RAID0 is very dangerous. It effectively doubles your change of complete
catastrophic data loss. The only time it might be appropriate is on a
gaming only machine which has been fully backed up and is not used at all
for data.
RAID1 has its merits. We use it routinely on servers (especially in small
business where RAID5 or other more costly options are not popular). It's
value is not purely data redundancy, but the fact that a server can continue
running when one drive fails. It is not a substitute for daily backup but a
useful adjunct. I find its use in home situations less clear. Some of the
raid controllers (e.g. built into motherboards) are not of the best quality
and, as you note, it adds some complexity. On balance I would say that
frequent backups are usually sufficient for a home use PC and that RAID1 is
useful for servers.
--
"Ron O'Brien" <castcall@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uhzevFW8IHA.4988@xxxxxx
Quote:
>I was just about to install a larger C: drive on my PC which was configured
>as RAID0 (there are also two other HDD's for data/storage set as RAID1),
>then I read a thread from within this newsgroup in which Carey Frisch
>(Microsoft MVP) directed someone to read - Why RAID is (usually) a Terrible
>Idea http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles?&id=29 and that has made me
>re-think my plans.
>
> Is RAID really worth? it is a much more complex setup and a nightmare when
> things go wrong and, as the article points out, there is a 25 - 30% chance
> something will go wrong. Indeed my own experience of a previous PC with
> RAID1 showed that it was by no means an easy task to restore everything
> when one HDD did fail after just 4 months.
>
> So I'm left with a total of 4 HDD's and wondering if I should even
> consider RAID, OK so I do a bit of HD video editing and RAID0 'could'
> speed things up, but will I really notice that gain? I have equally
> undertaken HD video editing on a much less powerful non-RAID PC and
> managed OK.
>
> The one think that RAID1 'was' in my mind (and I would suggest in the mind
> of many others) always useful for was data protection (but with loads of
> hassle) so I'm thinking there must be a way whereby I can install all four
> drives so that only two are visible and the other two are a mirror image
> set so that at the end of the day, or maybe twice a day, some software
> would back up the main visible drives to the 'invisible' back-up drives.
> Thus if any drive failed, I could just switch connectors and re-boot.
>
> Now, is what I've said a pipe dream or can it happen, and if so what
> software and are there any obvious pitfalls - apart from the time to make
> the back-up at the end of each day?
>
>
> --
> Ron O'Brien
>