Fastest 2TB HDD For OS & Storage & Raid

[baggpipes]

You know i get it with RAID 0 your twice as likely to have them fail. But how often does this happen? Not all your drives have to be raid RAID 0. Save a drive in your computer as a normal drive to store your pictures and stuff to save.

 

[ChristTheGreat]

raid 0 + backup = no no

Raid 5 + backup = perfectly acceptible

raid 1 + backup = overly redundant imo I mean it's already a backup.

Raid 10 + backup = likely a waste of a drive depending on your speed requirements


Single drives are fine too, but don't give you the large single volume which is beneficial for backup. Though tbh may main backup is a 2tb single external, but my NAS is a raid 1 config.

RAID 1 is not a perfect 100% Backup.

1- if your OS get corrupt, because of a caching error that has been replicated on the 2nd drive, it's failling..

2- if your PSU blow, and take down the 2 HDD, it fails.

That is the reason why I have RAID 1 + external BU, I would just need my home to burn to loose everything (and I am about to get a fresh copy of DATA every month, and leaving it at my parent's home.)

So based on what I've seen, RAID 5 means you need an even number of drives 2,4,6,etc.. What if I have 3 2TB drives, an odd number of drives, does that I get 3TB of usable space? The only reason why I don't want to RAID 0 is because I'm afraid that if 1 drives fail, my files will be lost forever. But based on what I've read from your comment RAID 0 has never caused any problems for you. Hmm... And I'm working with a relatively small computer case which has 3 slots for HDD. Luckily I was able to mount my SSD (OS & some programs) on the bottom

RAID 5 = parity: 3x 2TB will result has 4TB, but formated will be 3,63TB.

But like any raid, it is not 100% safe but raid 5 has a good redundancy, you need 2 HDD down to have the RAID down.

That would be wasting alot of space... Why everybody so scared of RAID 0 its not like his desktop is a server holding top secret info or something... RAID 1 just mirrors the drive... sounds like waste of space... and with raid 5 with two 2TB drives and two 1TB drives there is going to be alot of unusable space... 2TB of wasted space... the only thing that is important to him is the pictures and movies, which can be saved directly to the non raided HD.

EDIT: How many people here have actually had a hard drive fail without knowing its about to go?? I mean you would hear it failing wouldnt you?

no... My black 1Tb died like this, unable to resync, wouldn't pass Short test, like that, the day before it was working perfectly.. you can have Electrical problem in the drive, which can cause a failure very fast.

Saving important documents on a raid 0, you must have a backup..

 

[JrRacinFan]

My .02 to you happy, setup a matrix. 2 raid arrays with 3x 2TB drives. 1TB ea on a raid 0 and a raid 5. Setup important files to the raid 5 and your OS. Gives you a total effective 5TB of storage.

EDIT:

BUT only do it if you have a dedicated card or are planning on staying with your current board for a while. While you may lose the raid 0 if one drive fails, the raid 5 will provide parity to those files on it.

 

[Sinzia]

a raid is not a backup... if you screw around and get a virus, corrupt update install, etc... it wont matter cause the issue would have been copied over to the other drive.

An external backup is much much safer.

I personally have two SSD's in a striped raid, and a pair of momentus xt's in a striped raid as well.
I back up to two different 1 TB F3's.

I back up weekly, that way if my system gets hosed, I only potentionally loose a weeks worth of data.

 

[ERazer]

nothing wrong with RAID 0 just not meant for back up, its more about speed

you should be more concern about the right drives (ie: RE4 drives) if you really wanna do RAID

RAID fails mainly due to not right drives or controller

like other states, use another drive for back up (usb2/3 external hard drive to turn on/off as needed)

i have a server backing up everything and i have external back up as well, might be overkill for you

 

[yogurt_21]

a raid is not a backup... if you screw around and get a virus, corrupt update install, etc... it wont matter cause the issue would have been copied over to the other drive.

An external backup is much much safer.

I personally have two SSD's in a striped raid, and a pair of momentus xt's in a striped raid as well.
I back up to two different 1 TB F3's.

I back up weekly, that way if my system gets hosed, I only potentionally loose a weeks worth of data.

I always find it funny that people feel the need to post this.

raid is a hardware config, backup is a process.

anyone whose lookedup, heard of, or encountered either of the two, knows this.

1. a virus could wipe your backup regardless of raid, it's not a viable counter argument to raid.

2. data corruption again isn't a viable counter argument against raid because again, your backup with or without raid is corruptible. In both cases your refering to your backup as if it were a primary data storage system. That doesn't make any sense. If your primary data is virus'd or corrupted and you don't notice before your backup software/procedure starts, it won't matter what hardware you've configured for backup.

