How To Setup RAID ?

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bigi

bigi

Platinum Member
Aug 8, 2001
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Hook up your drives. Go to RAID BIOS, set up the array of your choice. Get drivers if required. Done.
 
blastingcap

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
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themillak said:
perhaps you should read up on RAID first before you decide you want it.
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His post history is littered with incessant extremely basic questions that 20 seconds on google would answer. I refuse to help people like that out of principle.
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

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Sep 14, 2001
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Durvelle27 said:
didn't know at first just read up on some sites a few mins ago so i thought RAID 1 would be good not completely sure though ?
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You still haven't defined what you're trying to accomplish. You can't call something good if you don't know for what it's good or even for what you want it. Sure RAID1 is good for redundancy and availability, but is that important to you? We have no idea because you haven't told us what you need from it.
 
Durvelle27

Durvelle27

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Jun 3, 2012
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Nothinman said:
You still haven't defined what you're trying to accomplish. You can't call something good if you don't know for what it's good or even for what you want it. Sure RAID1 is good for redundancy and availability, but is that important to you? We have no idea because you haven't told us what you need from it.
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oh sorry. i want to use it for backup for my movies, music, and some of my games
 
alzan

alzan

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May 21, 2003
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Durvelle27 said:
oh sorry. i want to use it for backup for my movies, music, and some of my games
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RAID should not be used for backup. Lots of companies and individuals have lost data/time/money because they didn't backup their RAID array. RAID is to increase performance and to provide a level of redundancy.

If you're dead set on using RAID my advice would be RAID1; you'll get redundancy since you'll have a mirror of your drive in case one dies. But until you replace the bad drive and rebuild the RAID array your data is at risk. That's the reason for having a separate backup.
 
Durvelle27

Durvelle27

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Jun 3, 2012
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alzan said:
RAID should not be used for backup. Lots of companies and individuals have lost data/time/money because they didn't backup their RAID array. RAID is to increase performance and to provide a level of redundancy.

If you're dead set on using RAID my advice would be RAID1; you'll get redundancy since you'll have a mirror of your drive in case one dies. But until you replace the bad drive and rebuild the RAID array your data is at risk. That's the reason for having a separate backup.
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ok thx
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

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Sep 14, 2001
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Durvelle27 said:
oh sorry. i want to use it for backup for my movies, music, and some of my games
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RAID isn't a backup. You can use the resulting volume as a destination for backups, but you still need a higher level tool to do real backups. And with that, the RAID level chosen is a decision based upon space vs cost. RAID1 costs 2x as much because you need 2 drives but you only get 1/2 the space. RAID5 costs 3x as much and gets you 2/3 of the total space but RAID5 has it's own set of issues which some people make a big deal about.

In general either 1 drive or 2 drives in RAID1 is good enough for most home users. The cost is low and the risk of 1 or 2 drive failures is acceptable to most.
 
Durvelle27

Durvelle27

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Jun 3, 2012
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Nothinman said:
RAID isn't a backup. You can use the resulting volume as a destination for backups, but you still need a higher level tool to do real backups. And with that, the RAID level chosen is a decision based upon space vs cost. RAID1 costs 2x as much because you need 2 drives but you only get 1/2 the space. RAID5 costs 3x as much and gets you 2/3 of the total space but RAID5 has it's own set of issues which some people make a big deal about.

In general either 1 drive or 2 drives in RAID1 is good enough for most home users. The cost is low and the risk of 1 or 2 drive failures is acceptable to most.
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if the drive fails i'll just replace it
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

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Sep 14, 2001
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Durvelle27 said:
if the drive fails i'll just replace it
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Obviously but what if it's a single drive and it contains your backups? That's the point. To determine how much protection you need for your data in the form of redundancy and recoverability.
 
Durvelle27

Durvelle27

Diamond Member
Jun 3, 2012
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Nothinman said:
Obviously but what if it's a single drive and it contains your backups? That's the point. To determine how much protection you need for your data in the form of redundancy and recoverability.
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so just leaving them as single drives would be better
 
M

murphyc

Senior member
Apr 7, 2012
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If you accidentally delete a file, or something crashes and corrupts a bunch of files, or the computer power gets yanked and corrupts the entire file system - you're fakaked because with RAID 1 the two disks are ONE FILE SYSTEM.

Hence, RAID 1 is not a backup. It is merely redundancy, i.e. uptime, i.e. a drive dies and you're still able to work and do things. But it does not at all protect your data from corruption or user error or power failures or crashes. For that you need a backup. So you're almost certainly better off with separate disks and regularly (daily or even hourly) backing up.
 
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