Is 2 better than 1?

[holabr]

I'm planning to build a new general use PC and am pretty ignorant of the ins and outs of HDD configuration for optimal system performance. So I have a number of stupid questions to ask the experts out there:

1) Is it better to use two 1TB 7200 drives or one 2TB 7200 drive? On sale the price was about the same for one Hitachi 2TB or two SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200 RPM drives.

2) If I go for the two drives, should I use RAID? What are the advantages and how do I configure it?

This will be pretty much all the storage in the system until I can afford a SSD to load the operating system and some program files on. Most of my data files are photos and videos with the normal household data files mixed in. Very little gaming is involved.

Thanks for all the info.

 

[fffblackmage]

RAID 0 = striped array, saves data to both drives, high-performance, but if one drive dies, you lose all data.
RAID 1 = mirrored array, good for saving important data, but you'll be sacrifice capacity for the security.

I personally don't have much experience with setting up a RAID array. Maybe I was just too lazy to bother figuring out how to set it up. The idea that one drive will result in total data loss in RAID 0 is probably another reason.

 

[CurseTheSky]

ALWAYS have a backup drive if you value your data. You can use RAID 1 for backup, but it's not recommended in case you get a virus (it'll be on both drives).

I'd recommend buying two HDDs, but leaving them unRAIDed. Use one as your primary drive (OS, applications, documents, photos, videos, etc.) and one as a duplication drive (periodically copy documents, photos, videos, etc. over to second drive).

 

[corkyg]

ALWAYS have a backup drive if you value your data. You can use RAID 1 for backup, but it's not recommended in case you get a virus (it'll be on both drives).

I'd recommend buying two HDDs, but leaving them unRAIDed. Use one as your primary drive (OS, applications, documents, photos, videos, etc.) and one as a duplication drive (periodically copy documents, photos, videos, etc. over to second drive).

This is my solution as well. I would much prefer to have four 500 GB drives than one 2TB or a pair of 1TB drives. I'm seeing more and more problems and failures happening with these humongous drives.

 

[FishAk]

RAID 1 ( the safest RAID for data) is NOT backup, and if you use it as such, you will experience data loss. It's only a matter of time.

If you buy one drive, you should buy at least one more for backup duty. How many backups you have depends on how important the data is. Having everything on one drive without backup is insane, and RAID 1 is nearly the same as having everything on one drive.

 

[fffblackmage]

RAID 1 ( the safest RAID for data) is NOT backup, and if you use it as such, you will experience data loss. It's only a matter of time.

Do you mind if you elaborate on that? I had the impression that losing one drive, you'd have a copy available. CurseTheSky mentioned viruses and I can understand that, but is that what you're trying to say or something else?

I'd recommend buying two HDDs, but leaving them unRAIDed. Use one as your primary drive (OS, applications, documents, photos, videos, etc.) and one as a duplication drive (periodically copy documents, photos, videos, etc. over to second drive).

Ah, I like using two HDDs so that I can store everything I want to keep on one drive and use the other drive for the OS, so that I could have an easier time reformatting. I don't think most people use two drives for that reason though. I don't think most people like reformatting...

 

[beginner99]

if ssd is too expensive maybe have a look at the seagte hybrid drive? but I think it's about the same price as the smallest ssd's.

About the backup discussion, having a copy of your data on an internal drive IMHO is also not a backup. more or less the same as raid1 just more annonying (manual copying unless you buy approprioate Software).
if it really is important, I would copy it to an external hdd (preferrably with eSata) and store that hdd at work, parents, storage place,... just not in your apartment/house.

I store small static files (eg office, pdf files) online. There are tons of places you can do that and you easly get 5-10 gb of free space. since they are static it's a 1 time thing.

But I must admit, most data I don't really do backups. Never had an issue up till now and it's not real a big issue if lost like movies and stuff.

 

[FishAk]

Do you mind if you elaborate on that?

The only thing RAID 1 protects you from is a failed drive. It won't protect you from fire, flood, theft, user error, virus, bad RAID controller, logical error, power failure, malicious attack, collision, aliens, or your mother in law. As a matter of fact, the one single thing RAID 1 protects your data from (hard disk failure), is the least likely cause of data loss.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

There are tons of threads on here about this if you want to go digging. Here's my standard answer:

I used to go crazy with partitions, but they're a total waste of time anymore. My preferred setup is two hard drives, usually one small (OS, apps) and one large (all my data). When I get Windows installed, I tell it to move the location of all my user folders (Documents, Pictures, Videos, etc.) to the root of the D drive. If the folder is already there (like if I'm reformatting) then it just assumes use of it and leaves all existing files alone. When I install any programs I let them install to their default location under C\Program Files. When I install games I install them to D\Games so that any save game data they may save to their root directory doesn't get lost when I reformat.

