Need a solution...

[Namtaro]

Alright so as of right now I have an old PC I use as sort of a NAS. It has Windows XP installed as I need it to run utorrent and UPnP Media Server (universal media server).It currently has 2 2TB drives, 1 500Gb drive and another 500GB drive connected via USB.

The 500GB drives are for personal stuff (Photos, files etc) The 2 2TB drives are used for storing mainly media (Movies, music etc). The 2TB drive and 500GB drives are mirrored (backed up) using software so if one drive fails I still have the data... Problem is that the 2TB is nearly filled so I need more space. What I want is one 'drive' on the computer (like one partition) so the only solution I've thought of would be to RAID0 2 2TB drives to have a RAID0 4TB drives and mirror them with another RAID0 4TB drive.

Any other ideas you guys have?
I read over my own post and it might be a little confusing so any questions, do ask.

Thanks!

[PommieB]

I've found little need for raid on storage drives, I prefer not to rely on raid for back-up, but then my movies and media run on a media player not a computer. I simply run a triple back-up manually. Media player as 4 TB of storage, two internally and two externally. Don't use Nas drives my storage is Das or direct storage. The only place I need speed is on the computer, I use ssd drives on it. Wouldn't you just mirror 4 x 2TB drives making 2 x 4 TB's.

[Odanez]

Instead of Raid0 go for JBOD - this way if one drive fails you can still recover the data on the other drive. It also just shows up as a single large volume. But as Pommie said, backup is important, I would also just get an external USB HDD where you back up your important data to once in a while and store it somewhere safe, preferably fire-proof or something.

[PommieB]

I changed one of my external enclosures from raid to JBOD after losing a hard drive in the raid0 setup, not worth the hassle for storage, might be different with NAS, can't see the point of it with my set-up. Not a raid0 fan, haven't got the storage for a mirror set-up.

[Namtaro]

Might not have made it clear enough or used the wrong words, but I'm not using Raid as a backup.

I currently have two 2TB drives that are fully backed up by software (They're mirrored; storing the exact same stuff so if one drive dies, I still have the data). I also have two 500GB drives that are backed up by software on the server as well (once again, mirrored).

I'm running out of room on the 2TB drive so I'm going to be buying two more 2TB drives. I need two drives to be combined so I wouldn't see two separate drives on the network.. which is what I was thinking Raid0 might accomplish.
I would have two Raid0 arrays, 4TB each and they would be backed up so if one drive fails, I'd still have the data.



Haven't looked into JBOD... but just did a really quick read and what I got was...
JBOD wouldn't split the data like Raid0 striping does?
Say I transfer 5 files onto the JBOD, 2 files would go on Disk1 and 3 files on Disk2? And if Disk1 fails, the files on Disk2 would still be intact and readable as a standalone drive?

Thanks so far guys!

[Odanez]

You are right on the JBOD part, however, it would not split the files in such a way that both drives are filled equally, but more like a normal HDD would do. Think of it this way: When you write a bunch of data to a HDD, it usually put it somewhere in the beginning of the disk. This would mean that more or less the first half of your data that you would copy onto your JBOD array would end up on one drive before the other one gets filled. I said more or less because it is up to the controllers where it writes its data, and it could be that you end up with files fragmented across both drives, or that the second drive will be filled with data before the first one is 100% full.

[Namtaro]

Originally Posted by Odanez

You are right on the JBOD part, however, it would not split the files in such a way that both drives are filled equally, but more like a normal HDD would do. Think of it this way: When you write a bunch of data to a HDD, it usually put it somewhere in the beginning of the disk. This would mean that more or less the first half of your data that you would copy onto your JBOD array would end up on one drive before the other one gets filled. I said more or less because it is up to the controllers where it writes its data, and it could be that you end up with files fragmented across both drives, or that the second drive will be filled with data before the first one is 100% full.

Ah, so say I'm transferring 2 files that are 40GB and 60GB respectively.
It could write the 40GB file along with 10GB of the 60GB file onto Disk1 and the other 50GB of the 60GB file onto disk2?

If what I'm reading is correct, JBOD also has less stress on the drives as well right? In Raid0, both disks would have to be used to access the data, but with JBOD, the data might be on only one of the disks which would require only one of them to spinup?

I don't need much speed (I don't think Raid0 with WD Green drives will benefit that much from the speed)

Still not sure of going JBOD or Raid0 for the 'pool' drive, but I've decided for the other two 2TB drives, I'm going to leave them separate as I won't be accessing those drives so I don't need the organization of a single drive.

[PommieB]

Spanned JBOD you are going to lose any data that spans the Physical division of the two drives you can reduce this by keeping the partition de-fragmented instead of part files all over the Partition. Personally I prefer to have Individual JBOD which treats each drive individually as a partition, unfortunately my enclosure doesn't support it, I'm not networked, have no need for networking and I find 2tb partitions large enough to work with anyway.

That could change, I would probably use larger drives, but I doubt that as I've compressed all my movies at least 50% with little noticeable loss of quality. My DVD's are all being packed away in cardboard boxes and stored.