Best Hard Drives for RAID (0,1 and 10)

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IamTimTech

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Hello everyone, thanks in advance for all your help! Plain and simple, I am looking for the best drives to use in my new machine. I would like to use a RAID 10 with 4 or 6 2TB drives. I want to use only Western Digital. I normally prefer Black drives, but had heard that Black drives are not optimized for RAID purposes, so would I use Blue, should I shell out the extra money for Reds? I have no idea so I figured I would ask the community for your input :)
 
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IamTimTech

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Well I guess (unless I have this wrong) because I want the redundancy of a Raid 1 and the Speed of a Raid 0. I have a many generations of family trees, pictures, scanned journals and even some books written by my ancestors that I cannot lose.

I don't think I need drives rated for constant use, just drives that will stay in their RAID. If the Blue's and Blacks work for normal consumer RAID applications I will just stick with my usual drives.
 
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Gathaven

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Raid is not a backup, it's for uptime and performance only. If you use it as a backup, you're going to have a bad time.

See how many times I used underline? That means I'm being super serious, don't shrug this off as a "Oh well, he's being dramatic", I'm seriously not.
 
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casper1973

casper1973

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It sounds like you need a solid backup plan more than you need RAID.

It has been said a thousand times before - RAID should never be considered as a backup

The goal of most raid configurations is increased uptime which isn't something you require. The performance benefit is nice but if that's all you need, why not get a SSD.


But to answer your question...

Blue, Black, Green - none of these support TLER which is essential when using a hardware raid controller.

Red - Probably your best fit. Supports TLER with good performance and reasonably priced.

RE4 - Designed to be used in a RAID environment 24-7. Great drives but expensive.
 
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IamTimTech

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Yes, I worded it poorly but we essentially said the same thing. RAID 1 writes the information to both discs so that in the event that one drive fails the other still has the information there and nothing is lost. It is similar to a backup except that it backs up everything continually instead of doing manual backups (which I intend to do anyway both locally and in the cloud)

Raid 0 stripes the information on two separate discs. Obviously it's benefit is that you get the total volume of storage from all your drives and it is faster, there is no redundancy though so if one drive fails, you lose everything.

Raid 10 as I know it is a combination of both. It stripes the data but does so on multiple discs (a minimum of 4 discs is required) so that each set of stripes is on at least 2 drives.
 
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Gathaven

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This redundancy is uptime, not a backup. There's a plethora of things that can go wrong with this:-

1. Malware such as cryptolocker could encrypt the filesystem level files, meaning duplicates on both HDDs will be encrypted.
2. For whatever reason, the entire PC itself could fail (See:- Floods, large electrical spikes, etc...) ruining both drives
3. User error. This, I would I imagine, is probably the largest reason for data loss and raid doesn't protect against it. Rm the file? File is gone... on both drives, especially on SSD media.

This is just a few reasons, if you'd like more, this is an oldie but a goody for explaining it.
 
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IamTimTech

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I have backup, and backup backup plans. This is not a fail safe, but I want a RAID in my system to maintain consistency and reliability. I asked specifically about which drives would best serve me in a RAID, it was a specific question.

I intend to run 2 256GB SSD's in RAID 0 and either 4 or 6 2TB drives in RAID 10 and that's not going to change.
 
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casper1973

casper1973

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Example of why RAID isn't a backup for you (just one very quick example).

Your computer gets infected with ransom-ware. All your pictures get encrypted into gibberish. Don't worry we have RAID!

oh wait... the drives are mirrored. You now have 2 sets of gibberish and still no pictures.
 
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Gathaven

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If you want a direct answer then:- Any drives will do, reds are probably recommended, keep an eye on smart status (Or use something like smartd to automatically text/email you on error) and you're golden.
 
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Archaic59

Archaic59

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Thank you. I lack experience in raid and these threads are a great place to learn.
 
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IamTimTech

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I work in a computer shop, 60% of my repairs are malware the other 35% are bad hard drives (which usually had malware) I don't have problems with malware.

Again, my mind is made up. I am running my above mentioned RAID configurations and asked about the best drives because this is the area I was foggiest on.

 
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casper1973

casper1973

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Good to hear :)

I would personally go with WD Red drives. What are you using as your RAID controller? Is it a dedicated card? Onboard? Or plain software RAID?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Redundant, yes.
Backup, no.

Yes, data is faithfully maintained across multiple drives.
And so is accidental deletions, corruption, viruses, etc, etc, etc.
 
