Q. I know that having two hard drives in raid 0 increases the overall failure rate just because you have two hard drives, of which if one goes down the other is useless, but how often does a hard drive or ssd indovidually actually fail?
Does putting a hdd or ssd in raid 0 or any raid configuration actually increase it's probability of failure?
Does putting a hdd or ssd in raid 0 or any raid configuration actually increase it's probability of failure?
A. SHORT ANSWER:
No, putting a drive into a Raid doesn't increase it's own probability of failure. And while modern drives don't fail frequently, the DO fail. The chances go up the longer you use them, either due to wear-and-tear (HDDs / hybrids), or because eventually the memory cells in SSDs start hitting their maximum wear-level.
LONG ANSWER:
As you probably already know, Raid 0 is striping, meaning that if you write a 100K file to your raid, it "stripes" that file across both drives. 50K on one drive, 50K on the other. Raid 0 does this for every file it stores.
The main advantage to Raid0 is that both drives are involved in reading and writing files, which speeds up reads and writes significantly. It's a Raid configuration designed for speed, not reliability.
The main disadvantage... is that files are always split up onto both drives in stripes. If you lose either drive, then the whole Raid 0 is dead - you just lost ALL of your data, unless you have some pretty-good data-recovery software than can rebuild raids.
A few years back I (stupidly) based my whole computer on a 3-way Raid 0 array, with 3 330GB drives. It ran as fast as lightning (this pretty-much predated SSDs), and for the 2-3 years I ran it, I experienced multiple system crashes, power failures, etc. without the array ever failing. That was probably half luck, and half good quality components (WD black drives, good quality motherboard with reliable bios, etc.).
One day while formatting a new separate drive, I accidentally picked the wrong drive and started formatting part of my Raid 0. I hit the power switch immediately but the damage was done - my Raid 0 was fried. Luckily I was able to manually reconstruct the Raid with a recovery tool ( if you're interested in the tool, see http://www.r-studio.com/ ), and recovered about 75% of my data. But it was a painful, painful process.
Bottom-line: I wouldn't recommend raid-0 unless you're really desperate for speed beyond what SSDs can provide, and you are either prepared to backup your data regularly, or you don't mind taking risks.
Cheers;
Wire
No, putting a drive into a Raid doesn't increase it's own probability of failure. And while modern drives don't fail frequently, the DO fail. The chances go up the longer you use them, either due to wear-and-tear (HDDs / hybrids), or because eventually the memory cells in SSDs start hitting their maximum wear-level.
LONG ANSWER:
As you probably already know, Raid 0 is striping, meaning that if you write a 100K file to your raid, it "stripes" that file across both drives. 50K on one drive, 50K on the other. Raid 0 does this for every file it stores.
The main advantage to Raid0 is that both drives are involved in reading and writing files, which speeds up reads and writes significantly. It's a Raid configuration designed for speed, not reliability.
The main disadvantage... is that files are always split up onto both drives in stripes. If you lose either drive, then the whole Raid 0 is dead - you just lost ALL of your data, unless you have some pretty-good data-recovery software than can rebuild raids.
A few years back I (stupidly) based my whole computer on a 3-way Raid 0 array, with 3 330GB drives. It ran as fast as lightning (this pretty-much predated SSDs), and for the 2-3 years I ran it, I experienced multiple system crashes, power failures, etc. without the array ever failing. That was probably half luck, and half good quality components (WD black drives, good quality motherboard with reliable bios, etc.).
One day while formatting a new separate drive, I accidentally picked the wrong drive and started formatting part of my Raid 0. I hit the power switch immediately but the damage was done - my Raid 0 was fried. Luckily I was able to manually reconstruct the Raid with a recovery tool ( if you're interested in the tool, see http://www.r-studio.com/ ), and recovered about 75% of my data. But it was a painful, painful process.
