Raid Versions

Guardsman

I'm thinking of setting up Raid on my desktop using a Samsung 830 256GB SSD and the Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive 750GB that's already in my pc.

My question is what version of Raid should I use ? I plan on doing regular backups and that brings me to my next question.
If I need to restore from a backup will the backup then be restored to it's original Hard Drive or do I have to reorganise it all again.

System Spec

OS........Win 7 Pro
MB........ASUS P8Z77-V LX
Pro........INTEL Core i5 3570K 3.4Ghz

paddyrg

Bad idea - dissimilar disks will not gain you a heap - put the OS and core software on the SSD and use the HHD for files, best bet for that configuration

RAIDs have different benefits and create different problems - inappropriate choice makes data MORE vulnerable, not less!

Instead I would suggest getting an external hard drive to back up your data/files drive

RobertoMoir

Guardsman wrote: »

I'm thinking of setting up Raid on my desktop using a Samsung 830 256GB SSD and the Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive 750GB that's already in my pc.

My question is what version of Raid should I use ?

As Paddy suggests, you should use none of them. What is the precise problem you're trying to solve here?

RAID is likely to cause more problems than it solves when its created out of two differently spec'd disks.

If you have two (essentially) identical disks then the following RAID options are available for most home users' motherboard RAID chipsets.

RAID 0 - in which data is striped across both disks. Selecting this means "I don't care about the safety of my data and I'll prove it to you!" It might result in slightly faster all-round disk performance, which is what you're trading off against safety of the data on those disks.

RAID 1 - in which data is mirrored across both disks. Selecting this means that if one disk fails, the disk that is mirroring it can pick up the slack. Writing data to a RAID 1 array may be slightly slower than writing to a single disks. Reading data should either be faster, or at least unaffected.

RAID set creation is typically done at a lower level than the file system, so if you take a backup from a non-RAID disk and restore it to a RAID array of disks then the data is restored onto the RAID array; you shouldn't need to re-create the array.

Guardsman

What is the point of having a 64GB SSD unless you can use a HHD with it.
I was under the impression that people used a SSD for the OS and any other software they wanted to put on there and then had the option of putting other files pics etc on the other HD.

What I want is a SSD large enough that I can put most things on it but also have the option of storing stuff on the HD.

InsideInsurance

You can use a HD with it but you wouldnt create a RAID array across the SSD and the traditional HD.

A computer can have a number of drives in it without having to create an array, you just get a different drive for each physical drive.

With an array you only see one drive irrespective of how many physical drives you have in that array. The data is then either spread across the drives or duplicated on the drives depending on your balance of speed and security.

RAID 0 creates speed by spreading the data across the 2+ drives but if either one of them ever fails you lose the data on both

RAID 1 creates security my mirroring data across the 2+ drives but you sacrifice speed

RAID 10 (or 1+0) is for 4+ drives where you have spread the data over 2 drives as per RAID 0 but mirror that across the second pair as per RAID 1 so you in theory get the security of RAID 1 but less of speed issues by having the RAID 0 too

In almost any RAID configuration your system basically works off the speed of the slowest drive in the array and so mix fast and slow drives and you only get the speed dictated by the slowest

Guardsman

InsideInsurance wrote: »

You can use a HD with it but you wouldnt create a RAID array across the SSD and the traditional HD.

A computer can have a number of drives in it without having to create an array, you just get a different drive for each physical drive.

So I can have the speed of the SSD and have the option what drive I store stuff in ?

InsideInsurance

Yes, as long as you dont put the SSD in an array with the traditional HD you will see two drives and get the speed benefit of the SSD

For my desktop I have an SSD which has the OS and all applications and then 4 traditional hard drives in a custom RAID configuration for all my data. Whilst it has 5 physical drives the operating system sees it as 2 drives (the SSD and the array)

I then have a network drive which the SSD does backups to daily.... the raid array doesnt need to as its configuration allows any two drives to die and it still is able to rebuild itself without data loss.

RobertoMoir

Guardsman wrote: »

What is the point of having a 64GB SSD unless you can use a HHD with it.
I was under the impression that people used a SSD for the OS and any other software they wanted to put on there and then had the option of putting other files pics etc on the other HD.

What I want is a SSD large enough that I can put most things on it but also have the option of storing stuff on the HD.

Yes, you absolutely can do this. But this isn't creating a RAID array. You'd be simply using the two disks you have installed in your computer.

(If you're unsure how to do this or view the configuration, open start menu/logo button, right click on Computer, Select Manage. From the Computer Management window that appears, open Storage -> disk management. This will show you all the disks in your computer and how they're presently configured (see below for sample from my computer).

You can arrange these disks how you like, assign drive letters to a disk to make it accessible (in the example, I've right-clicked on a disk partition to show the options available for assigning drive letters), etc but be very careful in this screen if you're not sure what you're doing as its easy to erase a disk's contents if you're not careful.