Most Reliable HDD setup?

[legocitytruck]

When setting up a computer, what is the best HDD arrangement to maximize data reliability? I was planning on running two of the same sized drives in a RAID 1 array. Is there a more reliable way to set this up?

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: legocitytruck
I was planning on running two of the same sized drives in a RAID 1 array. Is there a more reliable way to set this up?

Yes... RAID 6

Hardware Secrets:
"RAID6 presents a failure probability far lower than RAID5, being the recommended system for storage systems where reliability is the key word."

Henry Newman (Enterprise Storage Forum):
"... it is clear that RAID-6 is here to stay until someone figures out something better."

Intel:
"By using additional parity calculations, RAID 6 can protect mission-critical data from two concurrent disk drive failures.
With the growth of disk array sizes, increasing disk densities and the introduction of Serial ATA (SATA,) drives (said by some to have lower reliability) into the storage market, the likelihood for two concurrent failures is increasing."

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: legocitytruck
I was planning on running two of the same sized drives in a RAID 1 array. Is there a more reliable way to set this up?

Yes... RAID 6

Hardware Secrets:
"RAID6 presents a failure probability far lower than RAID5, being the recommended system for storage systems where reliability is the key word."

Henry Newman (Enterprise Storage Forum):
"... it is clear that RAID-6 is here to stay until someone figures out something better."

Intel:
"By using additional parity calculations, RAID 6 can protect mission-critical data from two concurrent disk drive failures.
With the growth of disk array sizes, increasing disk densities and the introduction of Serial ATA (SATA,) drives (said by some to have lower reliability) into the storage market, the likelihood for two concurrent failures is increasing."

This.

 

[JackMDS]

The most reliable configuration with two drives is to use one good fast drive for storage and the second drive for daily backup.

As far as RAID goes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
The most reliable configuration with two drives is to use one good fast drive for storage and the second drive for daily backup.

Agreed. I use SyncToy to auto-backup My Documents, my PST, my FF Profile, etc onto my second hard drive.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Besides two internal drives (either RAID 1 or using a backup scheme) it's also a very good idea to have an external HD for backups that is not left attached to the PC (and is not left plugged in).

That protects you against a power surge that takes out the PC, and failure of PC parts including the PSU and the motherboard's disk controller. Also against software issues (including infections) that corrupt files, at least until the next time you sync.

That's why the really careful also burn data files to DVDs. This gives you multiple copies and multiple versions of files to recover from accidental deletes and corruption.

 

[RebateMonger]

Depends what you mean by "reliability". Minimum chance of data loss? Maximum uptime? Lowest drive failure rate? Ease of recovery?

The arrangement with the least chance of losing data is making ongoing backups to an independent hard drive and keeping at least one copy offsite. Everything goes downhill from there.

If you want to build arrays, then RAID 1 can be reasonably "reliable" and is the most easily recoverable if something bad happens to the array. Recovering data from a failed RAID 5, RAID 6, or even a RAID 10 array is non-trivial. They all use striping, whcih makes recovery a pro-only job.

If I want maximum uptime, I use RAID 1 with automatic failover to a hot spare. With daily backups to a removable hard drive.

If you have a backup, no hard drive recovery is necessary.