RAID 0 or 1

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fishdrzig
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RAID 0 or 1

Post by fishdrzig » Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:13 am

I will be ordering a Dell Precision for my Peer-to Peer server for my front desk. Which RAID configuration would be recommended and why? RAID 0 or 1. Thanks
Oh, and should I bother to order the Solid State hard drives?

teethdood
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Re: RAID 0 or 1

Post by teethdood » Sun Jun 09, 2013 10:16 am

RAID 0 = speed/performance. You don't need it. No redundancy
RAID 1 = 2 hard drives containing the same info.
RAID 1 is obviously the better option between the two in a dental setting. In my opinion, RAID is a pain. Personally I would set up a virtual server (search other posts). But if you want RAID, get hardware RAID not software RAID.
SSDs are for speed. You do not want SSDs in the dental office. There are other reasons as well to not use SSDs.
Philip H. Doan, DDS
http://www.kaweahdental.com/

bpcomp
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Re: RAID 0 or 1

Post by bpcomp » Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:35 pm

I second everything teethdood said. I would however say that having a RAID 1 WITH a virtual server is not necessarily a horrible thing, but is probably unnecessary if you have a solid backup plan and approach.

jimgaas
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Re: RAID 0 or 1

Post by jimgaas » Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:26 am

I would stay away from RAID 0 unless you are very tech savvy. You don't need the speed, most likely, and it can really complicate your life. RAID 1 mirrors two disks in case one goes down. Microcenter has a small enclosure the size of a 3.5" drive. It holds two 2.5" laptop drives. You set a setting on the case for any of several different configurations of which two choices are RAID 0 or RAID 1. I use one set to RAID 1. When you set up the drives, then you just treat it as a normal drive as far as formatting is concerned. The URL to download the software is www.icydock.com, in case you want to check it out. Another way to handle your concerns about a drive going down is to clone your drive. That is really what RAID 1 does. It makes an on-the-fly clone. When I use this drive, I do seem to get great performance, which RAID 1 is supposed to do under certain circumstances.

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Manny Ramirez
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Re: RAID 0 or 1

Post by Manny Ramirez » Fri Jul 26, 2013 11:20 pm

Why not RAID 10 or RAID 5 ? You can use the Dell Manager Utility to send you messages when one of of the Hard Drives fails. Get SAS 15K hot swappable HD if you can afford it
Manny Ramirez
Senior Network Engineer
E-ssential Networks LLC

jimgaas
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Re: RAID 0 or 1

Post by jimgaas » Sat Jul 27, 2013 3:41 pm

The little enclosure I have only has room for two 2.5" drives and does not allow for the option of anything other that RAID 0 , RAID 1, JDOB and one called PM or something that I have never heard of before. If you do the more advanced RAID levels, you will really be needing at least three disks and usually more like 5. I have placed removable drive bays in all my computers and throw 3.5" drives in and out of the computers for backup, booting a different operating system, etc. This little box I have fits in the bay just like a 3.5" drive. I have placed Linux on the drive and put a clone of my office server on as well. When I boot Linux from a regular 3.5" drive, the boot up takes about 20 seconds. When I boot from the little enclosure in RAID 1 it takes about 1/4 the time. When I formatted the two 2.5" drives, I was ready for the usual RAID hassle of formatting each drive for RAID (see youtube). But, to my delight, when I set this little enclosure to RAID 1, I only had to format it like I would any other disk. What a relief. So my post was really to let the above user know of a great way to play with RAID with minimal overhead which was my goal. I think someone above mentioned the necessity of playing with RAID out of the office before in the office.

jimgaas
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Re: RAID 0 or 1

Post by jimgaas » Mon Jul 29, 2013 9:39 am

This weekend I replaced the 2.5" disk drives with hybrid drives. With RAID 1 and two hybrid drives the boot up of Linux is almost instantaneous. This little RAID enclosure is transportable across machines. The one problem I have is that I removed one of the drives to see what kind of dead disk warning I would be given and there was no warning at all.

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Manny Ramirez
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Re: RAID 0 or 1

Post by Manny Ramirez » Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:47 pm

That is because RAID 1 is supposed to run even if you have one disk. You little box should have a way to connect to a monitor. Pay attention to your BIOS. It should have a utility which will allow you to get in to your RAID controller and do some RAID management. From there you can see how your RAID is doing.
Manny Ramirez
Senior Network Engineer
E-ssential Networks LLC

jimgaas
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Re: RAID 0 or 1

Post by jimgaas » Thu Aug 01, 2013 1:19 pm

I guess I had hoped for a more obvious notification that there was trouble with a disk. I am sure that the software that comes with the unit would tell me that there was no disk or a bad disk, but I would prefer not to have to check with the special software every time. The portability of the unit probably is what keeps it from showing up in the computer's bios. The computer just sees it as a regular drive. All in all I love the little drive. It is fast and cool. The little lap top drives don't get as hot as the bigger ones. A 1 TB laptop drive now goes for about $75. The hybrid drives that I am using are about $110 at Microcenter. and they are fast. The Linux host that boots up first is almost an instant boot up. The guest is also very fast. I have not had it long enough to play with backups yet. I think this is a great RAID 1 solution for those of us who want to keep it simple. With this little unit, you have a two drive backup in RAID 1 that is in a unit that can be transported between computers easily. If you host is Linux, any computer will run it.

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