POLL: RAID 0 Problems

[linkinpark342]

I was just curious on how dangerous RAID 0 really is. I don't mean any costly RAID 0+1 or anything I mean just plain old RAID 0.

 

[NeonFlak]

I have been using Raid 0 ever since my first mobo had it built on back in the celeron 300a days. I have never experienced any problems that weren't caused by me.

 

[Crism]

I've been using my RAID 0 on the IT7-MAX2 v2 for almost 3 years now. It's only died once and that was because of a hard drive failure. My recommendation is to set it up the way I have it. 2x Hard drives on RAID 0 then a separate hard drive on the IDE for storage. The RAID is only for my games and programs while the backup HD is for all of the music, videos, pictures, etc.

 

[Coherence]

Consider RAID 5 before RAID 0+1. It only requires 3 drives and gives you 2/3rds of the total capacity of the drives, while 0+1 requires 4 drives and only gives half the capacity.

So, with RAID 5, you get striping-speed reads and fault tolerance with fewer drives.

 

[imported_Kensai]

The problem with RAID 0 is that when one drive fails, your array is dead.
I myself prefer RAID 50 or RAID 5.

 

[imported_Phil]

Yes, I've seen RAID-0 problems. Not just people who post here about problems

We were testing some SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drives at work, with a pre-production controller card that was a little flaky, to say the least. It'd drop a drive at random, and when that happened, you had to reinstall Windows and start over.

Highly annoying.

 

[fightcancer]

Originally posted by: Kensai
The problem with RAID 0 is that when one drive fails, your array is dead.
I myself prefer RAID 50 or RAID 5.

Exactly!

I've never had "problems" with RAID 0, but when one of my 3 drives (3 x 80GB) stalled, it was all over but the crying for all 240GB. fortunately, I was able to boot at least one more time to copy the important stuff elsewhere.

IMO, that one-drive-fails-all-drives-fail principle makes RAID 0 very risky.

 

[Polish3d]

Only problems installing it so far. Windows won't read my forking USB Floppy drive to F6 the drivers in and the slipstream with Winlite isn't all that stable. (So I bought a floppy and will reinstall in a few days.)

 

[Steven the Leech]

I back up all critical data. Period. I use two WD raptor in raid 0, when i get a slow down/error/strange behavior, I restore a clean install of windows from an image. If it was a business computer, I sure wouldnt take the chance. The only time I ever experienced any problems was when I had a power supply [enermax] that got flaky on me. I strted getting errors on one volume or the other and get drive failures, and would have to rebuild the volume.[nothing wrong with the drives] Come to think of it every enermax PS I have owned became flaky fairly quickly. I remember making a note to my self "self do not buy enermax"

 

[ElTorrente]

Just remember that RAID isn't necessarily for keeping your data safe - it's for keeping you online and up and running in case something happens to a disk. Raid0 is, obviously, for speed only.

Basically, any company or person who relies soley on raid to keep data safe is playing with fire. BACKUPS to a completely seperate device(s) (like tape drives, DVDs, another comp, etc) are the only way to actually keep data safe. Don't put your life's work on a Raid5 and think you are safe.

 

[Some1ne]

I've had a RAID-0 for about a year and a half now using WD Raptors, and I've never had any problems with it, except for when I tried to transfer my Windows install image from my PATA drive to the RAID when I first created it, and this wasn't the RAID's fault, it's just that imaging a Windows install from one disk to another and then having everything magically work from the new location is not an easy task at all. No problems since getting Windows working on the RAID.

And as for the backups, I try to only use my RAID for OS and program installs, and I backup important things on it prior to trying anything that I think might make it break. I don't make backups on any sort of regular basis. Files that I want to store and don't want to lose I generally outsource to my PATA drives (though mostly because the RAID space is limited rather than because I'm concerned that it will fail). For awhile I actually relocated my "My Documents" folder to a PATA drive, but that caused Windows to act weird, so I put it back.

 

[Steven the Leech]

As a matter of fact, I use outlook for email. and keep the mail delivery folder on a seperate drive [.pst], so when i do a reinstall all of my emails are there unchanged.

 

[Stangs55]

never again will i raid 0

had my raptors in it....failed w/1 year

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: Coherence
Consider RAID 5 before RAID 0+1. It only requires 3 drives and gives you 2/3rds of the total capacity of the drives, while 0+1 requires 4 drives and only gives half the capacity.

So, with RAID 5, you get striping-speed reads and fault tolerance with fewer drives.

thing with raid 5 is that just because 3 drives will work fine, it won't be fault tolerable with 3 drives, needs 4 drives so at least one drive can die.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: goku2100

Originally posted by: Coherence
Consider RAID 5 before RAID 0+1. It only requires 3 drives and gives you 2/3rds of the total capacity of the drives, while 0+1 requires 4 drives and only gives half the capacity.

So, with RAID 5, you get striping-speed reads and fault tolerance with fewer drives.

thing with raid 5 is that just because 3 drives will work fine, it won't be fault tolerable with 3 drives, needs 4 drives so at least one drive can die.

No.
What you're talking about is three drives with a hot spare, making four drives.
Three drives in RAID-5 is also fault-tolerant, as the array will keep running (albeit at a reduced speed) if one drive dies.

 

[boomerang]

I've been running RAID 0 for about 3 years now using the controller built into my board. I did it originally for the learning experience. I have had zero problems associated with it.

I image daily to a third drive using Acronis. Which, by the way is the only software that I have tried that will restore from an image with SATA drives in the mix.

I have had the file server at my wife?s office on RAID 1 for 5 or 6 years and it has saved us more than once due to drive failure. As warranties have lengthened, drive failures have become less common but I'm staying with it. Plus, it was a great way to recycle my 36BG raptors when I went to 74's.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: goku2100

Originally posted by: Coherence
Consider RAID 5 before RAID 0+1. It only requires 3 drives and gives you 2/3rds of the total capacity of the drives, while 0+1 requires 4 drives and only gives half the capacity.

