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#21
Hardware RAID vs Software RAID
View Poll Results: Which type of RAID is your favorite?
- Voters
- 7. You may not vote on this poll
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Software RAID 1
2 28.57% -
Hardware RAID 1
0 0% -
Hardware RAID 0
3 42.86% -
Hardware RAID 10
2 28.57%
Multiple Choice Poll.
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New #22
+10
Raptor's in raid0 get a real boost in performance, and they are already the fastest spinner commonly available. SSD's in raid0 can post some great bench numbers but I see little difference in performance doing everyday work. Raid0 allows you to use 2 small ssd's to make one large ssd. With current prices that's not much of a advantage anymore.
With raid0 you have twice the chance of failure. You run without trim on ssd's unless you have the newest Intel chip sets. If you enjoy tweaking your machine raid is fun to play with, but I don't recommend it for the average user.
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New #24
Unfortunately in some situations an SSD is not suited to handle large data files, and significant changes in terms of writes to those files.
Here is a very small sample of the size of files I deal with on a daily basis. I will typically generate 3 or 4 of these sizes on a daily occurence, and the only option to improve access to these is using a classic RAID0 array. Of course I try to mitigate against a RAID failure as much as possible, but you cannot be risk adverse all the time....if you are, you never realise the upside ftom risk taking.
Since I use RAID arrays frequently, Im always mindful to try and understand the OP's needs before judging their wish to use RAID. Until larger SSD's become more affordable for regular data creation and manipulation, the only option is to use RAID.
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New #28
Software raid allows you to move the drives to another box with the same OS but it is slow. True RAID is a controller and is the fastest and most reliable. Fake RAID is a chip on your motherboard, it's fast and can be buggy.
If you want speed with your large files then a HDD RAID0 would be fast but would need regular backup. RAID10 needs more drives and still should have a backup.
If you want real reliability and RAID get a controller card, good ones start around $100.
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New #29
Keep in mind a RAID card will, everything else being equal, increase boot times because it will have to load up its own BIOS in addition to the BIOS/UEFI of the MOBO.
As far as regular backups goes, one should make regular backups, period, no matter if RAID is being used or not.
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New #30
Many people rush into RAID without understanding it's purpose, what it is, and what it is not. Only later do they find that performance isn't what they expected, or they loose data they thought was protected.
Each type of RAID has it's advantages and disadvantages.
RAID 0 is about performance. It works by increasing transfer rate which is useful when doing serial access of large files. But typical usage in Windows (or any modern OS) tends toward random access to relatively small blocks of data spread over multiple files. In this case the drive spends most of it's time moving the heads and platter position to the data in question and relatively little time with data transfer. RAID won't do much good for this situation. There are legitimate uses for RAID 0 but not many.
The purpose of RAID 1 and RAID 5 is to protect access to your data, but not the data itself. They are not the same thing.
RAID 1 and RAID 5 provide redundancy so that if one drive fails access to your data continues as if nothing happened. This is an enormous advantage in a busy server where downtime is very disruptive to business activities and a major cost. Drive replacement can be deferred to a more convenient time, and with hot swap can be done without downtime at all. The main problem with RAID 1 is that you need 2 drives to provide the storage capacity of 1 and the cost is often hard to justify for workstation use. RAID 5 provides better storage efficiency, but you need at least 3 drives.
But no form of RAID ever devised can protect your data. RAID (except RAID 0) will provide protection from drive failure only, and even that cannot be relied on. In the event of a serious malware infection, accidental or malicious file deletion, other hardware failures, etc., all data could be lost.
To protect your data you need backups. Files of any importance need at least one backup copy while those of particular importance need 2 or more backup copies. Backup copies do fail and this often happens when you need them the most.
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