Does RAID still matter

[turtle_idiot14]

I've watch a lot of the server videos and in them I keep hearing RAID this and RAID that. i remember maybe a few years ago that RAID 0 was everywhere and haven't heard it since, except in server applications. Is RAID still relevant for personal use, or is it now more for the professional.

[Niklos]

RAID is here to allow you to keep access you data (exept RAID0)

Let's say that you have a RAID1/5/6/50/10/whatever number but 0, you can have 1 or more drive failure and still be able to access your data.

 

RAID0 is... not really usefull for personnal use nowaday because we do have SSD's that are already fast enough for most cases.

 

edit : grilled !

[Niklos]

2 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

if you just want to create a backup of your games, films or photo albums then using an external hard drive is a perfectly viable solution

So true. RAID is definitly NOT a way to backup the datas. It is there only so you can keep access your data in case of a drive failure. BTW, it is never 100% sure that your RAID is going to reconstruct (is that the right word in english ?) it self when you have replaced the faulty HDD. 

[manikyath]

RAID has never really been relevant for personal use. in the server space it's key in protecting your stored data from hard drive failures and creating bigger storage pools, at home it's mostly a matter of "you should have backups".

[manikyath]

Just now, Niklos said:

So true. RAID is definitly NOT a way to backup the datas. It is there only so you can keep access your data in case of a drive failure. BTW, it is never 100% sure that your RAID is going to reconstruct (is that the right word in english ?) it self when you have replaced the faulty HDD. 

it's 100% sure your raid is going to rebuild, ofcourse given the fact you dont have additional drive failures during rebuild.

[Niklos]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

it's 100% sure your raid is going to rebuild, ofcourse given the fact you dont have additional drive failures during rebuild.

So, it is definitly not sure... Especialy as it takes lots of time if you rebuild a RAID5/6 and uses a lot the HDD so the definitly might fail.

But still, it not "backup", it there to make you be able to still access your data in case of a drive failure.

Like, for exemple, if you delete something, you have no backup of it. It is "gone"

 

3 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

having access to your data in case of drive failure is pretty much a backup - it's just a live backup in this case rather than a backup you have to manually update.

 

nothing to rebuild really if both disks are in parity - they should both be identically functional disks

I actually was thinking about RAID5/6. But, yes, you don't really have to rebuild in case of a RAID1

[manikyath]

13 minutes ago, Niklos said:

So, it is definitly not sure... Especialy as it takes lots of time if you rebuild a RAID5/6 and uses a lot the HDD so the definitly might fail.

But still, it not "backup", it there to make you be able to still access your data in case of a drive failure.

Like, for exemple, if you delete something, you have no backup of it. It is "gone"

it doesnt take *that* long that the chance of a second drive failing is statistically significant. mind you that in most datacenter use cases the drives are under a pretty tough load 24/7.

also, i never said it was a backup, it certainly isnt a backup, but the idea of raid is that a backup is only necessary for "disaster recovery", and you dont want a single drive in your datacenter failing being a "disaster".

 

essentially, in the server world, if you have to restore a full server from backup, your data security measures have failed.

[Radium_Angel]

RAID 5.

Learn it.

Live it.

Love it.

 

Then build two RAID 5 arrays, and use one for backing up the 1st one.

It's a wonderful peace of mind.

[Niklos]

That's true @Radium_Angel. I wish I could do that. Unfortunatly, I have only one RAID6 and backup of my "critical" data on external HDD while the "not critical" is not backuped unfortunatly. Maybe, one day, I will buy another 1500€ NAS to put a backup of my data's in someone else's house.

Anyways, back to the RAID, it is also usefull if you want to have only one big volume that is on multiple disk smaller disks.

[Anghammarad]

And another thing raid does... combining "small" drives and presenting them to your OS as a single BIG drive.

 

Like the 1.27 Petabyte share from the last Project Petabyte.

[Kilrah]

Yup, have my HDDs in RAID0 for speed.

[JoshHendi]

There are quite a few raid configs and reasons to use each... raid is becoming less common on a typical home computer, but there are still plenty of applications