Opinions on my RAID idea?

[donimo]

OK, since it didnt seem worth it I scrapped the RAID idea and an getting anther ds3L

thanks for the input though!

[Jack Rabbit]

As domino seems to have made up mind I feel no shame in thread jacking.

Originally Posted by DaleF

You don't need to use the same drives for an array, it just gives the best performance.

JBOD arrays were never part of the conversation.

Originally Posted by DaleF

Also, it's not impossible to pull data off of a single RAID5 drive, there is software out there to do it, but is isn't that hard to do.

Can you back that statement up with some actual links to actual software?

DaleF is right. You can RAID-0 a 250GB and a 500GB drive if you feel like it, but the total capacity will be 500GB and performance will be impacted.

Honestly though, the best backup system (imo) is one that does not run windows, and does not reside inside your computer tower. NAS units are great.

[Jack Rabbit]

Yes there are a number of ways you can use mixed drive sizes in RAID systems. You are reiterating my point; if you do this you will be wasting large parts of the disk space. I think this is a bad thing for the average home user. Most people would be better off with a working backup solution than a RAID-for-redundancy solution.

[donimo]

Originally Posted by Misoprostol

DaleF is right. You can RAID-0 a 250GB and a 500GB drive if you feel like it, but the total capacity will be 500GB and performance will be impacted.

Honestly though, the best backup system (imo) is one that does not run windows, and does not reside inside your computer tower. NAS units are great.

my old htpc p3-s tualatin rig is going to become a NAS rig, been with her too long to chuck her ;)

[Jack Rabbit]

Originally Posted by donimo

my old htpc p3-s tualatin rig is going to become a NAS rig, been with her too long to chuck her ;)

Check out FreeNAS. I built a NAS with it out of an old PIII 600 and it (mostly) worked great. Simple to set up, boots from CF card or USB stick, simple to administer, and fast.

My only problem was I could never get the RAID 5 to work properly and there was little support for that. If you just want to share out a couple large drives then I recommend FreeNAS.

FreeNAS: The Free NAS Server - Home

I see there is a new build since the last time I tried it. I will have to see if this works better for RAID 5.