Setting up RAID on different SSD models

[KettyKoala]

Hi guys,

 

Just wondering, can you set up a RAID array on SSD's of different models and sizes? I've currently got a Samsung 840 evo 240gb, and would like to add another Samsung 850 evo 500gb to my PC. Would this work, and if so, would the risk of a failure be increased over using the same model and sized drive?

 

Thanks

Jordan

[ShadowCaptain]

1 minute ago, KettyKoala said:

Hi guys,

 

Just wondering, can you set up a RAID array on SSD's of different models and sizes? I've currently got a Samsung 840 evo 240gb, and would like to add another Samsung 850 evo 500gb to my PC. Would this work, and if so, would the risk of a failure be increased over using the same model and sized drive?

 

Thanks

Jordan

For RAID you want to use the same volume drives

 

Also what kind of raid, 0? 1? 5? 6? 10? ....

Honestly RAID 0 (I assume you mean) SSDs are mostly pointless

[KettyKoala]

Just now, ShadowCaptain said:

For RAID you want to use the same volume drives

 

Also what kind of raid, 0? 1? 5? 6? 10? ....

Honestly RAID 0 (I assume you mean) SSDs are mostly pointless

I'm not sure, that was something I was going to look into, maybe you could shed some light?

[ShadowCaptain]

Just now, KettyKoala said:

I'm not sure, that was something I was going to look into, maybe you could shed some light?

If you are asking, then you shouldn't be setting up RAID

 

I suggest doing some research on the RAID types and their uses, and pros and cons

 

generally for most uses its not necessary other than maybe a RAID 1 backup

[KettyKoala]

6 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

If you are asking, then you shouldn't be setting up RAID

 

I suggest doing some research on the RAID types and their uses, and pros and cons

 

generally for most uses its not necessary other than maybe a RAID 1 backup

That's literally what I said I was going to do, I'm not going to attempt something if I don't know much about it... If you don't want to help then fair enough

[HrutkayMods]

RAID 0 would give you the combined storage of both SSDs at 750GB and more speed but if one SSD goes in RAID 0 it corrupts the data on the other because RAID 0 spreads data across both drives bit by bit and with one gone the other is useless data wise and would have to be formatted. RAID 1 mirrors drives, it's slightly slower and both drives need to be the same size I think? You might be able to use 250GB on the 500GB but you would lose the other half for storage but RAID 1 is more secure because if one drive dies, you still have the mirror on the other. Those are the most common RAID uses and the only two RAIDs that use 2 drives I believe

[ShadowCaptain]

5 minutes ago, KettyKoala said:

That's literally what I said I was going to do... If you don't want to help then fair enough

I do it was just a suggestion, no point me typing a 3 page document out that you could just read

main raid types,

 

RAID 0 = striped, eg 2x 500gb drives = 1tb of faster storage - if one break all data is gone

RAID 1 = mirrored, 2x 500gb drives = 500gb - if one breaks the other has a copy, no speed increase

 

RAID 5 = striped + parity, 3x 500GB = 1TB, striped drives for speed, speedy + 1 for backup

RAID 10 = Striped + mirror, 4x 500GB drives = 1TB - up to two drives can fail + speedy

 

EDIT

This might help too

http://www.raid-calculator.com/default.aspx

[KettyKoala]

2 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

RAID 0 would give you the combined of both SSDs at 750GB and more speed but if one SSD goes in RAID 0 it corrupts the data on the other because RAID 0 spreads data across both drives bit by bit an with one gone the other is useless data wise and would have to be formatted. RAID 1 mirrors drives, it's slightly slower and both drives need to be the same size I think? You might be able to use 250GB on the 500GB but you would lose the other half for storage but RAID 1 is more secure because if one drive dies, you still have the mirror on the other. Those are the most common RAID uses and the only to RAIDs that use 2 drives I believe

 

2 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

I do it was just a suggestion, no point me typing a 3 page document out that you could just read

main raid types,

 

RAID 0 = striped, eg 2x 500gb drives = 1tb of faster storage - if one break all data is gone

RAID 1 = mirrored, 2x 500gb drives = 500gb - if one breaks the other has a copy, no speed increase

 

RAID 5 = striped + parity, 3x 500GB = 1TB, striped drives for speed, speedy + 1 for backup

RAID 10 = Striped + mirror, 4x 500GB drives = 1TB - up to two drives can fail + speedy

Thanks! So can I use different sized drives for RAID 0? And if so, would it increase the risk of a failure in my drives, or does it just mean that if one goes then they both go, or just the data? 

 

Which RAID type would you recommend, if any at all? Thanks again

[HrutkayMods]

Just now, KettyKoala said:

 

Thanks! So can I use different sized drives for RAID 0? And if so, would it increase the risk of a failure in my drives, or does it just mean that if one goes then they both go, or just the data? 

 

Which RAID type would you recommend, if any at all? Thanks again

I've never tied RAID 0 with different sizes, But I believe it should work, it won't hurt to try the worst you'll have to do is reformat

[ShadowCaptain]

5 minutes ago, KettyKoala said:

 

Thanks! So can I use different sized drives for RAID 0? And if so, would it increase the risk of a failure in my drives, or does it just mean that if one goes then they both go, or just the data? 

