SSD Boot Drive and Two HD with RAID 1

  • Thread starter Thread starter Thermoelectric
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Thermoelectric

Can I have a SSD boot drive and then have two additional regular hard drives in RAID 1 configuration for storing my data? Thanks.
 
Thermoelectric said:
Can I have a SSD boot drive and then have two additional regular hard drives in RAID 1 configuration for storing my data? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yes.

But I would recommend...

1) SSD as boot drive.
2) One additional hard drive as the data storage drive.
3) Second hard drive placed in an external enclosure.
You can do regular cloning runs, to copy (2) to (3).
Unplug (3) when the clone or backup run is complete.
An unplugged drive is slightly more secure.

This may be better than RAID 1, in that you don't
have to deal with RAID software (figure out which
drive is broken and replace it when the mirror
reports "degraded" status). If you are an IT person
in disguise, perhaps you enjoy the RAID issues, and
this is not a concern for you.

RAID is not a replacement for backups, if perhaps that
is what you were thinking. My proposal includes a
backup strategy. If you do RAID, you should have an
additional drive to do backups on. A RAID 1 mirror
can fail on you, and you can lose all the data. All
it takes for that to happen, is a power transient on
the ATX power supply, to kill both drives.

You don't mention:

1) OS
2) Motherboard
3) Port used for each drive in question

as there may be further details. For example, the Intel
RST driver supports RAID and AHCI, and you may be able
to run the SSD under AHCI and the other drives under RAID.
Most modern chipsets will be similar. If you're running
two separate chips or controller cards to operate the
hard drives, then two different drivers might be needed.
You probably understand all of this already, anyway.

Paul
 
Can I have a SSD boot drive and then have two additional regular hard
drives in RAID 1 configuration for storing my data? Thanks.

-
Have anything you want provided the BIOS/MB support. Or not, if you
can figure out workarounds on a MB w/out support: I'm booting a SSD
with a partition manager on an older BIOS w/out SSD support. Was a
PITA to figure it out;- Easier, I'll say, if you do have a full deck
for BIOS. Wish I did (running a PCI controller in another, similar
system, as do most with RAID support, though non-RAID it's also a
semi-PITA, too).

Best yet is when nothing compares to losing all your data on a RAID,
except perhaps running dissimilar HDs, (non-spec'd for RAID), in a
hardware drive-failure meltdown. Throwing two broken hard drives into
the garbage is an experience, well, that defies description.
 
Can I have a SSD boot drive and then have two additional regular hard drives in RAID 1 configuration for storing my data? Thanks.
Click to expand...

This is exactly how I run my system, using the OS level raid software built into Windows 7.

Just a few notes, to deal with the most common data scenarios:
0. Make sure your raid drives are meant for raids. Normal drives don't handle raid specific errors well.
1. Make sure "Previous Versions" is turned on for your drives. This lets Windows store older versions of files/folders around, in case you accidentally delete/change something.
2. Never fill up your raid, not even temporarily, as "Previous Versions" needs disk space to store those older files.
3. Make a habit of saving to the raid, not the SSD. This requires breaking habits like saving to desktop or the MyDocuments folder. I put links on my desktop to make sure I put stuff onto the raid.
4. Set your browser to backup bookmarks to the raid (Firefox can backup bookmarks upon exit) or the cloud (Chrome can backup to cloud upon exit).
 
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