Best RAID type for home use redundancy and performance?

[archcommus]

I'm interested in possibly doing RAID sometime in the future. What is the best kind for a home user with not too much data and only one PC looking for a good performance increase and simple redundancy? Also, do most mid-range motherboards natively support SATA RAID nowadays?

Thanks.

 

[GrammatonJP]

Most motherboards uses softraid... which uses your cpu power. Dedicated hardware raid cost around 300 for a quad..

Protection = Raid 1 = 2 drives
Speed = Raid 0 = 2 drives

You can have one or the other. Unless you want to go raid 5 = 3 drives+. Raid 5 can take a hit on your processing power as it. So if you dont need it, dont bother. If you're not going to spend money on it, dont bother also.

 

[Slowlearner]

A home user needs periodic backups on a separate medium (not necessarily another pc). Any RAID arrangement would be overkill and may not even provide secure and safe backups. For 100$ < you can assemble a 160GB usb drive.

 

[RebateMonger]

I'd advise that the FIRST thing you do with any extra hard drive is put it in an external USB housing and use it for ongoing backups, NOT stored next to your computer.

Once you've done that, then, as GrammatonJP stated, you'll have to make a choice between cost, speed, and redundancy. The simple, low-cost RAIDs are RAID 1 and RAID 0. One is redundant. The other is fast (maybe.....). If you want to spend a LOT more money, you can go RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, RAID 0+1, etc.). But those are mostly out of the realm of what makes sense for most home computer users.

 

[archcommus]

I already backup to a 120 GB external drive, think I should just leave it at that?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: archcommus
I already backup to a 120 GB external drive, think I should just leave it at that?

For simplicity and cost, yes. That should be fine. Just make sure that you have everything backed up that you want.

Just imagine that your computer suddenly exploded, and all you have left is this hard drive. Does it truly have everything you need on it? If not, revise your backup routine before you realize that it's too late.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: archcommus
I already backup to a 120 GB external drive, think I should just leave it at that?

For simplicity and cost, yes. That should be fine. Just make sure that you have everything backed up that you want.

Just imagine that your computer suddenly exploded, and all you have left is this hard drive. Does it truly have everything you need on it? If not, revise your backup routine before you realize that it's too late.

Thanks. Yes, I do. I make a habit of keeping all personal files within My Documents, and moved it to its own partition, which gets copied in its entirety using sync software.

So, is adding another drive in RAID 0 worth it for the performance increase? I currently have a 7200.7 series IDE Seagate using an Epox socket 939 motherboard.

 

[gramboh]

I was investigating RAID for home use recently and it doesn't make much sense. I was talking with a guy who had a RAID5 setup (striping like RAID 0 for performance and parity for security). He had a CM Stacker case (full tower) with 6 320GB hard drives in RAID5 which equates to giving up one drive for parity (redundnacy, you can lose one drive in the array and still operate) and very high transfer rates.

What I learned is you have to spend a lot of money. RAID5/6 type setups require a hardware card for fast performance and a lot of drives.

RAID 0 with two drives will give a performance boost but it's not astronomical and you have roughly double the failure rate, assuming the RAID controller is 100% reliable which isn't always the case with integrated MB solutions. RAID 0+1 requires 4 drives and you give up half the space.

It seems like the simplist thing to do for speed is buy a Raptor (make sure you get the 16meg cache version) or used 15,000rpm SCSI drives off eBay with a cheap SCSI controller (drives are very loud though).

External backup to HDD in USB enclosure is what I do and recommend, easy and fast. Make sure you don't have the HDD/enclosure powered on all the time, just for backups.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Raid 1 + 0 is better than Raid 0 + 1, especially once you have more and more drives.

For a 4 drive setup, 1+0 and just like 0+1 in terms of number of drives you can lose, but once you cross into 6 or 8 drives, you would rather have raid 1 + 0

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

You'd probably be better off with a big hard drive, no RAID, and backups.

 

[GrammatonJP]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
You'd probably be better off with a big hard drive, no RAID, and backups.

I had a huge raid array and i agree, with today's energy cost.. i end up with 2 wd 500gb re2 in raid 1.. i can't afford to lose data. Else I use 1 drive.

Running 24+ 15k drives is not the best idea. Seagate Barracuda ES is not out yet, else I would have the 750gbs..

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
You'd probably be better off with a big hard drive, no RAID, and backups.

Originally posted by: gramboh
What I learned is you have to spend a lot of money. RAID5/6 type setups require a hardware card for fast performance and a lot of drives.

RAID 0 with two drives will give a performance boost but it's not astronomical and you have roughly double the failure rate, assuming the RAID controller is 100% reliable which isn't always the case with integrated MB solutions. RAID 0+1 requires 4 drives and you give up half the space.

It seems like the simplist thing to do for speed is buy a Raptor (make sure you get the 16meg cache version) or used 15,000rpm SCSI drives off eBay with a cheap SCSI controller (drives are very loud though).

External backup to HDD in USB enclosure is what I do and recommend, easy and fast. Make sure you don't have the HDD/enclosure powered on all the time, just for backups.

I think these are excellent summaries of the options for most home users.

 

[RaiderJ]

RAID 5 or nothing. RAID 1 or 0 is 90% not useful for most people - although they will argue until the very end othewise.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: RaiderJ
RAID 5 or nothing. RAID 1 or 0 is 90% not useful for most people - although they will argue until the very end othewise.

Benefits of RAID 1 - good protection against drive failures, and the hardware needed for it is very simplistic. I believe that it can be done in software too, using a standard IDE controller, with minimal performance loss.

RAID 0 - just not a good idea. Lose one drive and it's all over. It's like taking a piece of paper with the alphabet written on it, erasing every other letter, then giving it to an illiterate person and saying "Fill in the missing letters." The person won't have a clue what they're supposed to look like, nor will the available information be of any help.

RAID 5 - good stuff. As mentioned, it needs a good card to be done properly, which might cost around $200 or more. It needs 3 drives minimum. Regardless of how many drives you use, you lose one drive's worth of space to parity data. The benefit: if one drive dies, you lose no data. Problem then - if another drive should happen to die before the missing one is replaced and its data rebuilt, then you'd be screwed.
Also, RAID 5 will offer excellent read speeds, but unless you've got a hell of a good hardware card, your write speeds will be about on par with a single drive.