which raid mode to suggest

[Dark Atheist]

i only have 2 x 200 serial ata discs which i would like to raid on my server, now i doubt i will ever use more than 200 gb on there (although that can change) so im wondering is it best to go with RAID0 or RAID1, main thing i do on there atm is transfer files from xp pro box to server for storage (not long week or so) and burning discs and such

 

[NetRyder]

i only have 2 x 200 serial ata discs which i would like to raid on my server, now i doubt i will ever use more than 200 gb on there (although that can change) so im wondering is it best to go with RAID0 or RAID1, main thing i do on there atm is transfer files from xp pro box to server for storage (not long week or so) and burning discs and such

Sounds like the machine is mainly being used as a file server. In that case, if the stored data is important to you, a RAID1 setup would be a good idea for redundancy. If one disk fails, you can salvage the data off the mirror.

I wouldn't recommend RAID0 on that box, considering what it's being used for. If you were using it for constant disk-intensive tasks, you could perhaps have considered it. But remember that if one disk fails, all your data is gone, so it's not a good idea for a machine that's primarily being used for storage.

 

[Dark Atheist]

well its going to have apache on there with mysql but that will be ran from c drive, apache htdocs folder will be on d, and everything else sent to e and f which will be the raid, and although i will be backing stuff up weekly (yes i know i should do it daily - lazy 😉 ) harddrives can and do fail at the worst times.

raid1 it is then 🙂

 

[fitz]

personally, I never really recommend RAID 0. There are very few circumstances/applications that actually see any major benefit from a RAID0 setup. In most cases, it's just worth a little performance increase for twice the chance of data loss from a drive failure.

 

[Mastershakes]

RAID 1 is all good as suggested.

Just don't 'rebuild' the 1 of the drives when it fails. A junior sysadmin did it before asking the other day.... did not have a good evening 😉

 

[Dark Atheist]

i think i know what you mean 🙂 but just to be clear can you explain it a bit more, just so that i know what and what not to do if all goes pete tong

do you mean if drive 0 fails dont use what ever is on drive 1 ? and if that does happen how do i get all the fiels back