAID0 should provide you a significant speed boost (theoretically double the speeds), but it also would double the chance of data loss as if either of the drives fail or drop out of the RAID array, you would lose all data on the drive. Here's an example of what the speed boost would be: games rely on storage only for their loading times and FPS and graphics will not be affected at all. Here's an example of the speed boost when using SSDs and HDDs: The jump in load times from HDD to SSD is like 10s to 1s. RAID 0 effectively (theoretically) halves the load time. So if you were to RAID 0 mechanical drives, it's 10s to 5s. You derive 5s of benefit. If you were to RAID 0 SSDs instead, its like 1s to 0.5s. You derive 0.5s of benefit. Just to demonstrate that striping SSDs is nowhere as beneficial compared to mechanical drives.

 

Regarding the RAID1 array with two WD Black drives, WD Black is a performance drive and it is not designed for running in RAID environments. It lack the additional features of a NAS/RAID class drives (like WD Red) and thus is more prone to errors. Also RAID is not a backup. It provides redundancy but it should not be considered a backup. In event of a power shortage or other physical damage to the case and the parts inside, Mirror RAID does not guarantee you data safety. Backing up your data to an external storage would be the more appropriate thing to do (even if it's once in a while and you are just updating your backup). 

 

You should not have any problems running two separate RAID arrays at the same time only from your motherboard without a RAID card.

 

Captain_WD.

[Syte]

Thanks for your replies!

 

 

What is it about the WD Black drives that you strongly oppose to? Is it the lack of TLER?

 

 

Sounds like a good idea. However, as tedious as it can sometimes be to reinstall the OS and all applications and such, I'm not too worried about redundancy here. After all, these are things that can be reinstalled with just a little time. In that situation, if the OS SSD failed, I'd have to reinstall everything anyway, as with if the applications SSD failed it goes without saying. I know I'd be passing the SATA III limits, it being around 750mb/s and each 850 pro having sequential reads and writes up to 550mb/s and 520mb/s respectively, but surely I'd still be getting some form of performance boost, if just an extra 200mb/s?

 

I was also thinking about the HDDs. If I have the money, what about 4 HHDs in RAID 10? Then I'd get my redundancy with all my important data, as well as double the theoretical reads & writes.

 

 

What drives me away from WD Black drive is lack of point, if you want a faster drive get a Solid State Drive, if you want a more reliable drive there are a myriad of better options at a fraction of the cost (WD Blacks have a unusually high failure rate considering their price, a failure rate I've witnessed first-hand).

[Griffscavern]

Hello there!

My current WD 1TB green is on it's last legs, displaying S.M.A.R.T events and needs replacing, so I thought it'd be a wise idea to have it replaced. I've ordered a new WD 2TB black drive, as well as a new Samsung 850 pro SSD (my current SSD is getting a bit on now, and is probably due an upgrade or will begin to degrade soon enough). However, to avoid losing over 920GB of data in the future, I thought it would be interesting to give RAID a go. I haven't done RAID before, so I'd like to ask a few questions and get some general feedback and advice on the matter.

I'm currently thinking of purchasing a second WD 2TB Black, and running the two in RAID 1. I'm aware this give no performance boost (a small amount to reads?), and essentially will half the storage space potential, but will help build redundancy as I am terrible for running backups. Does this seem like a practical idea for someone unable to run automatic backups overnight (I'm not really able to leave the computer on during the night due to noise)?

My main questions come down to my SSD. Currently, I use my SSD for my OS, my favourite games and demanding programs, and my HDD for other games, programs and data storage. I was wondering if it would benefit me at all to run 2 SSDs in RAID 0, increasing performance and speedy storage space for more games and such? I'm aware this essentially doubles the risk of data loss, however, the data stored on my SSDs would only be games, programs and my OS - Things that can be easily reinstalled.

Is it even possible to run both a RAID 0 on the SSDs AND a RAID 1 on the HDDs at the same time? Could I run this off my Rampage IV black edition's RAID controller, or will I need a dedicated card?

Might I also add that cost isn't a major factor.

Many thanks!

Bad habits are hard to break, but not backing up your system should be one of those that you must break. Especially if you have valuable data. Therefore setting up a raid 1 to use as a backup is a bad idea. While you can lose 1 drive and be ok,. What happens if both fail? Bye bye data. Or say you get a nasty virus. Guess what, that redundant drive just got it too.

If you want to raid, do it, but make sure you have an external, disconnected from system once done, backup. Otherwise you may live to regret it.