4 HDDs for raid 0 + 1 and ssd for os?

[fuzzykiss]

4 spinpoints 1tb, and ssd 128 gb for os.
will using raid 0 and 1 both for data and ssd for os work? if so how do i do it? SSD os first..then spinpoints after..or all at once? building new system. primarily for gaming 3d and movies. so i want fast. am i thinking right?
if 4 hdds doesn't improve performance and data loss prevention enough to warrant the expense of 4 versus 2 in raid 0 alone, I'd like to know.
thanks.

 

[tokencode]

I would go with 2 1TB's + 1 2TB for backup. SSD for OS. Image the SSD to your 2TB RAID 0 and image the 2TB RAID 0 to the 1 TB drive for backup. This will give you better data protection than RAID 10 and provide the same performance. RAID 10 makes th emost sense in high availability environments where a restore causes down time. Unless you plan on having a hotswap enclosure it's not worth it. RAID 10 also doesn't offer a roll back option. By imaging nightly or regularly, you can rollback to before a problem occured, like accidently deleting everything, formatting etc.

 

[fuzzykiss]

I would go with 2 1TB's + 1 2TB for backup. SSD for OS. Image the SSD to your 2TB RAID 0 and image the 2TB RAID 0 to the 1 TB drive for backup. This will give you better data protection than RAID 10 and provide the same performance. RAID 10 makes th emost sense in high availability environments where a restore causes down time. Unless you plan on having a hotswap enclosure it's not worth it. RAID 10 also doesn't offer a roll back option. By imaging nightly or regularly, you can rollback to before a problem occured, like accidently deleting everything, formatting etc.

Thanks for the info, the case i'm getting actually offers 5 'hotswapable' bays, the Thermaltake Level 10 GT. so..i'm still not sure what i should do..I like the fast of raid 0, I like the security of raid 1, and from my limited knowledge, 4 hdd's accomplish that, plus the ssd for fast load. i probably would never need the hot swappable feature any ways..so.. i think i understand what you said..other than the imaging part..sorry..i am self taught..well youtube and google search taught. but i've built 2 pc's so far, but this will be the first time trying to use more than 1 hd. i want this to be my true dream machine..i wanna get it right.
thanks for any feedback.

 

[j2j663]

If I were you and had the option for 4 HDDs I would use RAID 5.

Pros:
-data striped over more than 2 drives decreasing read times
-fault tolerant (one drive can fail and array will still work)
-larger capacity from 4 HDDs than raid10 (3TB rather than 2TB)

Cons:
-larger tax on your CPU because of parity algorithm ( assuming you will be doing this without a dedicated raid card)
-performance degradation if one drive has failed
-takes time to rebuild a fail drive


On a different note. I have 3 1.5TB HDDs in my system and I am using the raid features from windows 7. It has worked out extremely well since windows lets you use more than one kind of raid.

I have the majority of my information stripped across all three drives. But the last third of all the drives are mirrored and that is where I store the backups for my system. basically my setup allows me to lose 2 out of three of my drive and I will still have a backup to recover to.

 

[fuzzykiss]

If I were you and had the option for 4 HDDs I would use RAID 5.

Pros:
-data striped over more than 2 drives decreasing read times
-fault tolerant (one drive can fail and array will still work)
-larger capacity from 4 HDDs than raid10 (3TB rather than 2TB)

Cons:
-larger tax on your CPU because of parity algorithm ( assuming you will be doing this without a dedicated raid card)
-performance degradation if one drive has failed
-takes time to rebuild a fail drive


On a different note. I have 3 1.5TB HDDs in my system and I am using the raid features from windows 7. It has worked out extremely well since windows lets you use more than one kind of raid.

I have the majority of my information stripped across all three drives. But the last third of all the drives are mirrored and that is where I store the backups for my system. basically my setup allows me to lose 2 out of three of my drive and I will still have a backup to recover to.

possibly a dumb question...but..how can you tell which HD failed if one does?

 

[j2j663]

Not a dumb question but since you asked that I will assume you haven't ever used disk management.

To get there:
right click on 'My Computer' Icon
select 'Manage'
navigate to 'Disk Management' on left side of screen

From there you can see all kinds of information about your drives. It also lets you manage partitions and do some basic formatting and creating of partitions. If a drive in a raid array fails it will show up here.

 

[fuzzykiss]

Not a dumb question but since you asked that I will assume you haven't ever used disk management.

To get there:
right click on 'My Computer' Icon
select 'Manage'
navigate to 'Disk Management' on left side of screen

From there you can see all kinds of information about your drives. It also lets you manage partitions and do some basic formatting and creating of partitions. If a drive in a raid array fails it will show up here.

Thanks for the info, and no i haven't used disk management, or maybe i have when i partitioned the drives. This will be my first build using more than one HD. let me ask one more question if i may.. do i install all the hd's at once or do i install the ssd for the os first then install the 4 hd's?
thanks.

 

[j2j663]

I would install the SSD and windows first before installing the other HDDs. I doubt it happens any more especially with win7 but older versions of windows used to have a bad habit of writing OS data where ever in wanted despite the chosen location.

So better safe than sorry. I would install the SSD and then windows onto that SSD. Then do all of the updates for windows online. Don't go surfing around the internet when letting windows do its updates. You are protected by a firewall and very minimal antivirus at that point in time. After windows is up to date then I would install the other HDDs and then partition and arrange them however you like. After you have everything up and running in terms of hardware and possibly minimal software (antivirus and other necessary things) I would immediately make a backup of your drives that you can restore if anything were to go wrong with other installations.

I usually find this backup to be a huge time saver as fixing or finding work-arounds for buggy software is the number one way I mess up my computer.

Good luck hope it all works out well.

 

[fuzzykiss]

I would install the SSD and windows first before installing the other HDDs. I doubt it happens any more especially with win7 but older versions of windows used to have a bad habit of writing OS data where ever in wanted despite the chosen location.

So better safe than sorry. I would install the SSD and then windows onto that SSD. Then do all of the updates for windows online. Don't go surfing around the internet when letting windows do its updates. You are protected by a firewall and very minimal antivirus at that point in time. After windows is up to date then I would install the other HDDs and then partition and arrange them however you like. After you have everything up and running in terms of hardware and possibly minimal software (antivirus and other necessary things) I would immediately make a backup of your drives that you can restore if anything were to go wrong with other installations.

I usually find this backup to be a huge time saver as fixing or finding work-arounds for buggy software is the number one way I mess up my computer.

Good luck hope it all works out well.

Thanks so much, your info was invaluable.

 

[fuzzykiss]

Best answer selected by Fuzzykiss.