combining raid 0 to raid 1, is it possible?

prim3geek · Mar 25, 2011, 03:18 AM

Hi guys recently i open a topic regarding using 2 ssd both for my OS and apps and i decided to just raid 0 both SSD 60gb well as i have understand raid 0 will double the speed and performance yet not safe if 1 drive fail i will lose all the data, so i was thinking of raid 1 since as what i have understand raid 1 is mirroring which 1 drive copies to other drive and even if 1 drive fail i still have the data and can recover buy just adding another.

So what i have in mind is that i will do the raid 0 for speed and raid 1 for security. So my data on raid 0 can be saved. Is this setup possible? i can search on how to do this but i need to be certain first if this can be done.

Also this is the hard part. I will use 2 ssd for raid 0 so 60gb x2 is 120gb and pair a hdd instead of another ssd for raid 1, i dont even know what im talking about as i am thinking that i can combine raid 0 to create raid 1.

If this confusing just tell me how can i have speed + data security?

thanks a lot

**kris23** · Mar 25, 2011, 06:50 AM

this should work in certain motherboards

usually it is called RAID 0+1 in the motherboard specs, i have never used it personally but it should be supported by most motherboards out of the box

there are others in the forums who are more qualified than i to help you so ill leave it to them.

blibbax · Mar 25, 2011, 10:46 AM

There are a number of ways of combining the increased speed of raid 0 with the security of raid one, but all have their drawbacks.

You cannot, however, mirror the SSDs to a hard drive, as you suggest, as this would force the SSDs to write at the speed of the hard drives, and the hard drive to be limited to the capacity of the SSDs - the worst of both worlds. If you think about it, you'd only be able to write to the SSDs as fast as the HDD could back things up.

You could buy two more SSDs, to run in raid 0+1. This would be a mirrored raid zero array, and give you exactly what you want, but at a higher price. It protects you against the total failure of either raid array, as well as against single drive failure. It can also potentially protect you against double drive failure, but only if you loose the first drive from one array and the second from another.

There's also raid five, which, using three drives, gives you the speed and capacity of a two drive raid zero array, while protecting you against the failure of a single drive. Details on how it works through this link to Wikipedia.

Alternatively, you could simply backup important data from the raid zero array onto your hard drive manually.

Tyrsonswood · Mar 25, 2011, 11:18 AM

Quote:

you could simply backup important data from the raid zero array onto your hard drive manually.

This! ^^^

I have a RAID 0+1 running in an external eSATA Sans Digital case using 4 MATCHING HDDs and it works well. The key there is the word "matching"..... In any kind of RAID it's best for all the drives to match, at least on a specification level, as closely as possible. Trying to RAID SSDs and HDDs would lead to disappointment as far as speed goes and I'm just guessing it may also cause problems down the road. The two technologies are very different...... SSDs need TRIM support and you would lose that if in a RAID with HDDs. HDDs need to be defragged and it's not suggested you defrag an SSD. etc. etc.

The best, most cost effective method would be RAID 0 the two SSDs and do manual backups frequently to a HDD..... You could even script those backups so it just happens without your intervention on a set schedule. (Win7 has it's own scheduled backup, but there are other utilities as well)

prim3geek · Mar 25, 2011, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blibbax

There are a number of ways of combining the increased speed of raid 0 with the security of raid one, but all have their drawbacks.

You cannot, however, mirror the SSDs to a hard drive, as you suggest, as this would force the SSDs to write at the speed of the hard drives, and the hard drive to be limited to the capacity of the SSDs - the worst of both worlds. If you think about it, you'd only be able to write to the SSDs as fast as the HDD could back things up.

You could buy two more SSDs, to run in raid 0+1. This would be a mirrored raid zero array, and give you exactly what you want, but at a higher price. It protects you against the total failure of either raid array, as well as against single drive failure. It can also potentially protect you against double drive failure, but only if you loose the first drive from one array and the second from another.

There's also raid five, which, using three drives, gives you the speed and capacity of a two drive raid zero array, while protecting you against the failure of a single drive. Details on how it works through this link to Wikipedia.

Alternatively, you could simply backup important data from the raid zero array onto your hard drive manually.

Thank you very much. I didnt actually know what im saying as its my first time if ever to experience raid and so you have explained it well.

thanks a lot will surely do what you suggested. Raid 0 then just manually backup on HDD.

blibbax · Mar 25, 2011, 12:02 PM

Awesome, happy to help

Judas · Mar 25, 2011, 03:29 PM

Yeah reason i didn't dive to much into raid 0+1 in the other thread is because it's for the most part totally counter productive for what your doing..

