I have 3 hdds: 1TB samsung f3 500GB samsung f3 500GB seagate barracuda 7200 Motherboard supports: RAID 0,1,5,10 What I want is the best configuration for my hdds that provides backup and speed and I need at least 1tb of disk space. I was thinking my best bet is to set up the 2 500GB hdds in RAID 0 and then run a batch script that automaticly backs up to the 1tb every day, would just like somebody to confirm that this is the best option before i go ahead and set all up, only to find there is a better way.
Yes 2x500GB RAID0 + 1TB by itself is by far the best option as it matches capacity, meets your 1TB requirement and most importantly provides a backup. I always highly disrecommend using any RAID unless the data is completely volatile or you have a backup provisionned. You technically could put all 3 in RAID5 but would lose 500GB on the 1TB, plus another 500GB for parity on top of having no backup...
What OCJunkie is on about is putting the two 500GB disks in RAID0 then RAID 1'ing the RAID 0 and 1TB disk. While this is technically possible, this is not RAID10/01/1+0/0+1. RAID10 expects 4 disks (as a minimum) of the same size to be used to create a high performance redundant storage volume. The configuration OCJunkie describes is technically possible, but it is unlikely to be possible with any motherboard builtin controllers (unless you have a very fancy motherboard) unless you combined them with software RAID. If you want to do one RAID that uses all the space JBOD is really the only way to go, but you don't receive the performance benefits of RAID0 neither do you receive any additional redundancy. You can use all the space you have available however.
i think you're misreading there... He/she wrote "+ 1TB by itself" & referred explicitly to having a backup... ...ie that you've got the 2x 500GBs in R0 & the 1TB is a separate drive which is backed up to & has an equal size... Well, R1 (even the odd version you're referring to) doesn't provide any backup at all - just protecting from a single disk failure.
Yeah I'm gunna go with raid 0 and just back stuff up myself, my main concern was whether or not raid 5 would be better/ work atall with a 1tb drive. As far as what tehBoris says, surely using raid 1 between the raid0 array and the 1tb would loose the performance benefit of using raid 0 entirely..
Tbh, the performance benefit is somewhat marginal with HDDs anyway on desktop machines... Okay, you'll get (particularly) improved sequential speeds providing there's little fragmentation (can be useful for something like video editing), but otherwise the benefits are a bit minimal... ...although arguably, d.t. the fragmentation issue, 'if' you were doing something like video editing, you'd be better off having the two 500GBs as separate drives & the 1TB as the backup for both... (or better still, having an OS drive & then a cross drive backup - using the outer cylinders of 2 of the drives for source & destination & having a 2nd (larger) partiton on the inner ones that had the backup for the other one on + the OS data) Otherwise, R0 with a dedicated backup is a much better general option than anything else that's been previously suggested...
@tehBoris no no no, I mean the 2x 500GB in RAID0, and then the 1TB separately by itself JBOD not RAIDed so he can backup the array onto it. I thought it was pretty clear...
