RAID question

[gammaray]

to mount a mirror raid array do i need ABSOLUTELY 2 identical hard drives?

or both can be 500GB but from different brands?

can one have 16mb cache and the other 32mb?

Thank you.

 

[RebateMonger]

No. You don't need identical hard drives nor need they be of the same make. They don't even have to be the same capacity. In most RAID configurations, the capacity utilized will depend on the capacity of the smallest hard drive in the array.

 

[Nothinman]

It depends on the leniency of whatever's creating the array. If you're going to use one of those cheapo, onboard controllers I would assume they're pretty liberal in what they accept.

 

[lambchops511]

depends on controller - but as Nothinman said, most onboard controllers don't care

 

[gammaray]

well, i will use the raid function that comes with windows xp64 and a msi gd-70 fx 750 board

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: aznium
depends on controller - but as Nothinman said, most onboard controllers don't care

I've never encountered a RAID controller that cared, but I certainly haven't seen them all. I've worked with Dell PERC and CERC, 3Ware, Areca, HighPoint, and LSI controllers, as well as a few onboard ones. Anybody know a controller that won't allow non-matching drives? It'd be good to know in case I run into one.

The one "danger" of non-matching drives comes when you want to add or replace a disk in an array. Even with identical disk "capacities", the usable capacity will vary a bit among disk makers. In some cases, it's possible that you can't pair a certain 146 GB (for instance) hard drive with another one by another disk maker, because the new disk doesn't have quite as much enough space as the old disk. Nowadays, most high-end controllers reserve some space when they create an array so it's unlikely they'll be larger than a replacement disk.