I find most 0+1 setups just perform poorly anyways..... you start flooding the raid chip with to much data to be written and read and confirmed and all that fun stuff to each of the drives with marginal performance increase.

As stated.. the best option is run your raid 0 array... and keep a back via USB Flash drive or that hardrive of your choice or more preferrably.. BOTH of all your files that are needed.

Do frequent backups...

And if a ssd or one of the raid 0 drives fail.. get ready for a windows reinstall.

Some people keep on their 3 drive for backup a fresh windows 7 install waiting just in case...... the "just in case" situation is when the raid 0 array fails.. or starts doing weird things..

allowing you to jump into the main drive so your not locking up and crashing all the time to at least manage to get some files off... and still use the computer until you can replace or reinstall windows on the raid 0 array.

prim3geek · Mar 26, 2011, 02:47 PM

ok theres something that bothers me, here in our country the only available ssd is 60gb and i plan to raid 0 the 2 ssd so it would turn into 120gb right? well it be enough for win7 pro 64bit and some applications like adobe products, premier, photoshop, after effects autocad i dont worry much about my documents since its saved on hdd what i worry is the installed applications and having the OS will 120gb enough?

also if i use 3 60gb raid 0? is that possible? will it increase speed? or will be much risky, waste of money or what? i could get 4 60gb if its advantageous.

I really need storage and speed but the only available size is 60gb and i cant order online because i dont have credit car.

hope you guys can help me, thanks a lot

Judas · Mar 26, 2011, 04:01 PM

My sisters computer i setup for here has a 75gb main partition... she has all the adobe/aftereffects/dreamweaver/illustrator/etc worth of programs and files all over..

with windows 7... she had 55gb out of 75gb used up for all her programs and such.. here download/documents/pictures and such are all "MOVED" to the other hardrive...

she hasn't had a problem programs wise or hardrive space wise

prim3geek · Mar 26, 2011, 04:52 PM

@judas so meaning 80gb will do? cause i checked it on my current drive, on partition 1 where my os installed out of 93.6gb 61gb where used and on the 2nd partition where my applications where installed out of 139gb 72.6gb where used.

So 61 + 72.6 = 133.6 and still need space like 20% so im guessing since i only have 1 choice of ssd which is 60gb i will buy 3 then i can have 180gb and it will still have 40gb free space correct?

my concern is that will it be alright for 3 disks on raid 0?

Quote:

will it increase speed? or will be much risky, waste of money or what? i could get 4 60gb if its advantageous.

I really need storage and speed but the only available size is 60gb and i cant order online because i dont have credit card

.

thanks a lot

Tyrsonswood · Mar 26, 2011, 05:02 PM

RAID 0 can be 3 disks....... Again, check the specs on your motherboard first, but it shouldn't be a problem.

Judas · Mar 26, 2011, 05:08 PM

raid 0 works with 2 to as many disks as you like..

i've ran raid 0 on 2/3/4/5/6 drives...

It's always best to have more space then you think you need rather then running into the problem of not having enough.

prim3geek · Mar 26, 2011, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrsonswood

RAID 0 can be 3 disks....... Again, check the specs on your motherboard first, but it shouldn't be a problem.

what if my mobo does not support it what should i do? have a dedicated raid card?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas

raid 0 works with 2 to as many disks as you like..

i've ran raid 0 on 2/3/4/5/6 drives...

It's always best to have more space then you think you need rather then running into the problem of not having enough.

ok does it have performance boost when you have many disk like 6 is there that much difference from 2 disks?

blibbax · Mar 26, 2011, 07:06 PM

I'd be very surprised if your board does not support raid, given that you're the type of person that buys SSDs, I presume you're the type of person who buys decent motherboards.

Raid zero performance scales linearly with increased number of drives.

Think about it. With two drives, for any given piece of data, half is sent to one drive, and half to the other, so you get the total bandwidth available to both drives when accessed simultaneously.

With three or more drives, this just carries on, and you get the total bandwidth available when three drives are accessed simultaneously. So if one drive is 300MB/s, two is 600MB/s, three is 900MB/s etc.

The only barrier comes when you start to reach the limitations of your controller or chipset. Where that barrier lies varies massively from one system to the next.

