RAID question

[vandakeg]

I have two identical Maxtor 120gb drives in my system, and it seems a waste to me that I'm not using them in a RAID Array.

My problem is, I can't afford to lose the 140gb of data I currently have on the 2 drives. I'm assuming the drives will need to be formatted in order to install them in a RAID, so can anyone think of any way for me to backup 140gb of data w/o using 40 blank dvds?

Also, is there a difference in speed b/w the $10 RAID cards on ebay, and the $80 ones in the stores?

TIA

[flaninacupboard]

what kind of data are you backing up?
if it's already heavily compressed video and audio, then a spare hard drive, backup tape or a stack of DVD-rs seem to be the only option. wonder how long/how much it would cost to upload the data to some websapce?

If the data is not heavily compressed (say, pics from a digital camera, word documents, spread sheets, etc.) then using something like WinRAR should be able to reduce the amount of data you're backing up, and thus reducse the number of discs you need.

[mrtristan]

Just curious. Why do you think it's a waste to run them in a non-RAID configuration?

Anyway, personally, I would stay away from the really cheap deals on Ebay. Most of those "companies" are out to make a quick buck and end up screwing the consumer. I'm sure there's people who've gotten good deals with no problems, but I'm usually on the end that gets screwed.

When it comes to shopping online, I stick with known companies with reputable service. It's not unusual for me to spend more than a week researching reviews and other online rating services before making a purchase. The first thing I look for is their customer service and return policy.

Again, I'm not saying that all of the deals out there are bull. However, most of the time a deal that's too good to be true really is. I wouldn't feel comfortable if a company was offering a RAID controller card for less than $25.

[Northstar]

Raid isnt all its cracked up to be and i doubt you'll even 'notice' a difference, one thing to worry about with Raid is once you're 'Raided' if it all goes tits up you lose the lot (so i heard).

I do have a Raid card but never bothered with the Raid side of it.

I just use it as an IDE card and put each individual drive on their own seperate IDE slot (onboard + Raid card), mainly so they work to the best of their ability without affecting eachother.

I think a lot of the problems you hear about with burners/hardrives has a lot to do with being on the same cables and not liking eachother much, some people dont factor that into it when they are dealing with problems such as that, but i bet you if they got a seperate IDE/Raid card those problems would dissapear, ok maybe not for everyone, but a good percentage.

Ok im rambling on and got off the subject so ill shut up now.

This is just my opinion.

[vandakeg]

thanks for the replies..

@flan: I do video montages, and wedding and event videography, and 150gb of the data is backed up projects, that I need to have access to in case any of my previous clients wants something changed w/ their video.

@tristan: It's really not so much that I consider it a waste, it's just that I know I'm not getting all that I could out of my HDs.

@Northstar: I do a lot of file management (moving large 15gb files from one drive to another), so a RAID 0 setup would certainly help in that aspect. Granted, with only 2 drives, I may not be able to tell much of a difference, but it's only a matter of time before I will need to buy two more 120gb drives..... and then i'll be in the same boat again when i want to add those!

[indolikaa]

Raid isnt all its cracked up to be and i doubt you'll even 'notice' a difference

Wrong! Well, sort of wrong! OK, it depends!

One thing to worry about with Raid is once you're 'Raided' if it all goes tits up you lose the lot (so i heard).

Depends on whether you are striping, mirroring or both.

There are only two really sensible ways to backup that much data: buy another hard drive, or buy a tape drive. If you decide on DVD, let me know which company so I can buy stock in it! :P

I run RAID 0+1 so I get the speed benefits of striping with the redundancy of mirroring.

I never recommend RAID 0 to any of my associates unless they have a secured data solution (USB Drive, Memory Stick, CF Card, an independent hard drive, etc.) that keeps their data off the RAID drives. There is (almost) no fault tolerance with RAID 0.

As for speed, it depends. If you are running IDE RAID there will be an increase in overall performance. As to whether it's noticable, that depends on the system. SCSI or S-ATA RAID will result in a speed increase that gets noticed.

In theory, there should be no speed difference between two different IDE RAID cards. Normally, the limitations are the slower of the drives on the RAID channel (moot if all drives are identical) and the speed of the ATA interface.

.indolikaa.

[vandakeg]

thanks indo... I know windows has a software raid option, which can't be any good at all... that's why I was thinking, maybe these $10 cards are actually just IDE cards w/ software to run them as RAID cards.
In the past 10 years I have owned over 20 hard drives, and never once have I had one failed. This has probably given me a false sense of security, however, that is the reason I don't feel too worried about striping my drives.
BTW, how does 0+1 work? Would you use 2 drives in a striping setup, then two mirrored?

