traditional hard drive vs solid state

Lady Fitzgerald · 01 May 2014

web said:

...Ok u got me convinced on the SSDs so wont need as many Sata ports ( are all Sata ports the same ? )...

If the pq5 pro you list in your specs is an Asus motherboard, then you only have SATA II (3Gbps) available on that board. While a SSD can take advantage of the increased speeds available with SATA III (6Gbps), you can still get significantly faster performance with SATA II, better than you are getting from your RAID10. From what I could find out about that board, use the six red SATA ports to the left of the right port first.

web said:

...Bit confused with my raid 1, so my raid 1 mirror of two drives, if one fails, can I still access content on that one drive that survives ??? that's was the hole reason for doing it, have I got this wrong ? ps just data

That is the fallacy of RAID1 (or any other RAID other than 0). Yes, if one drive fails, you will still have your data on the other drive. However, drive failure isn't the only thing that can take out your data. Anything that deletes or corrupts data on your primary drive will be reflected on the mirror drive. If you accidentally delete a file, it will be deleted on the mirror. If a virus deletes or corrupts a file, it will be deleted or corrupted on the mirror. If your PSU blows and sends a current surge or voltage spike to your HDDs or a surge or spike on the power lines blows through you surge arrestor (you do have one, right?), both your primary and mirror drives will be toast. If a thief steals your computer, there goes all your data. While it does not hurt to have your data drives mirrored and may allow your computer to keep running if a drive should fail, it's still imperative that you, at the very least, maintain one backup kept disconnected and away from the computer except when actually making a backup, and keep it updated frequently. Since backup drives can also fail plus it's possible for something to go wrong during the backup (been there, done that, didn't even get the tee shirt), more than one backup is an extremely wise thing to do. Doing so has saved my ~~bacon~~ data more than once in the past.

web · 01 May 2014

LMiller7 said:

Bit confused with my raid 1, so my raid 1 mirror of two drives, if one fails, can I still access content on that one drive that survives ??? that's was the hole reason for doing it, have I got this wrong ? ps just data

That is correct and is indeed why RAID 1 was developed. But many people wrongly interpret that as a safeguard for their data. The purpose is to maintain access to your data in the event of a drive failure and allow the drive to be replaced at a more convenient time. That is a big deal on a busy server but not usually for a desktop. But it's purpose is not to protect your data. That is what backups are for. RAID can only offers protection from drive failure and even that cannot be relied on.

Use RAID 1 if you think you need it but be sure you use it for the right reasons.

I use to protect the data on the drives if one fails but also back up to external enclosure just recently but not done yet found out u can update my external enclosure instead of recopying

PS so are u saying I could if it came to it for instance, could I take the surviving drive and read it on its own ? in my set up or on another pc

Lady Fitzgerald · 01 May 2014

Deleted.

web · 01 May 2014

Lady Fitzgerald said:

web said:

...Ok u got me convinced on the SSDs so wont need as many Sata ports ( are all Sata ports the same ? )...

If the pq5 pro you list in your specs is an Asus motherboard, then you only have SATA II (3Gbps) available on that board. While a SSD can take advantage of the increased speeds available with SATA III (6Gbps), you can still get significantly faster performance with SATA II, better than you are getting from your RAID10. From what I could find out about that board, use the six red SATA ports to the left of the right port first.

hi again u just answered something I posted, thanks :) about the "mirror 1" thing

but am upgrading my hole set up was looking at a (Asus Maximus V1 formula) mainly for the Sata ports that's not such a massive worry now but holds loads of memory 4 number 8Gb too most boards just two banks