raid 0 or 1

External Since: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 2

I have decided to try a RAID on my PC but I'm not too sure which one I need.
I will be using two different harddrives [Seagate 40 and 20GB]. is it raid
0 or 1.

Robin

External Since: Nov 22, 2005 Posts: 24

Actually, since your disks are different capacities, you'd be better off
not using RAID. RAID 0 "stripes" the data equally across both disks.
Normally it doubles your available space (and may slightly increase disk
speed), but because your smaller disk is only 20GB, you'd end up with
40GB available disk space. RAID 1 "mirrors" the data from one drive to
the other for redundancy/failover purposes. Again, you're limited to
the space available on the smaller disk. And because the data is
duplicated, your effective disk space would only be 20GB. If you want
to go RAID, buy two identical, much larger disks.

If I were you, I'd skip the RAID and use the 20GB for your OS and
applications, with the 40GB for data. Then again, at those capacities,
your disks are probably pretty old. I'd invest in some good backup....

Regards,

Margaret

Robin Gordon wrote:
> I have decided to try a RAID on my PC but I'm not too sure which one I need.
> I will be using two different harddrives [Seagate 40 and 20GB]. is it raid
> 0 or 1.
>
> Robin
>
>