I've recently built myself a nice gaming PC but haven't learned about RAID until recently. I've got 2 Seagate Barracudas, 1 1TB and 1 2TB in my computer. They've both already got data on them, but I'm interested in putting them in RAID 0 while maintaining the data I currently have on them. Is it even possible to RAID 0 different sized drives, let alone ones with data on them?
When initially configured a RAID 0 array will be empty so there is no way to set it up without losing existing data.
RAID 0 is interleaving the data of each file across 2 or more physical drives. The total capacity of the RAID array becomes the sum of each drive used. This interleaving permits both drives to be used simultaneously while reading each file, thus (in theory) doubling the transfer rate.
But transfer rate is only one aspect of overall disk performance and it usually isn't even the most important. In real world conditions the performance advantage of RAID 0 will be considerably less. How much less will depend on many factors.
Each element of the RAID array must be the same size. In theory you could use the 1 TB drive and half of the 2 TB drive in the array, leaving 1 TB free for other uses. But whether or not your controller supports this is another matter. In any event using half the 2 TB drive for other uses would further reduce the performance advantage.
There are some other issues with RAID 0.
1. If either drive fails you lose everything. For this reason it essential to maintain regular backups.
2. It is often not possible to simply plug the existing drives into a new motherboard if it should ever need replacement. You would then need to resort to data recovery methods.
3. Recovery of data from a RAID 0 array is considerably more complex than from individual drives.
I would suggest that going to RAID 0 at this time would be more trouble than it is worth.
Yeah, it does sound very time consuming to back up all my data just for RAID 0. Knowing this now, I don't think I'll switch to RAID 0 yet. Thanks for the help though!
When initially configured a RAID 0 array will be empty so there is no way to set it up without losing existing data.
RAID 0 is interleaving the data of each file across 2 or more physical drives. The total capacity of the RAID array becomes the sum of each drive used. This interleaving permits both drives to be used simultaneously while reading each file, thus (in theory) doubling the transfer rate.
But transfer rate is only one aspect of overall disk performance and it usually isn't even the most important. In real world conditions the performance advantage of RAID 0 will be considerably less. How much less will depend on many factors.
Each element of the RAID array must be the same size. In theory you could use the 1 TB drive and half of the 2 TB drive in the array, leaving 1 TB free for other uses. But whether or not your controller supports this is another matter. In any event using half the 2 TB drive for other uses would further reduce the performance advantage.
There are some other issues with RAID 0.
1. If either drive fails you lose everything. For this reason it essential to maintain regular backups.
2. It is often not possible to simply plug the existing drives into a new motherboard if it should ever need replacement. You would then need to resort to data recovery methods.
3. Recovery of data from a RAID 0 array is considerably more complex than from individual drives.
I would suggest that going to RAID 0 at this time would be more trouble than it is worth.
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