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| jpanhalt:
--- Quote from: mariush on April 28, 2022, 07:34:06 pm ---No, because RAID is never for data protection. edit : I mean SHOULD never be used for data protection, or as the only data protection method. --- End quote --- Can you elaborate why RAID1 on separate drives should not be used for data protection? I have been doing that for >20 years and have had at least 3 individual drive failures, but preserved my data. (I keep OS, Desktop, and programs I use on a separate drive, which soon will be RAID1 too). |
| SpacedCowboy:
That wouldn't likely protect as much as you think it would, IMHO. A couple of things off the top of my head that could go wrong: * If there is a systemic issue with the device as a whole (eg: a power failure) then all the platters are simultaneously gone * If there's a head crash on one platter, it's probably going to impact all the others too - even the debris of that first head-crash could easily cause more, but if something goes so wrong that you have a head crash on one platter, that same event is probably going to affect others too One of the key points of RAID is "Redundant". If your system is tightly-coupled (and the platters in a disk drive are *very* tightly coupled), you're likely not getting the 'redundant' part correct. The idea is that a failure in one part of the system doesn't affect the others - and that's very tough to do if they're tightly coupled together. I'm not a RAID expert, just a satisfied customer, but even if you go with internal RAID on an SSD (to abrogate the latter point above), the power thing is still a relevant problem, IMHO. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: eugene on April 28, 2022, 05:32:45 pm ---C'mon guys. I'm not suggesting that it would be as good as other solutions, I'm just wondering if a 2TB internal HD with built-in RAID would somehow protect the data better than a 10TB drive that's 95% empty. It's a way to make use of those over sized drives in a typical laptop (for example.) --- End quote --- What oversized HDDs? I have a 1TB SSD in my laptop, it's getting more filled than I'd like it to be so I'm going to have to clean house soon. At the time I bought it though anything larger was drastically more expensive, I haven't looked lately. I can think of exactly 0% of hard drive failures I've experienced where some kind of internal RAID wasting half the space would have helped. |
| mariush:
--- Quote from: jpanhalt on April 28, 2022, 08:07:25 pm --- --- Quote from: mariush on April 28, 2022, 07:34:06 pm ---No, because RAID is never for data protection. edit : I mean SHOULD never be used for data protection, or as the only data protection method. --- End quote --- Can you elaborate why RAID1 on separate drives should not be used for data protection? I have been doing that for >20 years and have had at least 3 individual drive failures, but preserved my data. (I keep OS, Desktop, and programs I use on a separate drive, which soon will be RAID1 too). --- End quote --- RAID 1 only helps with the most basic of hardware failures, when a hard drive dies on its own. If you're lucky and you notice the faulty drive right away and you replace it fast, your data is safe... otherwise as I explained, if you have drives with consecutive serial numbers, made in same factory, same week, same year, there's increased chances the other drive could fail for the same reasons the other failed already so you need to rush to replace the broken drive. For any other reasons, RAID 1 doesn't help you keep your data safe. For example, let's say the power supply craps out and outputs 15-20v instead of 12v to the hard drives and kills the motor on both... or burns a hole through both drives circuit boards. Now BOTH drives in your RAID 1 are dead. I've also seen the SATA connector on one drive shorting out causing the sata housing to melt and even make flames, and luckily there was no hard drive immediately above the other drive otherwise that drive's sata connector would have caught fire as well. If it's a work computer, let's say you fire an employee and he decides to kick the pc potentially causing both hard drives to fail at same time. Or maybe there's a small earthquake and the PC falls off the desk to the floor while it's working - few hard drives have acceleration sensors outside laptop models. Or maybe something as basic as a heavy book or a flower pot falls from a shelve above the computer on the computer case, the mechanical shock could damage both drives. Or let's say a pipe breaks and you have water up to your knees in your house and your computer is on the floor, below water. Besides hardware failures... Let's say you accidentally download some ransomware that encrypts all your files ... both drives will have encrypted files, you're screwed. |
| Ranayna:
--- Quote from: jpanhalt on April 28, 2022, 08:07:25 pm --- --- Quote from: mariush on April 28, 2022, 07:34:06 pm ---No, because RAID is never for data protection. edit : I mean SHOULD never be used for data protection, or as the only data protection method. --- End quote --- Can you elaborate why RAID1 on separate drives should not be used for data protection? I have been doing that for >20 years and have had at least 3 individual drive failures, but preserved my data. (I keep OS, Desktop, and programs I use on a separate drive, which soon will be RAID1 too). --- End quote --- It comes down to semantics. RAID (except obviously RAID 0) is for data availability. Some RAID levels have speed advantages compared to others or single drives. It protects you of failures of one or more of the actual drives. Thats it. It does not protect you against a lot of things that you would want your data to be protected from, among others: - accidental deletion - a cryptolocker - Controller failure - data corruption due to faulty ram RAID can complement backup, but can *never* replace a proper backup. |
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