is RAID really useful??

  • Thread starter Thread starter esara
  • Start date Start date
John R Weiss said:
OTOH, assume a home user can buy a RAID 1 array already configured, so he
doesn't have to worry about setup. He then doesn't have to worry about Norton
Ghost or similar -- the image is automatically created. If he has a HD failure,
he simply replaces the HD instead of trying to recover the image with Ghost.

An off-site backup is still a good idea, but for a non-geek who may not backup
anything at all, RAID 1 has a place. Besides, a second HD won't cost much more
these days than the software. After that, any failure will require a new HD in
any scenario, so the elegance of the recovery becomes the issue.



All depends on the individual implementations... One could be led to believe
that current on-board PATA/SATA HD controllers would perform better than add-on
boards. OTOH, that is not true these days with graphics adapters -- the state
of the art is such that add-on cards are much more capable than virtually any
on-board graphics...
Click to expand...
No, no on board graphics here. I'd read about the performance problems
there. I do have on board sound. Not too sure about that one either, but to
date, no noticeable performance problems system-wide or with sound quality.
 
OTOH, assume a home user can buy a RAID 1 array already configured, so he
doesn't have to worry about setup. He then doesn't have to worry about Norton
Ghost or similar -- the image is automatically created. If he has a HD failure,
he simply replaces the HD instead of trying to recover the image with Ghost.

An off-site backup is still a good idea, but for a non-geek who may not backup
anything at all, RAID 1 has a place. Besides, a second HD won't cost much more
these days than the software. After that, any failure will require a new HD in
any scenario, so the elegance of the recovery becomes the issue.
Click to expand...

Agree, KISS principle. Ghost is definitely not KISS (as
often as I've used it, you do have to know what you're
doing). I've heard that Drive Image is much nicer UI,
can update images on-the-fly, possibly being a much
simpler system.

The question also boils down to which is more likely to
happen... drive failure or user mucking up the system?
Microsoft's system restore points do help a good bit
with the latter, which might tip the balance towards
RAID1.

I've done it both ways (did RAID1 on all my home systems
since 1998 or earlier), but lately I'm trying out the
Ghost/DriveImage method instead.
 
Microsoft's system restore points do help a good bit
with the latter, which might tip the balance towards
RAID1.
Click to expand...

9 out of 10 SOHO RAID users run RAID 0. RAID 1 is in no way a
substitute for backups. OS is corrupted on first drive, same with
second. Virus attack on drive one, same on drive two. M$ system
restore and RAID 1 both give performance hits.
 
|| Microsoft's system restore points do help a good bit
|| with the latter, which might tip the balance towards
|| RAID1.
|
| 9 out of 10 SOHO RAID users run RAID 0. RAID 1 is in no way a
| substitute for backups. OS is corrupted on first drive, same with
| second. Virus attack on drive one, same on drive two. M$ system
| restore and RAID 1 both give performance hits.

To be honest, if you are after better speed and reliability you're probably
better off going for SCSI. 10000 rpm ultra-320 SCSI drives are noticeably
faster than most IDE types and tend to be better made - so more reliable if
they are kept cool. There's a good variety of backup devices available for
SCSI connection also, and you can take the connection outside of the machine
so they don't have to be built-in.
Kevin.
 
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