Simple raid question i think please coment

esckey1234

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
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0
10,510
ok so i have 4 ssds and 3 HDDs. What i wanted to do was take the 4 ssd's and run them in a raid 0 array. then take the information in the raid 0 array and back it up to my HDD. a raid 0+1 array was mentioned but im not sure if you can use raid 0+1 to run 4 SSDs in an raid 0 array run the raid 0 array in a raid 1 array backing up to a single HDD. you would need to keep it even numbers wouldn't you? so you would need 8 hdds (4 in the raid 0 then an additional 4 for the raid 1 array correct? or will raid 1 work with 1 hdd?)... I know im going to hear a lot of poo about data back up and data loss and that will essentially if 1 out of the 4 dies ill lose everything in a raid 0 array.. i honestly don't care its for gaming/speed my laptop is for important stuff big whoop you format all the drives install windows with a pen drive and copy all the data back to it while you do something else big whoop however i hoped the raid 0+1 would work so i didn't have to go to that extra work i could just replace the drive and use the hdd to repair the array... i don't expect my hdds to die since they are nice not cheap junk ones. any suggestions to accomplish this?

P.S. Raid zero separates all the data onto 4 ssd's (not always evenly per program/file to all ssds but in the end it averages out somewhat evenly data wise per hdd) correct so when it comes down to it, it is accessing the single ssd less often if it splits 4 ways increasing the time it takes to use the full life an ssd (setting aside the chance you got unlucky and got a crappy ssd that dies quickly)has vs doing all those writes to just 1 ssd (that has the same odds of being a crappy ssd that malfunctions early in its life) and using it more accelerating its death in comparison to using 4 correct? and with write limitations and write endurance being a problem with ssd's why is it so few people think this way?
 
AFAIK TRIM doesnt work in RAID configurations. unless they've fixed that since last I checked. anyway, you should consider running RAID5 instead of RAID0 for your SSDs. That way you still get striping speed but also redundancy in case one of the drives fail.
 
If your using windows 7 ultimate (and i think pro) I would use the windows imaging utility to make a backup of the SSD's in RAID 0. This will give you an easy way to restore the OS should 1 of the drives fail or if the drives get to scattered (due to lack of TRIM). Also you would only need to backup to a single HDD. this would Allow you to upgrade the storage w/o having to redesign a RAID system.

I also recommend using acrnois true image if your willing to pay for software.
 

esckey1234

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
3
0
10,510


i am using ultimate but i didnt know about that utility odd it slipped past me, and i will look into that program and see how hard it would be to get my hands on it. Thank you for the information/help any other suggestions? I know trim isn't supported on raid 0 but i have hear rumors that it is coming along so hopefully i can just add it in later down the road. Still haven't heard an answer on raid 0+1 has anyone used it before and tried what i want to try? i haven't gotten to even start my raid yet :( sadly when i went to clean my pc out and drain the water cooling system I shattered my glass reservoir and spent all night building a new one/ re-buiding/cutting apart my case to fit 2 disk drives 2hdds 4 ssds my water cooling system / fan controller