Mar 25, 2011, 03:18 AM	#1
prim3geek HardwareHeaven Newbie Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 12 Rep Power: 0	combining raid 0 to raid 1, is it possible? Hi guys recently i open a topic regarding using 2 ssd both for my OS and apps and i decided to just raid 0 both SSD 60gb well as i have understand raid 0 will double the speed and performance yet not safe if 1 drive fail i will lose all the data, so i was thinking of raid 1 since as what i have understand raid 1 is mirroring which 1 drive copies to other drive and even if 1 drive fail i still have the data and can recover buy just adding another. So what i have in mind is that i will do the raid 0 for speed and raid 1 for security. So my data on raid 0 can be saved. Is this setup possible? i can search on how to do this but i need to be certain first if this can be done. Also this is the hard part. I will use 2 ssd for raid 0 so 60gb x2 is 120gb and pair a hdd instead of another ssd for raid 1, i dont even know what im talking about as i am thinking that i can combine raid 0 to create raid 1. If this confusing just tell me how can i have speed + data security? thanks a lot

Mar 25, 2011, 06:50 AM	#2
kris23 Going Insane..... Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 6,018 Rep Power: 131 System Specs	Re: combining raid 0 to raid 1, is it possible? this should work in certain motherboards usually it is called RAID 0+1 in the motherboard specs, i have never used it personally but it should be supported by most motherboards out of the box there are others in the forums who are more qualified than i to help you so ill leave it to them. __________________ Hardwareheaven Super-Moderator Building a new computer system and not sure where to start? Click Here! last updated (5/18/11) Rosewill FUTURE case replaces CM 690 II with its greater interior length. Building a PC: Step by Step Guide Written by Kristopher Pedemonte and Nathan Marks-Forder Edited by Allan Campbell Questions or Comments? feel free to post them in the forums!

Mar 25, 2011, 10:46 AM	#3
blibbax What does this do? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 4,230 Rep Power: 254 System Specs	Re: combining raid 0 to raid 1, is it possible? There are a number of ways of combining the increased speed of raid 0 with the security of raid one, but all have their drawbacks. You cannot, however, mirror the SSDs to a hard drive, as you suggest, as this would force the SSDs to write at the speed of the hard drives, and the hard drive to be limited to the capacity of the SSDs - the worst of both worlds. If you think about it, you'd only be able to write to the SSDs as fast as the HDD could back things up. You could buy two more SSDs, to run in raid 0+1. This would be a mirrored raid zero array, and give you exactly what you want, but at a higher price. It protects you against the total failure of either raid array, as well as against single drive failure. It can also potentially protect you against double drive failure, but only if you loose the first drive from one array and the second from another. There's also raid five, which, using three drives, gives you the speed and capacity of a two drive raid zero array, while protecting you against the failure of a single drive. Details on how it works through this link to Wikipedia. Alternatively, you could simply backup important data from the raid zero array onto your hard drive manually. __________________ Donate the spare computing power of your PC to help to cure Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and cancer: Fold for HH!

Mar 25, 2011, 12:02 PM	#6
blibbax What does this do? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 4,230 Rep Power: 254 System Specs	Re: combining raid 0 to raid 1, is it possible? Awesome, happy to help __________________ Donate the spare computing power of your PC to help to cure Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and cancer: Fold for HH!

Mar 26, 2011, 02:47 PM	Thread Starter #8
prim3geek HardwareHeaven Newbie Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 12 Rep Power: 0	Re: combining raid 0 to raid 1, is it possible? ok theres something that bothers me, here in our country the only available ssd is 60gb and i plan to raid 0 the 2 ssd so it would turn into 120gb right? well it be enough for win7 pro 64bit and some applications like adobe products, premier, photoshop, after effects autocad i dont worry much about my documents since its saved on hdd what i worry is the installed applications and having the OS will 120gb enough? also if i use 3 60gb raid 0? is that possible? will it increase speed? or will be much risky, waste of money or what? i could get 4 60gb if its advantageous. I really need storage and speed but the only available size is 60gb and i cant order online because i dont have credit car. hope you guys can help me, thanks a lot

Mar 26, 2011, 07:06 PM	#14
blibbax What does this do? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 4,230 Rep Power: 254 System Specs	Re: combining raid 0 to raid 1, is it possible? I'd be very surprised if your board does not support raid, given that you're the type of person that buys SSDs, I presume you're the type of person who buys decent motherboards. Raid zero performance scales linearly with increased number of drives. Think about it. With two drives, for any given piece of data, half is sent to one drive, and half to the other, so you get the total bandwidth available to both drives when accessed simultaneously. With three or more drives, this just carries on, and you get the total bandwidth available when three drives are accessed simultaneously. So if one drive is 300MB/s, two is 600MB/s, three is 900MB/s etc. The only barrier comes when you start to reach the limitations of your controller or chipset. Where that barrier lies varies massively from one system to the next. __________________ Donate the spare computing power of your PC to help to cure Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and cancer: Fold for HH!