Bottom-line: I wouldn't recommend raid-0 unless you're really desperate for speed beyond what SSDs can provide, and you are either prepared to backup your data regularly, or you don't mind taking risks.
Cheers;
Wire
How to set up a raid for my computer?
Q. I have a Packard Bell imedia s3720 desktop and I want to know if is possible to set up a raid for this desktop. Thanks
I need the raid set up for data protection only I don't intend to use it to make my computer faster as it already can run a lot of apps as the same time without slowing down.
I need the raid set up for data protection only I don't intend to use it to make my computer faster as it already can run a lot of apps as the same time without slowing down.
A. If the motherboard supports hardware RAID, that would be faster if your looking for performance otherwise, software RAID configuration can be done in the OS but you will not see as much of a Performance increase. Quite possibly depending on the rest of your system you will not see any performance improvements and unless you are going to configure for data recovery it may not be the wisest direction to go.
How can I increase the free space on my hard drive?
Q. I have a Dell Vostro 1520 and I deleted my Recovery partition so I can extend it onto my primary partition so I can have 234GB of free space as opposed to 218GB. I went to Disk Management but the "Extend Volume" selection is greyed out. On my friend's computer, he was able to extend his volume. How can I extend my volume? Because I only have 658MB of free space when I could have around 15GB of free space.
A. Lolz - then don't use Windows for the job.
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu
If you get a disk, burn it, boot it, then press ALT and F2 (launcher) and type 'gparted' you'll get a graphical partition tool - very nice tool. Use that to do your partitioning. It has the added benefit that whilst you're working on your hard disk, you're not actually trying to use it at the same time.
Using a linux disk makes sense also because whilst Windows has it's secret, invisible files - linux can just see through the whole charade and do a nice job of partitioning.
If ever you have any trouble, you can install 'testdisk' (debian available in my dropbox http://dl.dropbox.com/u/446031/testdisk_6.11-1_i386.deb) by just double clicking it after the CD boots up - and this can recover deleted files, partly overwritten files, and repair just about any hard disk problem you can think of (including power cut halfway through doing a RAID configuration and wiping all of my data and partitions....).
Use the best tool for the job, don't trust Microsoft (even Steve Ballmer uses a 'nix machine - he uses a MacPro when he does mission - critical jobs).
Also, just keep an eye open in the shops. Have you got ANY idea how much this size hard disk is worth now? I bought my com with 320GB and a bit later on paid something like $45 to put a WD 'Barracuda' 500GB drive in - and now I can pick up 1000GB for less than half the value of the 820GB already in there!
Maybe buy a bigger drive, and keep your current one as a backup - to help stop it getting overloaded with video and old photo's.
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu
If you get a disk, burn it, boot it, then press ALT and F2 (launcher) and type 'gparted' you'll get a graphical partition tool - very nice tool. Use that to do your partitioning. It has the added benefit that whilst you're working on your hard disk, you're not actually trying to use it at the same time.
Using a linux disk makes sense also because whilst Windows has it's secret, invisible files - linux can just see through the whole charade and do a nice job of partitioning.
If ever you have any trouble, you can install 'testdisk' (debian available in my dropbox http://dl.dropbox.com/u/446031/testdisk_6.11-1_i386.deb) by just double clicking it after the CD boots up - and this can recover deleted files, partly overwritten files, and repair just about any hard disk problem you can think of (including power cut halfway through doing a RAID configuration and wiping all of my data and partitions....).
Use the best tool for the job, don't trust Microsoft (even Steve Ballmer uses a 'nix machine - he uses a MacPro when he does mission - critical jobs).
Also, just keep an eye open in the shops. Have you got ANY idea how much this size hard disk is worth now? I bought my com with 320GB and a bit later on paid something like $45 to put a WD 'Barracuda' 500GB drive in - and now I can pick up 1000GB for less than half the value of the 820GB already in there!
Maybe buy a bigger drive, and keep your current one as a backup - to help stop it getting overloaded with video and old photo's.
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