Hardware RAID vs Software RAID

Sir George said:

...Just in case you aren't aware of how RAID 1 works; the data is split across the drives, not replicated on each drive independently.

HTH

That is RAID 0. RAID 1 is a mirror.

The poll needs another option: no RAID. Unless running a large NAS, most people do not need to RAID any of their drives (granted, there are people who use RAID for the Geek Factor). RAID 0 for OS drives made sense when HDDs were the only choice for running an OS. Today's SSDs are almost as fast as 10k rpm drives in RAID 0—one wouldn't be able to tell the difference in actual use—and are far more reliable; they may even cost less. A common misconception of RAID 1 is it can be used as a backup; that is simply not true. A mirror (aka RAID 1) will be subject to the same causes of failure as a single drive, such as accidental data corruption or deletion, data loss or corruption due to viruses or other malware, mechanical failure, PSU failure, theft, etc. Anything that happens to data on the source drive will also happen on the mirror. All RAID 1 will do is permit continuous operation of a computer if one of the drives in the mirror should fail; a necessity for businesses but a just a convenience for most computers.

Backups kept on external drives that are connected to the computer only when making or recovering from a backup are much safer and less trouble prone than any kind of RAID.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

granted, there are people who use RAID for the Geek Factor

Some people use them for real work too

Golden said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

granted, there are people who use RAID for the Geek Factor

Some people use them for real work too

True that but the vast majority of home PCs are not. Even those home PCs that are used for real work do not always need the convenience of continuous operation. If one's backup isn't an image, the drive it is on could be connected to the computer with a dock. That's one reason I keep two local backups. If a drive should fail in my computer, I can just disconnect it and plug one of the backups into a dock built into my computer (an external dock would also work; it would just be less convenient) and, after no more than only five or ten minutes downtime, keep on chugging along until I can get a replacement drive and restore the backup to it. I will still have the other backup drive in case things go pear shaped with the one in use.

Raid 0 is not a back

jimpz said:

To the original problem: I don't know if it's still true, but even in raid on you could always put a singlr drive into another system and have it work.

There SHOULD be a NO raid option in the poll

For home users, the only raid I see as usable is Raid 0 for sheer performance, no provide backup & are best used to ensure data availability without down time.As stated above, Raid's are NOT a back up.

All RAID 0 can do is improve performance and create a single directory for the drives in the RAID. RAID 1 is just a mirror. The other common RAIDs ensure continuous operation and provide a single directory over several drives. Any RAID can fail, same as any single HDD. Some RAIDs are less susceptible to failure and some are more so.

Yep...definite speed factor, my testbed has raptors in raid0, loads games fast, my daily box has 2 older ssd's in raid 0, pretty quick but a new {current generation}ssd alone will be almost as fast too...

Oops forgot about NO RAID. If only I could edit it....

Nigsy said:

Raid 5 anyone??

Why?