Different makes of drive in RAID1

[G0AOZ]

User's Dell E520 appeared to have been fitted (from new) with two different makes of drive in the RAID1 configuration. One a Seagate, the other a Western Dig. Whilst they are the same size (320Gb) they are quoted as having different access times.

The second drive has now failed, and the RAID obviously now shows as broken. Shouldn't the two drives in this type of configuration be identical?

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[goombawaho]

I'm having trouble finding links to prove my opinion. I would welcome someone to link to one.

Yes, it would be best to have both drives exactly the same, but, as time goes by and one drive fails, it will be hard to get that done, unless you stockpile drives.

So, it will work just fine if one drive is bigger than the other (though the extra size will be wasted) AND it will work if one is slower than the other.

I would just strive to get two drives in there that are REASONABLY close in terms of access times, RPM and cache to make things as similar as possible. I mean you wouldn't want a 15,000 rpm drive paired with a 5400 rpm drive (if there were a chance that you could find two drives with the same interface) because of the drastic difference in performance.

 

[G0AOZ]

Thanks for that - we're of the same thinking... I'd had a trawl through and couldn't find anything specific, but gut feeling tells me to get 'em as close as possible, if not the same. This is not exactly a mission critical machine but as a small business, the user can't afford for it to break down.

Minutes ago I just took delivery of two new identical drives...

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[adilux]

i had a raid0 configuration fail on 2 new Seagate 1.5TB 7200rpm drives. One failed while doing a big transfer only 3 days later, so i quickly bought a Western Digital Green 1.5TB 5400rpm drive and have been running that since. Been about a year or so.