3. I already posted that I have an external backup, although I think the idea of having it off isn't a sound backup process, drives fail whether or not they are on and a connected and powered up drive will give you warnings and a chance to save your data before it fails, a drive powered-off does not. Believe me, I've done this in a full scale powered off backup system where my boss had to learn the hard way after losing 10 drives with no other backup for that data in a 500+ hotswap + cradle system. Sure low percentage, but lost data is lost data. And on a live active backup system we have had zero data loss.

 

[happy]

My .02 to you happy, setup a matrix. 2 raid arrays with 3x 2TB drives. 1TB ea on a raid 0 and a raid 5. Setup important files to the raid 5 and your OS. Gives you a total effective 5TB of storage.

EDIT:

BUT only do it if you have a dedicated card or are planning on staying with your current board for a while. While you may lose the raid 0 if one drive fails, the raid 5 will provide parity to those files on it.

So your saying I could have two or more different types of array by using my mobo raid? I do not wish to buy a RAID card because after I plug in my 7950, there will be practially no more room for any other pci-e cards. That said, I currently have the following drives:
(x2) 2TB WD20EARX
(x1) 2TB Samusung F4
(x1) 120GB Patriot Pyro SE

So you noted that I could get a 5TB total of storage. I'm trying to find the most reliable and kind of safe way to just store my files and be able to get it back if anything happens. RAID 5 seems the best way? That means I would get a total of 3GB of usable space? Let's say one drive fails, do I simply take that failed drive out of my case and add it into the same sata connection and it will automatically write the 1s and 0s to that new drive? How do you know which drive fails or not? You were saying something about matrix. I can only fit 3 HDDs and one small SSD on the bottom of the tray so I think I won't be able to do matrix.
I'm new to RAIDing so sorry if my questions sound dumb.

Thanks

 

[ERazer]

imo your missing the point, drives will fail no matter what best you could do is minimize it

WD black are great no doubt but they are not meant for RAID being lack of TLER, i know some have use them for raid w/o issues and they use it in RAID 0 for speed not reliabilty but if your main concern is about reliability why not buy HD meant for RAID

its like ppl using WD green as main OS Hd or use it for RAID and complaint later on thats its dying

EDit: RE4 basically a WD black but TLER enabled if your concern is about speed also thers RE4-GP which is WD green, again with TLER

 

[techguy31]

imo your missing the point, drives will fail no matter what best you could do is minimize it

WD black are great no doubt but they are not meant for RAID being lack of TLER, i know some have use them for raid w/o issues but if your main concern is about reliability why not buy HD meant for RAID

its like ppl using WD green as main OS Hd or use it for RAID and complaint later on thats its dying

EDit: RE4 basically a WD black but TLER enabled if your concern is about speed also thers RE4-GP which is WD green with TLER

Speed on the greens are probably not an issue.

 

[ERazer]

Speed is not an issue. Probably 50- 70mbs read write would be sufficient enough. I'm using the 120 SSD as an OS & some programs, so the other 3 2TB drives will simply act as my storage drive. I understand that the Greens are not as good as the RE4s but I already have 2 of them and just bought a 2TB F4 so I'm stuck with these already.

what do you usually back up anyway? documents, pic, mp3, prons? if its something doesnt need to access 24/7 then better off having it on external drive

 

[JrRacinFan]

So your saying I could have two or more different types of array by using my mobo raid? I do not wish to buy a RAID card because after I plug in my 7950, there will be practially no more room for any other pci-e cards. That said, I currently have the following drives:
(x2) 2TB WD20EARX
(x1) 2TB Samusung F4
(x1) 120GB Patriot Pyro SE

So you noted that I could get a 5TB total of storage. I'm trying to find the most reliable and kind of safe way to just store my files and be able to get it back if anything happens. RAID 5 seems the best way? That means I would get a total of 3GB of usable space? Let's say one drive fails, do I simply take that failed drive out of my case and add it into the same sata connection and it will automatically write the 1s and 0s to that new drive? How do you know which drive fails or not? You were saying something about matrix. I can only fit 3 HDDs and one small SSD on the bottom of the tray so I think I won't be able to do matrix.
I'm new to RAIDing so sorry if my questions sound dumb.

Thanks

Replace the failed drive and criss your fingers the raid 5 will rebuid but you would have to manually rebuild the raid 0

 

[happy]

Replace the failed drive and criss your fingers the raid 5 will rebuid but you would have to manually rebuild the raid 0

So your saying that it is not certain that even if I replace the dead drive with a new one that it will for sure rebuild the RAID 5? I'm probaly not going to RAID 0 because I just need to backup photos and be able to retrieve them back if a drive dies. So a RAID 5 will automatically rebuild the data lost without having me to manually do anything except add it back to the same sata connection?

 

[JrRacinFan]

Yup. Why I mentioned a dedicated card because not too sure if AMD south bridge is reliant on driver software to rebuild. Ive not had a raid array fail on me.

 

[Steevo]

Serius bizness this raid must be. Twenty posts pointg out the obvious flaws and benefits, along with odeas that dont pertain at all.