[Solarjetman]

BTW, how does 0+1 work? Would you use 2 drives in a striping setup, then two mirrored?

yes, you are correct. RAID 0+1 requires a minimum of 4 drives, though you can have any even number except 2. Essintially it stripes the drives (RAID 0) then mirrors them to two new drives (RAID 1)

[rallynavvie]

I never noticed a difference when I put my two 80GB HDDs on RAID 0. I went to RAID hoping it would help alleviate dropped frames on capture and make faster access for editing work. No such luck. It has happened to me at work where the stripe was lost and both drives had to be reformatted. If you do decide to go with RAID don't use your only two drives, use a couple smaller drives and use it only for temporary use (i.e. scratch disks). The other thing I heard about was striping with parity (RAID 5 I think?) which makes a parity string on another HDD which can be used to reconstruct data on the striped volumes without taking up as much space as the original files. I've never really looked into it though, and I think only the more expensive RAID controllers do that. Look for an Adaptec if you want a decent card. Personally I went with fast U320 SCSI drives for captures and scratch disks and they work FAR better than my RAID array did. I couldn't even imagine how quick SCSI RAID would be

That thing about devices on the same IDE channel isn't always true. All data coming from devices on the IDE ribbon have to go to the controller first then to the destination drive. You may get slightly better results ripping from one channel to another rather than the same channel but not much. The only time it may be noticeable is transferring huge files between HDDs on the same channel. I use the slave channel for optical drives and the masters for HDDs generally.

Anyway, save your cash and just get more HDDs with it. If you find a good deal on a RAID card it will at least make a good IDE controller. Just make sure its as fast as your drives (ATA133, EIDE, etc.).

[Solarjetman]

The other thing I heard about was striping with parity (RAID 5 I think?) which makes a parity string on another HDD which can be used to reconstruct data on the striped volumes without taking up as much space as the original files.

You are very close. That is actually RAID 3 or 4 (depending on if the disks are independently accessable). In RAID 5 the parity block is distributed among the three hard drives.

In short, most implementations use RAID 5 instead of 3 or 4 because RAID 5 has a better read speeds and its preformance in most cases is at least equal to 3 or 4. There are however a few special cases where 3 or 4 would be better.

[freak_in_cage_10k]

raid is ok i guess m8, although the speed increases probably wouldn;t justuify blowing £60+ on dvds + raid card! also, they are more likely to crash/loose data!!!

have you ever thought about SATA drives? u need a motherboard supporting SATA, and the good ones (Western Digital 37 Gig raptor) are AMAZINGLY fast, but pretty expensive, but if you wait a bit they will come down in price m8

[indolikaa]

BTW, how does 0+1 work? Would you use 2 drives in a striping setup, then two mirrored?

I have two machines. The first is used for general activity and has a 4-disk RAID 0+1 array. The second is the video editing workstation and has a 4-disk RAID 0 array. All 8 drives are 30GB Maxtor 7200's.

I have never had a hard disk failure that couldn't be solved by a generous low-level format. And the appropriate tape backup drive!

...maybe these $10 cards are actually just IDE cards w/ software to run them as RAID cards

I was always under the impression that RAID 0/1/0+1 was a hardware-level implementation...

[vandakeg]

I was always under the impression that RAID 0/1/0+1 was a hardware-level implementation...

Yeah, me too... but $10?.. c'mon!

[indolikaa]

Are you thinking maybe it's just an IDE controller with a RAID software plugin?

[vandakeg]

Yes, that's exactly what i'm thinking... although, I suppose I could use an IDE controller, so even if it is only software based, I could just use it w/o the raid.

[Solarjetman]

Yes, that's exactly what i'm thinking...

I do not think you would have to worry about that. I think the odds are very slim.

[indolikaa]

I do not think you would have to worry about that. I think the odds are very slim.

You see, I would've thought that, too. But then again, having seen some of the shnit that's been on eBay this year, I wondered about it...

[mrtristan]

I thought RAID 0+1 could be run with three drives. Two for striping and a third drive equal to the total disk space of the first two, for mirroring.

[Solarjetman]

I thought RAID 0+1 could be run with three drives. Two for striping and a third drive equal to the total disk space of the first two, for mirroring.

I suppose you could build a RAID controller to do that. I doubt any on the market will however.

The entire array would have to slow down to the speed of just the mirroring drive. Also, if one of the striping drives were to fail, the reconstruction of it would be tremendously complex. It would almost be worth it to wipe the entire stripping array and recopy the data. You give up alot with getting very little in return.

If you had three drives, it would be better to just run a RAID 5 and lose half of the largest drive. The end result would give you the preformance of RAID 0 and almost as good data protection as RAID 1. And you would have the same disk space as your RAID0+1 idea.

[rallynavvie]

SATA is getting cheaper, but you can also get pretty good deals on used SCSI equipment on eBay. Besides, U320 0wnz SATA