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Raid5 Set-up question

Tags:
  • Storage
  • raid5
  • NAS / RAID
  • Mirror
  • SSD
  • Operating Systems
Last response: in Storage
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May 15, 2014 12:38:04 PM

Hello, I am new the forums as a poster but I've been reading for a long time now. I have finally joined because I am having an issue that I can not figure out anywhere. I've checked the forums thoroughly, but if I missed it I apologize.

OK, so I am a moderate PC builder, just did my first build from scratch and made some beginners mistakes. One of which is my storage setup. Now, I would appreciate no laughter or some sort of flame war, we have all been novices at one point in our lives. I was wanting to do a Raid5 on my new 64GB SSD (OS drive) and a new 2TB HDD. I now know SSD->HDD raid does not work as planned.

I purchased another 64gb ssd to have a 128gb Raid5, but obviously since I am posting this, I have my operating system installed on the SSD already. Do I really have to format the SSD and re-install the OS? I don't know how to mirror the OS to the 2TB, but have read mirroring the OS can some times be a bad idea as far as performance wise.

More about : raid5 set question

May 15, 2014 12:46:28 PM

You cannot have a RAID 5 setup with only 2 drives. RAID 5 requires a minimum of 3 drives. With 2 64GB SSDs you could do either RAID 0 or RAID 1, but to do a RAID 5 you must have at least 3 drives.

Also, when creating a RAID volume all data will be deleted from all drives during creation. Just reinstall the OS, it shouldn't take longer than an hour anyways and would save you a lot of headaches if you tried to do something convoluted.
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a c 106 G Storage
May 15, 2014 12:58:34 PM

YEa as Entomber said need 3 Drives.

As for your so called 128gb Raid 5 you probably have it in a Raid 0 which offers NO protection what so ever but for the most part if your data is somewhere else you're fine.

One thing you can do is if you dont want to hassle with reinstalling is you can make an Image using a Cloning software like Macrium Reflect, Save that image to another hard drive, make your Raid 5 if you buy another SSD (You will still have only 128GB in a Raid 5) and then restore that image.

Also when you do raid you must have the same size drive for each raid array otherwise if you tried to Raid 5 that 64gb SSd and 2 2TB hard drive you will only have 128gb of space because the bigger hard drive can only be the same size as the smallest one! You can read up more on the different RAID levels here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
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May 15, 2014 1:14:07 PM

honestly though cloning his drive and restoring it would take longer than simply reinstalling Windows, and be a lot more involved.
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a c 106 G Storage
May 15, 2014 10:09:15 PM

I make and restore images on almost a daily basis. A freshly installed OS with programs like antivirus, office, ect but no data takes me 15 minutes to clone though SATAII and 15 minutes to restore. These are about 15-20 gig images. And the images are reading and writing from a 2TB hard drive on a USB 2.0 enclosure.
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May 16, 2014 1:15:30 AM

I also do disk cloning at my job, but you do have to admit that for a "moderate PC builder" with little to no prior experience in cloning, it would actually take more time for him to learn and set up a clone + image restore than it would for him to simply reinstall his OS after raiding his SSDs - it certainly would take longer than an hour.

but we digress a little
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May 16, 2014 8:44:55 AM

I'll just reinstall my os then. And yeah, I meant a raid0. At the time of typing I was discussing with a friend how he was setting up his raid5 and my mind carried that into my first post. I intend on just a raid0 with my two 64gb ssd's with my 2tb hdd as a backup drive for any faults that may occur. I do video and audio editing, so I'd definitely be keeping backup's of my files.
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