[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Multiple Hard Drives Working Together: All about RAIDs here

[Joshposh70]

[Quote] Turn two 1TB drives into a RAID 1 array, and you get the capacity and speed of a single 1TB drive. [quote]

Incorrect, With RAID 1 you can expect double the read speeds as the RAID controller can read from both drives at the same time asking for different bits of information from each.

[WallaceStevens]

Redundant (raid 0 not really redundant) Array of Inexpensive Disks.

Might as well keep the original name, since, under the raid controller, they are not independent, they are merely separate.

[heelguy]

Your description of RAID 5, is really RAID 4. RAID 5 doesn't use a dedicated parity disk. Although it's true that your overhead would be approximately equal to the capacity of one of the disks, in your RAID set, parity is distributed across all of the drives. It's important to make that distinction, between these two different RAID levels. RAID levels 3 and 4 (both requiring dedicated parity disk drives) are seldom used in the enterprise nowadays.

[MKZ1945]

“In Theory” is the phrase you see written most about double of read speed in RAID 1 arrays. It really depends upon age of hard drives and chipsets on the motherboards, and in some cases whether the machine is a Mac or other computer (mostly a software issue). If anyone is considering going to a RAID array of any kind, do some research before you start. There are risks and benefits associated with them, but the risk of losing data is about inversely proportional to what you know about the process. With the popularity of SSD increasing, along with increased capacity and decreasing prices, it may not be worth the bother. Mechanical hard drives will probably still be around awhile, but I expect to see them take on more of the role of backup services in the not-to-distant future.

[jsquiresmd]

I have read that Raid 10 (1+0) offers performance advantages over Raid 5. Comments?

[MLStrand56]

I've used RAID 1 on several computers. It's like an Automatic backup, Although several people on the forum will disagree.

I'd like to hear their "Defination" of Backup Before they challenge RAID 1.

RAID 1 has Never failed me in the past.

With my New computer I'm going to use RAID 5 (4x 2TB drives), which will give me More redundacy than RAID 1.

Let the Bashing Begin!!!!

MLStrand56

[MKZ1945]

Quote

I've used RAID 1 on several computers. It's like an Automatic backup, Although several people on the forum will disagree. I'd like to hear their "Defination" of Backup Before they challenge RAID 1. RAID 1 has Never failed me in the past. With my New computer I'm going to use RAID 5 (4x 2TB drives), which will give me More redundacy than RAID 1. Let the Bashing Begin!!!! MLStrand56

I’m not bashing you here. It all depends on what you consider a backup is and how much you cherish what you want to preserve. RAID 1 may work for you if you don’t have a bunch of data files that are important to your existence. My definition of backup is to have my important files copied to an external source outside my physical location. Some people use Cloud services, but I’m not that trusting of these services as some are. I have a system of backup drives tied into my network system and not subject to common catastrophes such as fire, robberies, lightning strikes, etc. Nothing is absolutely foolproof these days, but you have to consider file value and react accordingly. What I have is probably overkill for most people, and costly even for me, but I sleep better at nights and that might be the deciding factor on what you consider adequate.

[ronin7752]

Quote

I've used RAID 1 on several computers. It's like an Automatic backup, Although several people on the forum will disagree. I'd like to hear their "Defination" of Backup Before they challenge RAID 1. RAID 1 has Never failed me in the past. With my New computer I'm going to use RAID 5 (4x 2TB drives), which will give me More redundacy than RAID 1. Let the Bashing Begin!!!! MLStrand56

No bashing!

What some people fail to consider, however is that "bad writes" caused by software/OS will damage the data on both drives. RAID is *hardware* redundancy *only*, and offers no protection against soft damage. That requires data backups of some kind...

[ronin7752]

I explain to customers that RAID mirroring is a protection against downtime -- *not* a true data backup...