I am totally with fffblackmage in that I do this so that it's really easy to reformat. The only things I have to worry about when I reformat are stuff like Favorites or junk that's stored under the AppData folders by programs. Most of the time, I don't even need to worry about that.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

RAIDing multiple disc drives won't make up for major weaknesses such as multiple accesses to RAID-0ed discs.

Sure, transfer speeds may drastically increase, but the drive array will still majorly bog down if you're trying to read from and write to the drives at the same time.

And that is where having separate drives can really shine and is why I try to have at least two separate drives or arrays in my system.

Having a SSD or really fast 7200 RPM drive for OS/apps and one or more 5400/5900 RPM massive "green" drives for storage really is a pretty economical and uncompromising solution.

 

[heymrdj]

My gf uses two 1TB RAID 0 (onboard RAID on an MSI 890GX-G60 mainboard) Western Digital Black drives in her system, and had a good jump in speed over her original setup of a single 500GB drive (photoshop/illustrator/fireworks). I moved from a single 1TB Blue to 4 500GB WD Black drives in RAID 0 through an LSI MegaRAID 8308ELP SAS/SATA card on my desktop. Overkill? Yes. But the IOPS on that array is awesome, and in my line of work, having that high sequential read/write is awesome.

Both of these systems are 2TB of total usable space, and both backup to 1TB external drives via Acronis One Click Backup 24/7. Being RAID 0'd they are fast, but of course this kind of array is dangerous. Such as if one drive in my 4 set array goes, I'm FUBAR'd for a week to get a replacement. Right now it's a risk I'm willing to take, though I'm considering pushing the array over to a RAID 5 setup, or better yet a RAID 10 array since my system supports it, but 10 has very high overhead, and if I go to 5 I lose 500GB of space which right now the 2TB is right at the comfort level, I'd prefer not to go less. In the end when I have another 200$ to burn I might end up getting a second enclosure, 4 more 500's, and mirror/stripe between the 8 drives.

Sorry about that...too much like blogging. In the end, if you're going with basic spindle drives, get two and RAID. now that I did it I can never go back to a single spindle drive. The 0 is a nice spread of data and keeps things flowing without having to do the manual splitting of HD's (such as OS on this drive, files on another drive, work files on another drive ect ect). I hated having to do all that organizing trying to figure out what drive everything was on, and not only that, I ran so many disk intensive tasks I found myself having to run a hard disk for *everything*. In the end your best bet however is a SSD for the OS and then maybe a RAID 0 or RAID 10 array for data/scratch.

 

[GrumpyMan]

For me one smaller single platter drive, soon to be a SSD, for the os and then one large drive for everything else. I can always get external drives should I want, for more storage.

 

[Fayd]

Do you mind if you elaborate on that? I had the impression that losing one drive, you'd have a copy available. CurseTheSky mentioned viruses and I can understand that, but is that what you're trying to say or something else?



Ah, I like using two HDDs so that I can store everything I want to keep on one drive and use the other drive for the OS, so that I could have an easier time reformatting. I don't think most people use two drives for that reason though. I don't think most people like reformatting...

more things can destroy raid-mirrored data than just viruses or crashed harddrives.

the raid controller itself could go fucked. if you use a software array, the software could become fucked.

the partition table could become corrupted.

lots of reasons.

so... simply... just don't use raid as though it were a real backup. any *really* important data, make sure to back up to an off-computer source.

 

[Auric]

For a reasonable combination of performance/security/cost/ease of use, consider a minimal capacity performance drive such as a Samsung 320 GB 7200RPM or such (later to be replaced with an SSD) for the OS and programs along with a sufficient capacity 5400RPM model (Samsung or Western Digital) for everything else. Then another one of those for cloning and storing seperately. The OS drive can be imaged to the bulk drive regularly (keeping the last few copies) and the bulk drive cloned to its twin less frequently as necessary. Preferably copy the OS images to other media too (flash and/or optical).