Well I'm lost with RAID...

Well Hi everyone! I have 2x 500GB HDD's and i'd like to make them raid... I need to know how to do this, basically everything you can tell me would be helpful... thanks!

There are a lotta different RAID levels and a lotta different RAID controllers. RAID 0 on even a semi-decent controller will definiately give you a speed boost, but of course it doubles you chances of data loss since one hard drive going down means total loss of data for both.

That said, the instructions above are assuming a motherboard RAID controller. Most motherboard RAID controllers are barely better than software RAID because they aren't true hardware RAID controllers and consume CPU time for disk operations.

I personally do not recommend running RAID for performance with fewer than four drives because four allows you to run RAID 10 (mirrored stripe). Of course, that would mean adding two more 500 gig drives to your setup while gaining no additional storage capacity...

-Byshop

Depends on the controller. Intel motherboard RAID blows on most mobos and lacks even basic features like the ability to add and remove drives from an array without destorying it. The feature you describe might not apply to all motherboards.

-Byshop

Depends on the controller. Intel motherboard RAID blows on most mobos and lacks even basic features like the ability to add and remove drives from an array without destorying it. The feature you describe might not apply to all motherboards.

-Byshop

Byshop

There are more modestly priced options that'll give you a more enterprise-like configuration. Promise makes a few that you can find for the couple hundred dollar range that'll give you better performance than any mobo RAID (not to mention add it to a motherboard that may lack it). That being said I run two Intel RAIDs at home (one 5 and one 10), but they are both on dedicated file/Hyper-V servers.

-Byshop

Honestly, I just want to make 2 500GB HDD into 1.

Honestly, I just want to make 2 500GB HDD into 1.

dared3vil0

[QUOTE="dared3vil0"]

Honestly, I just want to make 2 500GB HDD into 1.

dared3vil0

[QUOTE="dared3vil0"][QUOTE="dared3vil0"]

Honestly, I just want to make 2 500GB HDD into 1.

JigglyWiggly_

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"][QUOTE="dared3vil0"] is there an easier way?dared3vil0

You can merge the drives with JBOD or RAID 0, but you should consider the benefits versus the potential data safety drawbacks.

Upside: You get one large drive.

Downside: Losing one drive can mean losing the entire 1tb of data.

If you leave the drives seperate, you'll have two drive letters but that's not that big a deal. However, if you lose one drive you only lose the data on that one drive. If you have something important that you want to make sure you don't lose, you can copy that data to both drives for selective redundancy.

Remember that in your PC, your hard drive will eventually fail no matter what. All hard drives that are actively used eventually fail. Moving parts break down, magentic media wears out, even solid state drives have a limited number of writes in their lifecycle. You should always play for what happens when your HD fails.

-Byshop

You can merge the drives with JBOD or RAID 0, but you should consider the benefits versus the potential data safety drawbacks.

Upside: You get one large drive.

Downside: Losing one drive can mean losing the entire 1tb of data.

If you leave the drives seperate, you'll have two drive letters but that's not that big a deal. However, if you lose one drive you only lose the data on that one drive. If you have something important that you want to make sure you don't lose, you can copy that data to both drives for selective redundancy.

Remember that in your PC, your hard drive will eventually fail no matter what. All hard drives that are actively used eventually fail. Moving parts break down, magentic media wears out, even solid state drives have a limited number of writes in their lifecycle. You should always play for what happens when your HD fails.

-Byshop

Byshop

Since you raise the question. My answer is, don't touch it. You should never ask this if you ever want to do a RAID because RAID is not for casual users. Without better understanding on the technology, you will bump into many unnecessary problems related to it.magicalclick

Yeah RAID's not exactly rocket science. It just doesn't always make sense depending on your situation.

-Byshop