Originally posted by: Zumbador
I've got four WD6400AAKS drives coming in. I was originally planning to setup two RAID 0s with two discs each (video editing setup), but am wondering if I should set up a single 4 disc RAID 0 instead. Pros/Cons? Thanks.
4 640GB in RAID 0 will be roughly 2.4TB. Windows XP 32-bit cannot access more than 2TB of a single array, so if that's your OS of choice you will lose a decent chunk of space with one 4 drive array.
In terms of performance characteristics, random access of a 4 drive RAID 0 is similar to a 2 drive RAID 0. Sustained transfer rate will basically increase with each disk you add, so the 4 drive RAID 0 will approximately double the STR of the 2 drive RAID 0.
In terms of failure, any drive failure will result in data loss. If you use a 4 drive array, one failure will lose all data. If you have 2 separate arrays, you will only lose the data on one array and still have one functioning array. If uptime is more important than data protection, you will still be functional with 1 array in the event of a single failure.