Is RAID 0 really that unsafe??

[sMashPiranha]

Every time I see someone here ask about RAID 0, someone always has to say something about data loss, catastrophies, etc. Does running a RAID 0 array increase your chances of a HDD failure or something?? I have had 2 hard drives fail on me in my whole life, thats nothing compared to the number of drives I have owned. I mean do your chances of data loss actually increase exponentially, or is it just 2x the chance with 2x the drives?

 

[p0tempkin]

Well, it increases your chance of data loss because of the way RAID 0 works. You need two functional drives to get any data from the array. Should one drive go out, ALL the data is lost. Since your data is now dependant on TWO drives being fully functional instead of just one, your chances of data loss increase exponentially.

 

[Scouzer]

And the danger multiplies as soon as '75GXP' comes into the equation

 

[sMashPiranha]

But running in the array doesn't increase the chances of one of the drives failing right? So when you have one drive by itself you have 1x the chance of the data loss, as there is only one drive. But with two drives theres 2x the chance? I'm just trying to figure out why people are so scared of it. Doubling my chance of data loss doesn't scare me in the slightest, my first hdd failure was a 250MB and my second was a 17GB straight after I got it home from the shop.

LOL Scouzer!

 

[p0tempkin]

Well, for some people, data loss isn't an issue. They lose a drive, they get another one, they format and reinstall.

For some people, the integrity of their system is so important that they backup their data on a daily schedule.

 

[Pederv]

It doesn't increase the likelyhood of a drive failure, it increases your suseptibility to failures. I ran at RAID 0 for almost a year, no problems. The only reason I disolved it was because it's time to start looking for a new motherboard.

 

[Miramonti]

I have had 2 hard drives fail on me in my whole life

all it takes is 1 with some really important data lost to set a precedent.


You're doubling your failure rate with raid 0, taking the sum of the failure rate of each drive since when 1 goes out you lose the data of both. And like its been said 75gxps increase the failure rate substantially more since people have more problems with them than others. Unless theres a good data backup method in place its fundamental to always try to reduce failure rates and be able to recover when it happens. I'd rather use the second drive as a mirror or drive to backup onto. Gigabytes are cheap enough, but lost data CAN be VERY costly.

 

[sMashPiranha]

Okay thanks for the input. For sure if I had really important data on my PC I'd leave it as is, or even run RAID 1. But for a person such as myself who uses my PC mainly for entertainment and something to fix, I don't see why not go for RAID 0. As long as you do frequent backups, what have you got to lose?

 

[MulLa]

what have you got to lose?

Your valuable time in reinstalling everything!!!

 

[Scouzer]

Your mile high pr0n stashes

 

[Antisocial Virge]

Your odds of losing data are the same as the odds of one of the drives dropping dead. If you have just one drive and it drops dead your data is gone anyways so raid on.

 

[Double Trouble]

Basically, you're doubling your chance of a complete loss of data by using a 2 drive raid 0 setup. So what?? Just buy a cheap big 5400 RPM drive, and use it as a backup for your blazing raid array. Done, perfectly safe, relatively cheap, blazing fast.

 

[Jiggz]

That's why I went on with the RAID even though there seems to be a lot of controversy regarding it's speed and reliability. At least, I got a faster disk tranfer now. And it shows.

 

[Diffusion]

There is a substantially higher chance of data loss, as you need multiple drives to remain operational, on top of which, when you upgrade equipment, you can run into problems if the different SCSI/IDE controllers do not do RAID exactly the same way. Just buy 3 drives if you would like to do RAID-0, have two of them in an array, and set up the third with a small script to back up those two once a day or something, not as safe as tape backups, as you dont have backups from various time periods, but it should help with the failure/upgrade problem in that you would need two drives to simultaneously fail (the backup and one of the RAID'ed drives) to loose all your data.

 

[ChrisOh]

I lost my array when one of my 75GXP's died, beware! But RAID 0 is really a great thing!

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Raid 0 is just as risky as running a single drive. Either way, if you lose a drive, you lose the data. Not a big deal for most of us, and there are other levels of RAID for those that it would be. But arguing running 2 drives increases the chance for failure is sort of like arguing that driving on 4 tires increases the chance of getting a flat. It does, but it doesn't.

 

[andalas]

not really, you're logic a bit mixed up between tires and HD.
You can't drive with just 3 tires, but you can choose to have the drive run independently without raid0 setup.

RAID0 = 2 x 40gb = 80gb
Independent = 2 x 40gb = 80gb

You still have 80gb of space without the added risk of running RAID.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

You are right andalas, I was only thinking of one 80 gig drive as opposed to two 40 giggers in a Raid0 setup.

 

[rfan622]

Diffusion -
Could you further explain how to have the 3rd HD act as a backup? I'm tempted to use RAID 0. Would the 3rd HD be the same size as the other two? And what exactly would it be backing up?

After reading this thread I think I may skip out on the RAID 0 (but I always wanted to see the speed in action! :frown: )

-rob.f

 

[AaronP]

I use raid 0, and if the catastrophe happens, I just lose a bunch of game installs and some mp3's, I can live with it.

 

[Helznicht]

Adding a third drive would be like a raid "5" setup (unless we are talking about manually backing up the drive).

In that set up, there really isnt a "backup" drive as backup data (parity) is saved on oposite drves of the data. Anyways, read speed is great, but write speed is slower than a single drive. Search for Raid 5 for more info.

 

[Train]

<< your chances of data loss increase exponentially. >>

exponentially? umm no its just times 2, i wouldnt call that &quot;exponential&quot;

 

[Grminalac]

I would say that running raid 0 on a machine with a highly overclocked FSB is not something I would reccomend if losing data would be a real problem. Then again, running one drive on an overclocked machine wouldn't be wise either. In my opinon RAID 0 is stable.

 

[Windogg]

RAID0 = Lie

RAID = Redundant which RAID0 is not.

I personally feel that large hard drives are so cheap not there is little sense in using RAID0. Sure it looks great in benchmarks and to trump your neighbors. Why flirt with disaster?

Windogg

 

[TRUMPHENT]

You and others really should do some extra reading on what RAID is for and how to use it. RAID 0 is only going to increase performance not data safety. However using a 250MB drive and a 17GB drive in the array will be more trouble than it is worth. RAID0 is like having a single drive, if one of the array drives fail, your data is lost. Real RAID arrays allow a drive to fail and be replaced without shutting down. I have two SCSI 10K rpm drives in my home system, Win2K and I haven't bothered to stripe them.