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I

IamTimTech

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Thank you, I will go ahead and put in the extra funds for the Reds, even though I am sure they will be overkill. Considering I don't deal outside of my known secure sites, I don't file share, and I don't have a taste for pedofilia, rape, or beastiality porn (the most common known places to catch encrypto-malware) I am none too concerned about it. I remove malware for a living (as well as locksmithing) if security wasn't something I was keen on I would be in the wrong line of work.

For the benefit of all who are trying to help me with this and offer information I will share what I have to have my files backed up.

1. Anything that is a text format (scanned journals, books, etc.) is printed out.
2. Almost all of the pictures are scanned from originals (which are still around) and are on DVD's, (most on SD cards) and external HDD's
3. EVERYTHING is backed up on external media (SD cards and HDD's)

I have not yet begun to backup to the cloud, because as it sits I don't have it all compiled in one place to upload. This partially explains why I want my RAID. I want to have ALL of my family history on an array that WILL NOT go down. So I can actively work with it and begin writing my own book on my family history. I came into this post using loose terminology because I am still learning RAID but I want everyone to know I do not consider a RAID a back up, only a way to maintain usability of my machine round the clock.

In all honesty the RAID is primarily because....I want to just cause!
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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I intend to run 2 256GB SSD's in RAID 0
Click to expand...

Which gives exactly zero in performance. Which is the only reason to have a RAID 0 array.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

realworld_MultiAppStart.png
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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Backup in Redundancy terms, Yes. Backup as in Backup terms, NO!

Why?

1) If the file system becomes corrupt, wiped out, ect it happens on BOTH DRIVES! Not just one!

2) If both drives are plugged in, surge comes out, Frys the whole PC, or if the PSU goes up and frys everything in the PC What then?

RAID Should only be considered if

1) You run a server that CAN NOT go down! Like a business of course. A hard drive fails, the light on the server goes from Blue to Orange (At least on dells) and it tell you right there was is wrong on the front of the server on the LCD Display. You replace it, It rebuild you are good to go. Everyone of my clients who have RAID have a backup!

2) You are someone like me. I had 3 2TB hard drives. I need a 4TB of single space so VS buying two new 4TB's (One to be used one as a backup THAT IS ALWAYS IN MY SAFE WHEN I"M NOT BACKING UP) I used 2TB in a RAID 0 and then the 4TB as a backup.

But if you want to run RAID then yes get the WD Reds. That is what they are designed to do. What ever you do DO NOT GET ANY Hybrid Drive or a WD Green drive or anything where the RPM speed can vary. That will drop out of the RAID faster than you can get it running. But they have the Reds and the Reds Pro. The Pro is if you have more than 8 drives i think.

RAID is designed for Performance and Redundancy to keep you going while you fix the problem. Not to be used as your sole form or backup.


 
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IamTimTech

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I have not decided on how to run my RAID yet, I am VERY open to input on this. I am simply about to order the drives and wanted input on that first. If I miss any feedback initially I will reread and edit my posts because it seems this topic got pretty popular pretty fast.
 
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IamTimTech

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I never do! I only buy one or the other and only use Blue or Black drives. I also never buy odd increments of storage past 1TB, for intance 1.5, 2.5 or even 3TB because I notice they fail most often (I do replace a LOT of hard drives). I also never buy hybrid drives because I know they are not made with the highest quality components and don't seem to have the performance or reliability of two separate drives.
 
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Gathaven

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What is this trying to show? That those applications don't rely on disk I/O and instead CPU time, and that random operations are slower when using RAID? Great. That's all shown in theory, no need to bring it to practice to show the exact same results.

RAID increases sequential performance, and sequential performance only.
 
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IamTimTech

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Wait, so will I see a performance increase from a RAID 0 SSD configuration or not?
 
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Gathaven

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It will increase sequential performance (Good) but also increase seek time[0] (Bad). If you're doing sequential writes/reads, use RAID, if you're doing random operations, use a single drive (Although, honestly, I'd use raid in both cases because the increase in sequential performance out performs the random decrease in performance).

From the very same benchmark, here's sequential operations:-

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-3.html

AS-SSD_Sequential.png


Almost double the read/write, while the random operations were only slightly worse using RAID:-

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-4.html

AS-SSD_Sequential_Random_4KB_QD_1.png



[0]Technically not seek time because it's a flash based medium, but for all intents and purposes we can assume it is.
 
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