Best hard drive setup with 3 drives...

[MJ121983]

Hello guys. I was wondering what the best setup would be. I have three hard drives right now:

2 74 gb 10rpm Raptors SATA
1 250 GB Seagate SATA

I was going to setup my boot drive with the 2 74 GB raptors in RAID 0 when I found out that booting in Raid is not a good idea. Since I will be using the Boot drive for storing all of my applications and the operating system, would it be best to use 1 of the Raptors as the boot drive and then buy an additional 250 GB Seagate and pair it up with the other 250 GB in RAID 0? The 2 Seagates would then be used for Storage. I want to get the best of both worlds. I want my applications to load quickly and I want to be able to read, write, large files very quickly.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

-Matt

 

[jurgen36]

That should be ok, but please understand that raid 0 is less reliable as a single drive, in case of a crash you have really no way to recover your data.
I use a raid 0 system, backed up by another raid 0 system, but I also use Acronics true image server for an ultimate backup.
Altogether 8 drives. The way it is sett up is as following. On shut down it makes an incremental back up to the other raid system, On boot up it uses the backup system for booting, and so on, once a week it uses Acronics. I got burned badly once and lost all of my date due to a blown power supply, it took one drive out in each raid array. Thats why I use Acronics now as well.
Regards

Jurgen

 

[wahnula]

Here's how I would do it. I am RAID 0's largest critic as it should be called AID 0, but it is faster. Still, its failure rate is much higher than a single drive.

OS & App array: Create RAID 0 array with a 10-30GB partition, depending on the OS (10G or less for Linux, 15-20GB for XP, 30 GB for Vista). This insures the most compact (and fastest) OS intall. You can use the rest of the array for current file storage. Back up this array daily to the data drive or a dedicated internal or external backup drive. NT Backup is fine, but there are others.

Most important step here is to test your backup plan early to make sure the plan is good. By this I mean after installing OS & a few apps, run your backup. Then boot to windows CD, format the C: partition, install Windows from CD (remember F6 the RAID drivers for XP) to restore from NT Backup or restore from your other backup following directions.

Doing this now is a little extra time but well worth it. If using NTBackup, you don't need to install chipset drivers, Windows update etc. before restoring, but be sure all your volumes are correctly labeled with any custom drive letters BEFORE restore.

In reality, if you are going to run RAID 0, OS & apps is the way to go, since you should have all the CDs on hand in the event of failure. It's the application DATA (saved games, files) that is most at risk.

Data: Although I would like to see RAID 1 or RAID 5 here, with a single drive I would use it mostly for a backup drive and archived files.

I would hate to see anybody buying any HDD today less than 500GB, so spending money on one or two more 250's plus a second RAID controller might not be your best investment. You can buy 500GB 7200.10's for around $100. Three of those in RAID 5 would be a nice data array.

FYI, I am running two of the above drives in RAID 1 with a 30GB C: OS partition and the rest as Data, with a third external eSATA for backup and archived files...but I am not a gamer. I tried RAID 0 at first, way fast, but scary as I do not have a 1 TB backup drive...yet!

Best of luck.

Tony

 

[MJ121983]

Thanks much for the response - they are greatly appreciated! I will try out your suggestions!