Need help with a external HD purchase - Page 2 - The Drunken stepFORUM - A place to discuss your worthless opinions

The Godfather · #11 05-27-2008, 10:26 PM

OK, just pulled the trigger on the 750gb FreeAgent Pro. I need to go over to the app thread and test out a partition manager.

The Godfather · #12 06-03-2008, 06:40 PM

First, let me say welcome. Now that you have arrived, you have a tremendous responsibility to platter. You will be entrusted with some of the finest ass ever to walk the planet, gigs of software (apps, utilities, games, etc.), movies, and all genres of music spanning at least half a century. People actually pay for this shit. It has value. So, to be blunt, I'm not having any of that mutherfuckinbullshit your cousin pulled. I will not hesitate to pack yo ass right back the hell up send you back ...and I got 5 whole years to do it. So, if your are not up to the challenge, speak up now biatch.

strommsarnac · #13 06-03-2008, 07:20 PM

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Different RAID levels offer different methods of protection.

RAID 0 - Two drives striped to look like one (500GB x2 = 1000GB). NOT GOOD FOR BACKUP. If either drive fails, you lose ALL data.

RAID 1 - Two drives mirrored and look like a single drive (500GB x2 = 500GB) is great to protect against a SINGLE drive failure and inexpensive. Fast write and read times.

RAID 0+1 - FOUR or SIX drives. A striped set of 2 or 3 drives mirrored. 500GB x4 = 1000GB.

RAID 5 - Data is striped across at least 3 drives. FIVE or more is best. Parity is also spread across the drives. This allows for any one drive to fail and ALL data to still be "rebuilt". Space equal to number of drives minus one. 500GB x5 = 2000GB. Expensive not just for the drives but also for the controllers. Most on motherboard RAID 5 controllers suck, are slow and not very reliable. RAID cards are expensive, have their own dedicated RAM for buffering and usually have a BIOS of their own to handle rebuilds. RAID 5 with a RAM buffered card is really fast.

There are other RAID levels, but these are the most used.

One other point on external drives. A point of failure most people never think about is the housing itself. There's a controller in there. Just because one can't access the "drive" doesn't mean that the HDD is bad. It's very possible that the circuit board in the housing is bad. One can take the drive/s out of the housing and put them in a PC (as a slave drive or on another P/SATA port) and see if they can access the data.

Oh, and I like this site http://www.ibeast.com/content/tools/...c/RaidCalc.asp

Striker · #14 06-03-2008, 07:46 PM

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You can go higher then 6 drives. You just have to do it by twos.

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At least 3? I don't think so. You can use a min of 2. It may not be a true RAID 5 config, but it can be done. My point was (which still stands) you aren't gaining anything by setting up a 2 disk RAID 5 beyond that you can add storage one disk at a time instead of 2 disks at a time with RAID 1+0/0+1.

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Something I alluded to in the other thread.

Striker · #15 06-03-2008, 07:57 PM

Also, here is a great article comparing motherboard RAID controller's to dedicated RAID cards.

strommsarnac · #16 06-03-2008, 08:13 PM

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Yea, but most controllers stop at seven drives and require RAID array housings. Not something usually found outside enterprise level environments.

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UM, doesn't that make it NOT RAID5

Not trying to argue here. Just that without 3+ drives, one might as well just use RAID 1. RAID 1 is MUCH faster than 2 drive RAID 5, maintains a bit more space and is going to have much less wear and tear on the drives.

Striker · #17 06-03-2008, 08:38 PM

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They stop at seven (an odd number) for a RAID level that requires an even number of drives? You sure about that because that makes no fucking sense. Or did you mean to put six?

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Reading comprehension; do you have it? Because, UMMM, that was my whole fucking point. You can do it, but the ONLY benefit you get is being able to add one drive at a time instead of two drives at a time to make the array bigger. I feel like a broken record because that has to be at least the 3rd time I've pointed that out. And you don't get ANY increase in usable space. Check the calc YOU posted. Use 2 drives @ 500GB and select RAID 1 then 5. You will see that for BOTH, usable drive space is only 465.66GB.

strommsarnac · #18 06-04-2008, 10:12 PM

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Total brain shutdown. Sorry man. I had the damn number of SCSI devices stuck in my head. Total of seven with one being the controller itself.

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Totally my fault. See below.

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Got me there. Man my brain is fried. Too much going on with two graduations (HS and Career Center), wife and daughter doc appts (wife has crohn's, daughter had gallbladder removed a month ago), my college course, new certification training, reading too my DSF forum post and not enough sleep.

doubledip · #19 06-05-2008, 08:28 AM

You guys are getting all hardcore about it...I'll take a pic of my external unit and post it...it's ghetto/old school but works and hasn't failed me ONCE!!!

Aside that, I'm just rocking 76gb Raptor Drive for OS, 500gb WD sata drive for storage, another 500gb for storage, then a 300gb for backing up my major "can't live without" things such as music and software and ghosts of my OS drive...