[M0rga]

I'm stuck in a choice between a large 320GB harddrive or two 160GB harddrives that i could run in RAID 0 since the Gigabyte DS3 i'm getting supports this feature. The price is similar with only a £10 price gap but is it worth the smaller amount of memory and the possiblity of losing my data if one dies?

[b1gapl]

Yea thats the downside to RAID 0. If one dies, the other goes down with it. But I've seen alot of people here at TF, with RAID 0 setups. I would do it, if I had the extra drive. I'm assuming you're getting either a Western Digital or Seagate, which are both very reliable companies. Also don't forget to backup your data, just in case something does go wrong...you never know.

[M0rga]

The ones i was looking at are maxtor as they are the only cheap drives that i can afford mabye it's not worth it seeming as they are only 7200 RPM. How would you back up your data? Another drive?

[b1gapl]

I have a backup drive, and I also backup the backup drive onto blank CDs and DVDs.

[M0rga]

I think i'll do without. I have heard it makes your comp go much faster although i don't have the cash for it and i would prefer a lot of space on my HDD.

[Nitestick]

The ones i was looking at are maxtor as they are the only cheap drives that i can afford mabye it's not worth it seeming as they are only 7200 RPM. How would you back up your data? Another drive?

ahhh, 7200RPM is the average mainstream HDD. the only faster drive you'll get on the mainstream market is the Raptor at 10,000RPM and that's the "enthusiast" market, rather than mainstream.

I think i'll do without. I have heard it makes your comp go much faster although i don't have the cash for it and i would prefer a lot of space on my HDD.

you seem to be confused about how RAID level 0 functions. with 2x160GB HDDs in RAID 0 you will have one "virtual" drive that is 320GB. because data is stored sequentially across the two drives, it almost doubles the speed over that of a single drive as both are able to do half the work at full speed. however i'm sure you are aware of the risks of data loss?

[M0rga]

It's just i could either get a reasonable quality HD or two inferior ones i'm not sure i should bother. As for backups what size do you think a backup would take and what type of backup PQDI? I could always send it to rapidshare i guess...

[RicoDirenzo]

Originally posted by b1gapl
Yea thats the downside to RAID 0. If one dies, the other goes down with it. But I've seen alot of people here at TF, with RAID 0 setups. I would do it, if I had the extra drive. I'm assuming you're getting either a Western Digital or Seagate, which are both very reliable companies. Also don't forget to backup your data, just in case something does go wrong...you never know.

You are not folowing your own logic. If you only have one 320gig drive and 2 16ogb drives in RAID 0 then failure is the same in both situations. You need to buy two drives one for backup (or 3 in the case of the RAID 0 issue) viz; two 160's in RAID 0 with a 320gb backup drive. That is what I do. The backup drive should be at least the size of all projected data storage or = to the maximum storage capacity of the RAID 0 array. Lei Capice?

Edit: BTW RAID 0 performance is worth the cost of an addtional backup drive outside of the RAID array!!!

[j12]

yea get the raid setup then also the backup drive.

P.S. Get maxtor hard drives...............................if you want to lose all your data within 2 months of buying and installing it!

[Ethereal_Dragon]

If I had the cash, I would go RAID 5 with my (soon to be) NAS device.... I already have the 2 Seagate SATA 500 Gig drives, I just need the enclosure to run them in... going RAID 1...