Hey forum, I've been hearing a lot about "putting two HDD into raid", and now I'm curious, what is raid and what are its benefits or disadvantages if any.
I also can't decide which to get, 1 1tb HDD or 2 500gb HDD and use one maybe for backup storage.
Lastly, what's the difference between a laptop HDD and a desktop HDD? And what's better for what?
Thanks for all the help everyone!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
I know this wiki is quite long, the ones that usually matter are:
RAID 0,1,10:
Raid 0 - Aligning 2 drives together for read and write speed (Usually for gaming, things that you don't mind to lose if it ever a drive fails)
Raid 1 - Aligning 2 drives together for backing up if 1 drive fails (Usually for 24/7 always on builds, constantly running drive)
Raid 10 - Aligning 4 drives toegher for best of both, performance and security.
I know there are others, but for the most part, they don't really matter unless you're a server guy, programmer, and such of those fields. Theoretically they should perform very well, but real numbers you may gain 1/4-1/2 speed improvements. Main reason is because the 2 drives are slaves to each other and have to communicate to each other when it comes to data transfer. They have to communicate when allocating and when one reads and one writes. In theory you should get double speed, but it hardly ever happens unless in only strict environments like benchmarking or hard math calculations...very linear things. Though you will get 1TB with 2x500 gb i'd rather buy that but keeping them without RAID. For best security and performance, stick with a 1TB over 2 x 500Gb.
Laptop HDD and Desktop HDD are very similar for the most part. Laptop HDD generally will be at 5400-7200rpm. and it's more expensive because it's 2.5'' over the standard Desktop drive being 3.5''. Smaller size with less memory for the most part. Desktop drives can be just as expensive when you look for performance drives like Velociraptors or WD Red/Black. Laptop drives are less performant overall but you can still find equivalent ones like the HDD/SSD hybrids, where the cache are SSD and storage is HDD. Just depends on the style you're looking for.
For small run down:
5400RPM Desktop HDD - built more for storage in today's age
7200RPM Desktop HDD - built for general use, storage, performance
5400/7200RPM Desktop Hybrid Drive - built for all purpose
10,000RPM Desktop HDD - overkill, doesn't perform that well, unlike back in the early 90's with SCSI drives.
5400RPM Laptop HDD - basic laptop use (web, office)
7200RPM Laptop HDD - general usage + mild performance
5400/7200RPM Laptop Hybrid Drive - Dekstop Drive equivalent
i know this is a lot of information, hopefully this helps, for the most part, this is what their optimized for but in reality, as long as its a well built drive, it'll work well. Also know this, the bigger the drive, the more cache it has, cache is probably the more important thing. It's usually underrated in the market, but i wish companies would build HDD with high cache rates, like 500Gb w/ 128mb+ cache would be nice to see, especially for gaming.
I personally run my PS3 with a hybrid 500gb and it runs extremely well, loads are super fast compared to the 120gb i got originally.
He covered it pretty well. I just thought I would explain RAID a little more. Sure, you can read the whole article, but I'll try to just hit the basics.
What is RAID?
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. Basically, it's a system for making multiple storage drives work together. There are many different types of RAID, called RAID levels. For your purposes, we only really need to talk about RAID 0 and RAID 1.
RAID 0 is also known as "striping." Bascially, your computer writes data to both drives simultaneously, distributing the data across both drives. So if you have 2 500GB drives, you would have 1TB of capacity and your computer treats those two drives as one big drive. Advantages: much better performance and speed because your compouter can read/write on both drives at the same time, so each drive only needs to do half as much work as if you had a single drive. Disadvantages: if one drive dies, you're screwed. ALL of your data is gone.
RAID 1 is also known is "mirroring." In a RAID 1 configuration, you have 2 hard drives and they are identical copies of each other. If you have 2 500GB drives, you only have 500GB of total capacity. Every time you write to your hard drive, your computer writes the data to both drives simultaneously. Advantages: if one of the drives dies, you don't lose ANY data. Just replace the drive and rebuild the RAID array. Disadvantages: you only get half of the storage capacity of the drives you had. By that I mean that if you have 2 500GB drives, you only get 500GB, not 1TB of usable space. So it will cost you more money, but you will never lose your data (unless both drives die at the exact same time, which is pretty unlikely).
I know that got a little lengthy but I hope it helps :)
How common is it for a drive to fail. Also, which would you get, Raid 0 or Raid 1, or just a 1tb drive.
drive failure is one of those things that, some people have problems with constantly, some people will never have a drive fail on them
i would reccomend just a 1TB drive, nice, simple, reliable, or raid 1 if you want extra safety and don't mind paying twice as much or getting half the storage
I have never lost a hard drive yet, but my brother-in-law lost one on his laptop recently, but he's had the laptop for like 4 or 5 years. I would say it isn't very common if you buy good quality drives, but you better count on it happening to you sometime and prepare for it.
depends on what you do? if you're going to do something that stresses hard drives, i would say stick with a single HDD. Performance gains aren't really worth it for 2 drives because for less you can get a single drive with just as much space as the 2. Plus it's less power drain, less things to go wrong, etc.
I personally went with 1 tb storage drive and a 256gb ssd. SSD will always outperform drastically over HDD.
Is it possible to raid 1 a 1tb HDD (internal) and a 1tb portable HDD (external)?
I sure hope not. It will slow down drasticly as the internal would have to wait every single operation on the external one for mirroring (which will have a higher latency).