Hard Drive Re-arrangement time.

[bpgt64]

Three Computers; I am going to be installing window's 7 on these three machines configuring there HDs differently.

2x G.Skill 64GB SSD Drives (150mb/s|100mb/s)
1x P128 Corsair SSD (220mb/s|200mb/s)
4 WD Caviar Green 1 TB Drives(3 have 32mb cache, 1 has a 16mb)
1 Seagate Baricuda 500GB 7200.11
1 Seagate Baricuda 320GB 7200.11 (Laptop size drive)

I am currently thinking this setup would be the best.

Desktop 1;(Not built yet, arriving tomorrow)
1 P128 128GB(App/OS Drive)
4 WD Caviar Green 1TB drive in some raid configuration, but I wasn't sure if I can raid similar HDs with different caches?

Laptop 1;
1 G.Skill 64GB Drive, 1 320GB Drive

Desktop 2;
1 G.Skill 64GB Drive, 500 GB Barricuda 7200.11 Drive

 

[newtekie1]

You shouldn't have a problem with RAID on the 4 WD drives, most controllers will handle the different cache levels. The array will just be limitted by the slowest drive.

Just be warned that the WD Green drives are known to cause problems with a lot of RAID controllers. The way the drives power saving features function causes some RAID controllers to falsely claim the drive has failed. This usually leads to a lot of rebuilds.

 

[bpgt64]

Anything I can do prevent that? OR would it better to install them individually?

 

[newtekie1]

I thought there was a firmware fix for it that made the problem better, but didn't fix it completely. Just make sure you have the latest firmware on all the drives. If you start having drives fail and then pick right back up again and cause a rebuild, then you know your controller doesn't like the GP drives.

 

[bpgt64]

I am thinking I am going to raid the three new drives and just leave the fantom data as is.