Setting Up A Raid 10

RookieOfTheYear · Jan 12, 2019

So I have bought four 4TB hard drives with intentions of creating a Raid 10 to keep all my important data on. I am not very familiar with Raids, or some of the best methods for backing up data.

I just thought I would ask the community what you might suggest I use to backup my data. I'm pretty sure I don't want to go with software raid though, but I'm not exactly sure.

Thanks in advance for any help. It's much appreciated.

Solandri · Jan 12, 2019

RAID is not a backup. RAID is for redundancy. If your company will bleed $100,000 a day every day your file server is down, you want it on RAID. RAID is for minimizing if not eliminating downtime.

RAID doesn't work as a backup because if you accidentally delete or overwrite a file, both copies get erased or overwritten simultaneously. In other words, even if you have a RAID array, you still need to be making backups.

And the built-in RAID found on most motherboards is in fact software RAID. It just adds a hook into the BIOS boot sequence so you can boot off the RAID array (which you normally can't do with software RAID). Once it begins booting, it loads RAID drivers for your OS, and your OS does software RAID. If you don't need to boot off the RAID array, motherboard RAID is actually worse than plain software RAID because it hides the individual drives from the OS. So things like SMART check tools will not work with motherboard RAID, while they do work with software RAID (like drive mirroring included with Windows).

USAFRet · Jan 12, 2019

RAID, of any type, is not a backup.

Lets consider your theoretical RAID 10, w/ 4TB drives.

4TB + 4TB + RAID 1 (mirror) = 4TB drive space
4TB + 4TB + RAID 1 (mirror) = 4TB drive space

These two RAID 1 arrays are striped, in RAID 0. 8TB drive space.

Since the two RAID 1 arrays are combined in a single RAID 0, accidental deletion of a particular file means it is gone gone gone across the whole drive space.

In the consumer space, the concept of RAID brings false hope and security.

Actual backups are different, more secure, and actually far easier.

Read here for my personal backup routine, and others:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html

RookieOfTheYear · Jan 13, 2019

Thanks guys! This is exactly what I needed. I think I may just get an enclosure for two of my 4TB drives to create an external hard drive. I currently only have about 1.5TB's of data I want to back up. So it should last me a while, even on 4tb's. Would it be foolish to put the two drives in a raid 1? Or should I just manually add the data to both drives to have two copies (in case one drive fails)?

USAFRet · Jan 13, 2019

RookieOfTheYear :

2 copies on 2 individual drives is better than 1 copy on 2 drives in a RAID 1.

RookieOfTheYear · Jan 13, 2019

Thank you both for the helpful insight. I think I got it figured out what I'll be doing.

RookieOfTheYear · Jan 20, 2019

So I went with a 6TB Western Digital My Book external hard drive, and a 6TB WD Black internal drive. I also am keeping the original 2TB internal drive as another backup copy. The data that is important to me are the family pictures and videos. So I will be adding the new stuff to both the interal 6TB drive, and the external drive once a week, or maybe even once a month depending on how many new files there are each week/month.

Thank you guys for the help figuring out the best way to backup my files. Have a great day all.

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