So, with RAID 5, you get striping-speed reads and fault tolerance with fewer drives.

thing with raid 5 is that just because 3 drives will work fine, it won't be fault tolerable with 3 drives, needs 4 drives so at least one drive can die.

No.
What you're talking about is three drives with a hot spare, making four drives.
Three drives in RAID-5 is also fault-tolerant, as the array will keep running (albeit at a reduced speed) if one drive dies.

Are you sure about this? I thought I read some where that raid5 requires 4 drives to be fault tolerant and 3 drives works ok but if one drive fails the array is gone.

 

[Some1ne]

Are you sure about this? I thought I read some where that raid5 requires 4 drives to be fault tolerant and 3 drives works ok but if one drive fails the array is gone.

Nope, technically you can even do RAID-5 using two drives, although at that point, it's essentially RAID-1. The basic idea with RAID-5 is that however many drives you have, one drive stores enough redundancy data that if any drive in the system fails, its contents can be reconstructed using the remaining drives (if two drives fail however, it's dead). Technically I think the redundancy data is actually distributed across all the drives in the array, but it is logically equivalent to using a single drive to store all the redundancy data in all aspects except performance (distributing it improves performance because if it was all kept on one physical drive, that drive your bottleneck the array).

 

[imported_Kensai]

Originally posted by: Some1ne

Are you sure about this? I thought I read some where that raid5 requires 4 drives to be fault tolerant and 3 drives works ok but if one drive fails the array is gone.

Nope, technically you can even do RAID-5 using two drives, although at that point, it's essentially RAID-1. The basic idea with RAID-5 is that however many drives you have, one drive stores enough redundancy data that if any drive in the system fails, its contents can be reconstructed using the remaining drives (if two drives fail however, it's dead). Technically I think the redundancy data is actually distributed across all the drives in the array, but it is logically equivalent to using a single drive to store all the redundancy data in all aspects except performance (distributing it improves performance because if it was all kept on one physical drive, that drive your bottleneck the array).

Aye. What he said.

 

[AtlantaBob]

Originally posted by: ElTorrente
Just remember that RAID isn't necessarily for keeping your data safe - it's for keeping you online and up and running in case something happens to a disk. Raid0 is, obviously, for speed only.

But when everyone seems to say that the speed increase is marginal... one wonders why people use the dang thing.

I mean, yes, entertaining to learn, amusing I suppose if you don't do anything with the PC--or if you're the dedicated type who frequently backs things up. Just seems like it's too risky if you're doing something even marginally important... like say, 5th grade homework.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Originally posted by: AtlantaBob

Originally posted by: ElTorrente
Just remember that RAID isn't necessarily for keeping your data safe - it's for keeping you online and up and running in case something happens to a disk. Raid0 is, obviously, for speed only.

But when everyone seems to say that the speed increase is marginal... one wonders why people use the dang thing.

I mean, yes, entertaining to learn, amusing I suppose if you don't do anything with the PC--or if you're the dedicated type who frequently backs things up. Just seems like it's too risky if you're doing something even marginally important... like say, 5th grade homework.

RAID 0 is fairly useful in servers for higher STR..
You'll need to backup relatively often though.

 

[AtlantaBob]

Ah, well, the server crowd is different. Something tells me that most people running those actually have made a backup of their important data. My comment was generally geared towards those who happen to think that RAID-0 will help their gaming, and only later realize that a.) it didn't, and b.) the important files on their computer are now gone.

 

[Canterwood]

I use Raid 0 and as yet haven't had a problem, although I do realise the risks.

I like the speed boost and backup any files I can't be without in case of drive failure.

 

[ElTorrente]

Originally posted by: AtlantaBob
Ah, well, the server crowd is different. Something tells me that most people running those actually have made a backup of their important data. My comment was generally geared towards those who happen to think that RAID-0 will help their gaming, and only later realize that a.) it didn't, and b.) the important files on their computer are now gone.

Raid DOES HELP GAMING!!!!

...If you are willing to spend the money on good equipment. My setup is absolutely nuts doing anything that involves disk access. Loading levels in BF2, for instance, is hilarious. I am in game sooooo long all by myself every single time a map changes, that I can cap a flag before the second guy makes it in-game - then slooooowly the other 63 people start filtering in.

I have two extra disks I use to store mp3s and data that I don't want to lose - plus I use DVD backups.

My Raid setup is over-the-top and expensive, but I don't care because my system simply screams. I even have the battery backup unit hooked up to it and have write-back cache enabled.

If you hook up 2-4 drives to your onboard Raid, or MOST raid cards - you aren't gonna benefit a whole lot in games. If you spend lots of money, however, you WILL benefit in games. Loading levels in ANY game is very, very fast on my system.

 

[Some1ne]

...If you are willing to spend the money on good equipment. My setup is absolutely nuts doing anything that involves disk access. Loading levels in BF2, for instance, is hilarious. I am in game sooooo long all by myself every single time a map changes, that I can cap a flag before the second guy makes it in-game - then slooooowly the other 63 people start filtering in.

While I'm sure your RAID is helping here, this also has a lot to do with the fact that you also have a top of the line CPU (overclocked no less), more RAM than most (also overclocked), and what is in general a very top of the line system. You would still be hitting the level first even if you had BF2 installed on a plain drive, because very few people have systems that are even remotely comparable to yours. I do agree that RAID adds at least some performance, in gaming and in everything else that is heavily reliant on disk accesses, but loading a level in a game is also very CPU and memory intensive, and your performance can't be entirely attributed to the RAID array.