Using two different capacity HD in Raid0 mode ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mbegz
  • Start date Start date
M

mbegz

I have two HD

1. Samsung HD501LJ 500GB

2. Toshiba 1T SATA 3

If I partition Toshiba into to partition of 500 GB each, would it be
possible to use them in RAID0 configuration. If yes how.

Thanks for your comments.
 
I have two HD

1. Samsung HD501LJ 500GB

2. Toshiba 1T SATA 3

If I partition Toshiba into to partition of 500 GB each, would it be
possible to use them in RAID0 configuration. If yes how.

Thanks for your comments.
Click to expand...

I am far from an expert, but I believe that RAID works at a drive level -
below the level of partitions.
 
I have two HD

1. Samsung HD501LJ 500GB

2. Toshiba 1T SATA 3

If I partition Toshiba into to partition of 500 GB each, would it be
possible to use them in RAID0 configuration.
Click to expand...

Yes, it would.

But do you mean use both of them in the same RAID0 configuration?

Because if that is what you intend, it would be pointless since
both of them are on the same physical disk drive.

With the two disks and if you wanted two separate file systems on RAID0,
you would create partitions sda1 and sda2 on the first disk and sdb1 and
sdb2 on the second and then create a RAID0 with sda1 and sdb1 and a second
RAID0 with sda2 and sdb2.

Remember with RAID0 if there is failure of any constituent partition,
then the whole RAID0 array is useless and data cannot be retrieved.
 
I have two HD

1. Samsung HD501LJ 500GB

2. Toshiba 1T SATA 3

If I partition Toshiba into to partition of 500 GB each, would it be
possible to use them in RAID0 configuration. If yes how.

Thanks for your comments.
Click to expand...

On a simple RAID setup, your Toshiba would end up half used, and
you could indeed have a RAID0 of 500+500.

+-----+
| 500 | (wasted)
+-----+ +-----+
| 500 | | 500 | <-- RAID0 --> (1TB total)
+-----+ +-----+

Some RAID controllers, Like Intel Matrix RAID, allow defining more
than one array, using the disks. I don't know, if that would include
running RAID 0 of 500+500 plus JBOD using the remaining 500GB of
capacity. See the picture here, of how Matrix RAID works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Rapid_Storage_Technology

This would be a best-case scenario of disk usage. Not all
controller software, supports using up the left-over space.
The system would think it had a total of two storage devices,
one 500GB in capacity, the other 1TB in capacity.

+-----+
| 500 | JBOD (remaining 500)
+-----+ +-----+
| 500 | | 500 | RAID0 (1TB total)
+-----+ +-----+

Since a lot of RAID controller setups, are a form of "soft RAID",
many things are possible, all as a function of the design of the
software for the driver or BIOS. You need to read the technical
description of the RAID controller, to understand the possibilities.
It varies from one brand to the next.

At the very least, using just about any RAID hardware, you
should be able to run a 500+500 RAID0 striped array. Such an
array would have no redundancy. If one drive fails, the
entire 1TB total data is lost. RAID0 is "striping for speed"
and has no protection against data failures.

Paul
 
Back
Top