What Would Happen if I Put Two Non-NAS HDDs in Software RAID?

[DrMacintosh]

Hello all, I'm looking at expanding my replacing my current Plex Media Sever (A Raspberry Pi) with a Mac Mini and some external storage. I'm looking at a pretty basic dual bay USB HDD enclosure to chuck 2 3.5" HDDs into. This is the enclosure I'm looking at. 

 

I'm thinking about putting these two drives in RAID 1 using the RAID utility in macOS. I would also have a single volume copy of this array in my PC as a backup. I have heard people say that you should not use non-nas drives in a raid array, I was just wondering if there is any merit to that position for my application. These drives won't be moving, and I don't think 2 drives are enough to have vibrations be a concern. 

 

What do you think? 

 

 

[Zando_]

Probably nothing. I have WD Blue and Seagate Barracuda drives at home in one of the RAIDZ setups at home, WD Purple (surveillance drives not specifically NAS drives) in RAIDZ setup at work, have had all those same drives in software RAID with Windows Spaces. The Barracuda ones at home I've had in both software RAID on Windows and on my Mac Pro 1,1. None of the drives have exploded yet, so I think you'll be fine for a home NAS.

[Blue4130]

30 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Hello all, I'm looking at expanding my replacing my current Plex Media Sever (A Raspberry Pi) with a Mac Mini and some external storage. I'm looking at a pretty basic dual bay USB HDD enclosure to chuck 2 3.5" HDDs into. This is the enclosure I'm looking at. 

 

I'm thinking about putting these two drives in RAID 1 using the RAID utility in macOS. I would also have a single volume copy of this array in my PC as a backup. I have heard people say that you should not use non-nas drives in a raid array, I was just wondering if there is any merit to that position for my application. These drives won't be moving, and I don't think 2 drives are enough to have vibrations be a concern. 

 

What do you think? 

 

 

It's absolutely fine. Nothing bad will happen from using non-nas drives.

[Bombastinator]

46 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

Probably nothing. I have WD Blue and Seagate Barracuda drives at home in one of the RAIDZ setups at home, WD Purple (surveillance drives not specifically NAS drives) in RAIDZ setup at work, have had all those same drives in software RAID with Windows Spaces. The Barracuda ones at home I've had in both software RAID on Windows and on my Mac Pro 1,1. None of the drives have exploded yet, so I think you'll be fine for a home NAS.

Awwww.. and I was looking for a thermonuclear explosion pic too….  Maybe something from dr. Strange mouth of madness…

 

It’s true though.  Nvme often doesn’t get along at all well with hardware raid but software is just software

[Zando_]

11 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Nvme often doesn’t get along at all well with hardware raid but software is just software

These are spinning 3.5" HDDs, 1/2/4TB ones. I haven't messed with NVMe RAID because I don't have enough of those SSDs to fill my Hyper M.2 card yet.

[Blue4130]

53 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Awwww.. and I was looking for a thermonuclear explosion pic too….  Maybe something from dr. Strange mouth of madness…

 

It’s true though.  Nvme often doesn’t get along at all well with hardware raid but software is just software

Any links to back that up? NVME appears to work fine with hardware raid from my reading...

[Bombastinator]

8 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

Any links to back that up? NVME appears to work fine with hardware raid from my reading...

Posts..  people being told nvme hates hardware raid.   Might be a solved problem by now I suppose.  I never wanted an nvme raid so I never looked for sources.  It appears to be irrelevant in this case anyway as this is an HDD raid it seems.