• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

JBOD and RAID 0?

f4phantom2500

f4phantom2500

Platinum Member
I have an 80GB IDE hard drive, 200GB IDE hard drive, and 120GB SATA hard drive. All 3 are of the same series and except for the sizes and interfaces are the same drives. Assuming the RAID controller I have supports JBOD and RAID 0, and IDE + SATA RAID, is it possible to put the 120GB and 80GB drives into a JBOD array, forming a 200GB drive, and then put that logical drive and the 200GB physical drive in a RAID 0 array?
 
even if it is possible to do that, i sure as hell would never do it. too many performance problems, too many points of failure as well. always best to do raid using the same exact size hd, same model, but so long as you have yourself a good backup of all 3 hdd and have the time, try it out. you can do the JBOD or a raid 0 fine, but i doubt you can then take one array and make an array of that then. i am interested in the result, try it out please once you have a good backup of all 3 drives since all data on all 3 will be lost once you start doing this project, and if any drive "fails" at any time, all data will also be lost.
 
well here's the beautiful thing, i'm using them in a new rig, no data on the 120 gig, nothing important on the 80 gig, and only a bit to back up on the 200 gig....unfortunately i won't get the 120 in 'til next week, so i'll probably try it next weekend. i think it would rock pretty hard if i could get it to work, but yeah it does sound like a failure waiting to happen. ive never set up a raid array or even a sata drive before (last system was all ide, which is why my 80 and 200 gig drives are ide), so idk what to expect. i was gonna just put all 3 of 'em into a big jbod array, but i figured if i could do it this other way it would perform better...if it works lol. btw what do you mean by performance problems? wouldn't it perform better than a big jbod array (assuming it would work)? i would think that any problems you would encounter would be ones of stability, not of performance (ie when it's working, it's working fast).
 
the performace of JBOD is eh.. if anything i would say having one large HD would be better than JBOD, but its good enough. having 2 of the same exact HD for a raid 0 array will get you performance, you have no redundancy though so if 1 drive fails, is all gone. with JBOD, you may also run into that, depending on how the data was being saved to them, if 1 drive fails you might lose it all or you might be able to get data from the other drives in JBOD.

performance problem if you could even make one array part of another in terms of JBOD being part of a RAID, i think you will run into is that nothing is consistent. and there would be too much overhead for the controller to maintain both of them, the perfomance of having to maintain JBOD and then raid 0 on top of it would negate the enhancement of raid 0 in my view, i think if you could even get it to work, the performance would be much worse than that of jbod or even a single large hard drive.

raid 0 size will be Size of Smallest Drive * Number of Drives, in this case your best off resorting to 120GB and 200GB, but even better use of space and best performance would be from 2 of the same. like 2x200GB IDE. you can use different size drives, or different interfaces, but its not going to run at it's best in raid, i have no idea how much worse the performance could be since its theoretical in my view. i know you can make multiple arrays using the same disks, by making different volumes, like use 3 HD to make a raid 5 array and a raid 1 with hot spare for example. but i dont even think the option to take the one array and put that as another was even possible.

what is your goal exactly from this project? reuse all your hard drives? you need space? you need performance? your interested in seeing if it could even happen? (i couldnt find anything online about arrays of arrays except when talking about programming)
 
i didn't really have my heart set on anything, i just wanted to know if it was possible, seeing what my options are. i mean, if it'll be too much of a problem i'll just run them all independently, no raid. it'd be cool to do the jbod>raid0 thing, and theoretically i think it should work...but practically, yeah, i'd expect too many problems. i mean, jbod is just like basically tacking one drive to the end of another to combine one large logical drive, right? so, if i were to do that with the smaller drives, make a 200gb logical drive, then put that drive and the 200gb physical drive into a raid array...it sounds like it makes sense but i don't know that much about raid or its implementation so i just assume it will fail (anything complex with computers tends to have a lot of problems, you know 🙁). well, i'll see; i haven't gotten the 120gb drive yet so idk.
 
i dont think you would even get an option in the raid config to do that, if a bios could do it, then it could work, but i dont think the functionality for it exists, and wouldnt be recommended anyway in the commercial sector. raid 5 is what people use for storage + speed + the reliability. you could be better off doing that but all the drives are different sizes which still sucks. pm me when you get the 120GB drive and try all your ideas out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top