Strange Raid

[Delma]

I'm Italian, sorry for my bad english.

I've got a WD green 4tb and an old seagate barracuda 1.5tb.

Can I make a raid 1 with the barracuda and a partition of the WD green?

[Sheldon_King]

I'm Italian, sorry for my bad english.

I've got a WD green 4tb and an old seagate barracuda 1.5tb.

Can I make a raid 1 with the barracuda and a partition of the WD green?

Yes and no.  

 

Yes: You can create a RAID 1 array with both drives, but you will get a maximum of 1.5TB of storage space from the array. 

 

No: You must use whole disk drives, not partitions in RAID. You will end up loosing 2.5TB of storage from the 4TB green in RAID 1. The best option is to not use them in RAID. Either get another 1.5TB drive or another 4TB drive if you plan to run RAID 1 (as to not be missing space on the array).

 

EDIT: Also, your english is very good.  

[dalekphalm]

Yes and no.  

 

Yes: You can create a RAID 1 array with both drives, but you will get a maximum of 1.5TB of storage space from the array. 

 

No: You must use whole disk drives, not partitions in RAID. You will end up loosing 2.5TB of storage from the 4TB green in RAID 1. The best option is to not use them in RAID. Either get another 1.5TB drive or another 4TB drive if you plan to run RAID 1 (as to not be missing space on the array).

 

EDIT: Also, your english is very good.  

Hi, while you are "technically" correct for the most part with what you've said, you most certainly can do RAID 1 between a 1.5TB partition on one HDD and the full volume on the other drive. However, it needs to be done via a software RAID level, and cannot be accomplished via "Hardware RAID" or "Motherboard RAID".

 

@Delma In any case, I strongly recommend not even trying. If you are trying to setup some sort of backup or redundancy (Remember, RAID is NOT a backup solution), then I would recommend using the 4TB HDD as a backup drive, and use a disk imaging backup program (Such as Acronis True Image) or even the build-in backup functionality of Windows.

 

This will create a HDD Image full backup of your 1.5TB HDD onto the 4TB Green HDD, and you'll still have space leftover for additional data storage. You can even setup automated backup with the programs I've mentioned, where they continually backup your HDD based on various criteria (frequency, whether the backup is full or incremental, etc).

[Sheldon_King]

Hi, while you are "technically" correct for the most part with what you've said, you most certainly can do RAID 1 between a 1.5TB partition on one HDD and the full volume on the other drive. However, it needs to be done via a software RAID level, and cannot be accomplished via "Hardware RAID" or "Motherboard RAID".

While you can do software RAID, it is almost always a bad idea, and thus was not covered. Hardware RAID is what was covered in my OP. That said, I completely agree that it is not a replacement for backups. The best operation is to have RAID 1/6/10/50/60 array with both on site and off site backups, but not everyone can pull it off financially. 

[Delma]

Thank you all!

I'm going to use the SSD raid as an OS and important programs' disk and the barracuda with the backup on the wd green as a media and other programs' disk.

I'm also going to use the wd green as a backup for the SSD raid.

If you have any suggestions they will be appreciated.