2TB vs. 1+1TB in RAID?

[Blue_Max]

Since the price of WD Black drives are $75 for a 1TB drive and $148 for a 2TB drive, I won't save any by a single drive.

I trust the reliability of Black drives.

So... should I do a single 2TB drive, or a pair of 1TB drives in RAID (for 2TB total size but extra speed, right?)

I'm a bit of a RAID noob, so your thoughts are welcomed!

 

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=WED-102014231

 

[Carson Dyle]

$134.99: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digita.../dp/B00FJRS628

First: Can we assume you need 2TB of storage? If so, that would mean you'd need to use RAID0 to achieve that with two 1TB drives. If reliability is your reason for buying WD Black drives, then RAID0 would be a very big mistake. In RAID0 you'd lose everything stored on both drives if either of the drives fail. So you're effectively doubling your risk of data loss in the event of a drive failure.

Of course, you could also achieve 2TB with two 1TB drives without using RAID at all, and just intelligently deciding what data to store on one drive and what to store on the other.

 

[Blue_Max]

Okay, CANADIAN dollars. That's not really the point though.

Thanks for going in the direction of the question, C.D.

 

[WT]

I just replaced a WD Black RAID0 array last weekend with an HGST 2TB drive. I built this rig 4 years ago, and with a 20GB SSD iRST cache drive, it did a great job ... until 5 months ago when one drive started to fail (replaced under warranty) and then the second drive went bad a month ago (now out of warranty).

I initially thought about rebuilding the array and going back to RAID0, but after having both drives fail within that time frame, I just don't feel like spending another weekend doing a bare metal backup from my WHS that takes about 7 hours to get back to where I was.

Having the WHS backing up my rig, a RAID0 setup was no longer a risk, and I did lose some speed from the RAID setup (177mb to 133mb/sec) but the Hitachi drive has over 4 years left on its warranty, and that is now more important to me than the throughput.

 

[Blain]

So... should I do a single 2TB drive, or a pair of 1TB drives in RAID

2 x 1TB in RAID 0... no
2 x 1TB in RAID 1... yes

 

[biostud]

If you just have a good backup plan RAID 0 is not a problem. Personally I've never run RAID since it seems to be to much hassle, specially if you move your drives from one computer to another.

 

[ArisVer]

You should also consider that using one more 3.5 inch bay might cause you problems for future expansion.

 

[Blue_Max]

I'm starting to like the idea of 1TB for software and a different drive entirely for movies/data.

It was tempting to get greedy and RAID 0 them for the speed boost, but I don't think I'll really see THAT much of a difference... or would I?

 

[hectorsm]

If you use RAID 0, then I suggest you backup your data to either an external drive or secondary drive.

 

[Red Squirrel]

With disks that are serving up live data ALWAYS use raid (redundant raid, not 0). I would go with 2x 2TB in raid 1 or 3x 2TB in raid 5 so you can easily expand. Raid does not replace backups but it ensures you don't need to scramble to rebuild the file system from backups if the drive dies nor do you incur any downtime. I did not use raid before, had a drive fail while I was in the middle of something, not fun. I've been using raid ever since. Even for a home environment downtime is not fun. In fact it's even less fun than at work. At work, you're getting paid. At home, you just want it to work.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I'm starting to like the idea of 1TB for software and a different drive entirely for movies/data.

It was tempting to get greedy and RAID 0 them for the speed boost, but I don't think I'll really see THAT much of a difference... or would I?

the speed will only matter if you're working with some big files (lots of video, etc), and then it will really only matter if these drives are supplementing other drives you already have (say if you have OS on SSD, etc), otherwise you're better off keeping these drives separate for superior I/O, which is a major weakness of HDDs

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'm starting to like the idea of 1TB for software and a different drive entirely for movies/data.

It was tempting to get greedy and RAID 0 them for the speed boost, but I don't think I'll really see THAT much of a difference... or would I?

For speed, use an SSD for the OS, software _and_ application data. If you have applications with very large amounts of data (which fairly rare for most users) offload only that data to HDD.

Music and movies can be stored on HDD, which does not have to be WD Black 7200RPM fast. A 5400/5900 RPM drive is plenty fast enough to view or stream hi-res movies.

And don't forget about the drive(s) to backup any files that cannot be replaced.

 

[Blue_Max]

I'm curious how large the speed boost of the various RAID modes (for only two drives) even is...?

10%? 50%? 100%? I have no idea...

 

[Blain]

I'm curious how large the speed boost of the various RAID modes (for only two drives) even is...?

10%? 50%? 100%? I have no idea...

Google is your friend. This topic has heavy coverage.

A SSD would be the best bang for your speedy PC buck.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm curious how large the speed boost of the various RAID modes (for only two drives) even is...?

10%? 50%? 100%? I have no idea...

Raid0 with two identical drives will ~double your throughput in sequential reads/writes vs. a single drive of the same type. If you can't take advantage of that throughput, or the larger volume size, you're putting yourself at higher risk of data loss for no benefit.

In general, though, if a single physical drive can fill your full volume needs, you should just stick with that unless you have a good reason not to. Since you're not clear on what the benefits or drawbacks of a raid array are, it would be prudent not to use it until you understand whether or not you'll actually be able to take advantage of the benefits, or if you're simply adding drawbacks.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I used to run RAID-0 for my boot volumes. Before SSDs.

Sequential went faster, everything else (random access) was the same speed. It wasn't usually all that noticeable, tbh.

 

[Turbonium]

Since the price of WD Black drives are $75 for a 1TB drive and $148 for a 2TB drive, I won't save any by a single drive.

I trust the reliability of Black drives.

So... should I do a single 2TB drive, or a pair of 1TB drives in RAID (for 2TB total size but extra speed, right?)

I'm a bit of a RAID noob, so your thoughts are welcomed!

I'm assuming you need the storage capacity, hence why you're not going with an SSD option?

If this assumption is true, and you're doing this mostly, if not only, because of the fact that RAID-0 rates highly on both the "hardcore" and "nerdy" scales, then I'd just skip the Black drives altogether, and do things a bit more "proper" by going straight for a couple VelociRaptor drives instead (assuming you're not concerned about paying a lot more per GB than with any other drive).

Note that they also have a 5-year warranty, and are easily faster.

I have 2 x 250 GB VRs in RAID-0 (500 GB effective) in my main rig. Sure, it isn't the most cost-effective setup, but I knew that going in, and didn't care. And yes, the setup is very fast, and not as loud as you may think (it's rather quiet, actually).

Anyway, if you're needing 2 TB of space, then setting it up as RAID-0 is probably not a good idea, given that requiring 2 TB of space also probably means you're relying on that storage, without at least one backup somewhere (having at least two backups is a much better idea, by the way).

Remember, in a RAID-0 setup, if one drive fails, you lose everything. And by having >1 drive, you're greatly increasing the odds of a drive failure happening, simply by having more drives. As already mentioned in this thread, if you have just the one drive, it's not as fast, but the odds of losing your data are greatly reduced.