RAID controller vs Mobo RAID

[deveraux]

So, it finally happened, I lost my main data drive, of which I performed minimal back up.

Seagate will restore everything so I'm not too upset. Having said that, knowing how lazy and forgetful I am, I just cannot rely on myself to backup my data in the future.

So I decided that I should give RAID1/10 a try. I have zero experience with RAID, never having used them before. Problem is this, I have heard rumblings about using on-board RAID controllers and how they can be unreliable at times or constantly rebuilding the array after reboots (I have no idea how valid these claims are hence the query). I am also concerned when I decide to change mobos in the future, on whether I'll lose the entire array.

Just asking for advice on how to proceed. Should I invest in a PCIe raid controller or just use the on-board. My board is the ASUS P8Z68-PRO/GEN3 and thus using the Intel Z68 controller for the RAID, I believe.

Thanks.

 

[groberts101]

looking for greater data redundancy through more compute intensive raid arrays is the wrong way to go there. At least if your not in the market for $300-500 raidcards with BBU options.

Onboard will be considerably slower than a good raidcard for those types of arrays and adding built-in hardware cache with the more expensive card would help even more.

Onboard raids of HDD are more for speed and capacity gain for a particular volume but heavily compute intensive arrays such as you mentioned above will only rob peter to pay paul on most systems.

Unless you want to spend the ching and plan on larger storage volumes of raided HDD later on?.. I would think that a good raidcard might not be worth it. Although you never mentioned anything about data sets/workloads so we can only assume it may be overkill for your intended usage.

Personally?.. I raid everything I possibly can. Having run 6 HDD in R0 for quite some time before moving to SSD arrays.. I can say that they definately speed up workflow and random performance(NCQ is great like that with striped arrays). Latency is slightly increased with that many drives, but once that initial lag is done?.. the data streams are faster, especially at higher loads/multitasking.

One of the fastest(with real data usage) and most cost effective system configs to build these days uses an SSD based boot drive(of at least 120GB) paired up with 2 x HDD storage volumes to increase data redundancy. I myself would never go short of 3 x HDD with 2 of those being smaller cap drives in R0(to take better advantage of the SSD's sequential transfer speeds)and the other larger cap drive for redundancy of the raid volume.

I have triplicate R0 backup redundancy for some of my data.. and I STILL use backup software. Despite my constant use of R0?.. I rarely ever need to use any backups due to dropouts failures, but is good to know it's there. Very cheap insurance in the long run and imaging can save HUGE amounts of time over reinstalls. Plus they can be automated to run when you choose.

Any way you slice all of this.. you still need to consider taking backups on ocassion if you actually care about the data on the drives. Otherwise, you'll be throwing large cash at that problem to get better hardware/software stability.. when you could have simply DL'd a 3rd party app for $30 bucks.

PS. any Intel raid cabable hardware will generally have no issue whatsoever recognizing any previously created Intel raid. Of course this is better suited to storage and is NOT going to mean that an OS based array will boot on other hardware. Oddly enough though.. some get lucky and boot right back up after a swap when hardware is similar enough. A few quick driver updates and viola. Intel is nice like that.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Raid is not backup

 

[corkyg]

Raid is not backup

Spot on! OTH, RAID1 provides for data redundancy in the event of a failure of one drive in the array. My practice is to periodically backup the entire array to a single USB external HDD.

 

[billyb0b]

Spot on! OTH, RAID1 provides for data redundancy in the event of a failure of one drive in the array. My practice is to periodically backup the entire array to a single USB external HDD.

Concur.... I push everything to Crashplan myself.

 

[Diogenes2]

Raid is not backup

Right.. It's just two copies of everything in real time.. ( RAID 1 )

A backup is only as good, as the last time you ran it...

 

[deveraux]

Right.. It's just two copies of everything in real time.. ( RAID 1 )

A backup is only as good, as the last time you ran it...

Well, this is really what I'm thinking.

I understand that RAID1 != backup. But if you already know that you're bad at keeping a backup, isn't RAID1 the "next best thing" as it were?

Ultimately, the situation, given enough time is going to reach the following point:
My drive has failed. My last backup was x time ago.

OR

My drive has failed. It's ok, I have an exact copy so I'll go out and buy another HDD and pop it in.

And knowing me (and I'm sure there are many others), x = 2-6 months ago. That can potentially be a lot of data. Some of which could be irreplaceable.

 

[Lifted]

Well, this is really what I'm thinking.

I understand that RAID1 != backup. But if you already know that you're bad at keeping a backup, isn't RAID1 the "next best thing" as it were?

Ultimately, the situation, given enough time is going to reach the following point:
My drive has failed. My last backup was x time ago.

OR

My drive has failed. It's ok, I have an exact copy so I'll go out and buy another HDD and pop it in.

And knowing me (and I'm sure there are many others), x = 2-6 months ago. That can potentially be a lot of data. Some of which could be irreplaceable.

Or the next time it's going to be

• I deleted an important file, it's gone
• I got a virus, all my files are gone
• RAID array crapped out, all my files are gone
• lightning struck, all my files are gone
• flood, all my files are gone
• fire, all my files are gone
• thief, all my files are gone

RAID1 is used to to prevent downtime due to drive failure. As previously stated, it is not a backup.

 

[Cerb]

Do you have $30-50 to spare? If so, instead of RAID, get some good backup software, that will keep up to date backups automatically.

 

[SolMiester]

Or the next time it's going to be

• I deleted an important file, it's gone
• I got a virus, all my files are gone
• RAID array crapped out, all my files are gone
• lightning struck, all my files are gone
• flood, all my files are gone
• fire, all my files are gone
• thief, all my files are gone

RAID1 is used to to prevent downtime due to drive failure. As previously stated, it is not a backup.

This, this this......Just put a big External drive on USB and set Windows 7 backup and forget!