 

Which RAID type would you recommend, if any at all? Thanks again

No, you can use differnet size drives, you just loose the "extra" data of the drive

 

So if you RAID 0 1x 500gb drive and 1x1TB drive, you get 500GB of RAID 0, the extra 500gb of the second drive is not usable

[KettyKoala]

Just now, ShadowCaptain said:

No, you can use differnet size drives, you just loose the "extra" data of the drive

 

So if you RAID 0 1x 500gb drive and 1x1TB drive, you get 500GB of RAID 0, the extra 500gb of the second drive is not usable

Right okay, is that the case for all RAID types? Or just RAID 0?

[ShadowCaptain]

Just now, KettyKoala said:

Right okay, is that the case for all RAID types? Or just RAID 0?

All types, its always restricted to the SMALLEST drive in the array

so raid 10 with a 120GB drive and 3x 1TB drives, would only give you 240GB 

[ShadowCaptain]

I would add, generally i would only use RAID for a NAS for redundancy and possibly a RAID 0 array for gaming / editing discs (that either dont hold sensitive data, or are backed up)

 

for most people using an SSD on its own is enough speed and use a mechanical drive for storate

[KettyKoala]

3 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

I would add, generally i would only use RAID for a NAS for redundancy and possibly a RAID 0 array for gaming / editing discs (that either dont hold sensitive data, or are backed up)

 

for most people using an SSD on its own is enough speed and use a mechanical drive for storate

Ah fair enough, so if I was to RAID, then my best bet would be to buy an identical drive and put them in RAID 0. I think I'll just leave it out, I'd rather have more storage. Just out of interest, what sort of performance increase would i be looking at if I was to RAID a second 240gb SSD?

[ShadowCaptain]

10 minutes ago, KettyKoala said:

Ah fair enough, so if I was to RAID, then my best bet would be to buy an identical drive and put them in RAID 0. I think I'll just leave it out, I'd rather have more storage. Just out of interest, what sort of performance increase would i be looking at if I was to RAID a second 240gb SSD?

theoretically double at RAID 0, though in real world its not that simple

 

but a single SSD is pretty damn fast,

[KettyKoala]

9 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

theoretically double at RAID 0, though in real world its not that simple

 

but a single SSD is pretty damn fast,

Right okay, thanks for the help man!

[ShadowCaptain]

Just now, KettyKoala said:

Right okay, thanks for the help man!

anytime

[RafaelSoaresP]

If you only want to combine the storage spaces you could create a storage pool on windows settings. This would not allow the pool to be used as a boot disk though. 

If you want more speed, you must have two identical drives to do RAID 0;

If you want to create redundancy i guess you could create a 250Gb mirrored drive + partition and a separate 250gb partition.

[KettyKoala]

10 minutes ago, RafaelSoaresP said:

If you only want to combine the storage spaces you could create a storage pool on windows settings. This would not allow the pool to be used as a boot disk though. 

If you want more speed, you must have two identical drives to do RAID 0;

If you want to create redundancy i guess you could create a 250Gb mirrored drive + partition and a separate 250gb partition.

But surely if I was to create a mirrored drive, say RAID 1, I would lose half of the storage from the 250gb for backup? So By RAIDing, I would only increase my capacity of that array by 125gb, have a 125gb backup, and then a 250gb partition? I could be being stupid, but that's how I read it

[KettyKoala]

I'll probably just buy an 850 evo 500gb SSD to use alongside my current one 240gb, get rid of my HDD, and then buy another 850 down the line and RAID them when I fill it up. The price of SSD's are coming down quite quickly, which is great!

[optimadam]

Raiding SSDs isn't worth it unless your doing heavy data transfers, Video editing, compute, etc, or want something a little more complex like a read/write cache.

 

I do not think you would notice any difference in the performance with a raid 0 that a quick reinstall of the system wouldn`t resolve.

 

 

[ShadowCaptain]

52 minutes ago, KettyKoala said:

I'll probably just buy an 850 evo 500gb SSD to use alongside my current one 240gb, get rid of my HDD, and then buy another 850 down the line and RAID them when I fill it up. The price of SSD's are coming down quite quickly, which is great!

 

I only have RAID 10 in my NAS

 

I jsut use my SSDs as game storage haha

[RafaelSoaresP]

1 hour ago, KettyKoala said:

But surely if I was to create a mirrored drive, say RAID 1, I would lose half of the storage from the 250gb for backup? So By RAIDing, I would only increase my capacity of that array by 125gb, have a 125gb backup, and then a 250gb partition? I could be being stupid, but that's how I read it

You'd actually be using half the 500 and the 250gb drives to create the raid 1 pool. 

The final results would be one 250gb mirrored partition, and a 250 regular partition. 

[KettyKoala]

I mainly wanted to do it more for the convenience of only having to save things to one drive sort of thing, but if it's more hassle than it's worth then i'll just leave it 

[RafaelSoaresP]

1 hour ago, KettyKoala said:

I mainly wanted to do it more for the convenience of only having to save things to one drive sort of thing, but if it's more hassle than it's worth then i'll just leave it 

Being that you could easily create a storage pool in windows control panel. I don't think you can create one using your boot drive though. You'll have to tinker around to find out.