Posted by Jim Greenwood on August 24, 2010 at 9:50 PM
The notebook computer I've been using for a few years is having "issues". It won't boot. I may have to reinstall the operating system. I do have all my digital image files backed up to a Western Digital 1TB My Book Mirror Edition. But the notebook computer has served its purpose, and I've been wanting to invest in a new desktop computer, so I'm using my current situation as an excuse to act. I've been doing some research, and I've also been reading many of the great related posts in the General Discussion and Digital Imaging forums. But I still have some questions and uncertainties.
For example ... I fully intend to utilize a more robust external hard drive array with the new desktop computer. I've been reading great things about Drobo. So ... are there still advantages to having dual internal hard drives configured with RAID 1? Will that configuration result in a complete mirror of the boot drive so that if it fails the operating system and applications will function as normal from the other drive? If this isn't the case, then it seems like it would be advantageous to not have the internal drives configured with RAID, thereby increasing the overall storage capacity of the internal drives.
Also, it seems that when employing RAID, all of the internal drives must be identical and they all are part of the RAID configuration. Is it not possible for example to have two smaller identical internal hard drives (the boot drive and an additional identical drive) configured with RAID 1, and another larger internal hard drive not in the RAID 1 configuration which is just used for document storage and which of course gets backed up to the external hard drive array.
Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions.
Posted by Ed Cordes on August 24, 2010 at 10:17 PM
I configured a great system with a SSD "C" drive for all software, a Western Digital Velociraptor 1 TB "D" drive for all images and a 500Gb "E" drive for non photo data and Win 7 Home Premium for a lot less than anyone else. The system just screams! BTW, you get only what you want/need. No crap-ware installed on the HD to take up space and slow things down.
RE back up there are many opinions. I, personally, don't like RAID. It is not really a back up but rather a data redundancy. If there is an error on one drive it will be copied to the second automatically. I prefer Just A Bunch Of Disks (JABOD). I use my D drive for the current 2 years images. I have a 2 TB external drive as back up for them as well as the older archived images. The 2 TB external is in turn backed up to another drive stored off site.
This way I have 3 copies of the current 2 years and 2 copies of the older files.
I recently began to use SyncToy as a back up software. This is a great way to ensure each new file is copied tot he back up and that any changed file has its changes copied over the original file on the back up drive. This is so easy once you get the first back up done that I now back up to the external every evening after I work on images.
This system, to me, seems much cheaper than DROBO or other multiple HD cases using RAID and, frankly safer as I do not copy anything that isn't proven to be error free.
Hope this helps.
Posted by Dan Borzynski on August 24, 2010 at 10:59 PM
RAID 1 is not a backup strategy. It is a get back up and running as quickly as possible assuming no severe errors have been copied strategy.
Technically, it copies the contents the first drive over to the second drive, so you do have a backup of each file. That, however, is also its weakness. If the fatal error of the first drive is the result of massive file corruption, the second drive will faithfully copy over all of the massive file corruptions as well, at least up to the point the everything comes crashing down.
I am running RAID 1 on my current machine, knowing full well both the strengths and weaknesses of the setup up. More importantly, I have a lot of multiply backed up external drives as well.
Even with a DROBO, I'd still have a set of off site drives somewhere backing THAT up as well.
For your last paragraph, the two drives which are RAID 1, they have to be an identical size due to the way they operate. I really don't know how a third drive changes things.
RAID 0 is niether a backup strategy nor a recovery strategy. It is designed to make read/write operations to your drive look as fast as possible. If one drive fails, you lose the data on both drives, since half or so of each file lies on each drive. For a Photoshop editting machine, this is a dumb strategy since you effectively double your chances of a hard drive failure and recovering the lost data on both drives is a nightmare even for recovery services. Buy a fast drive for Photoshop scratch space or better yet, more RAM.
For applications like gaming where speed is a higher priority, it makes more sense.
While I am not in a hurry to buy a new PC, I have researched Puget Systems and they appear to be excellent. Ed's comment backs up my conclusions.
"RAID 0 is neither a backup strategy nor a recovery strategy. It is designed to make read/write operations to your drive look as fast as possible. If one drive fails, you lose the data on both drives..."
When I bought my current PC, a Dell, I had them build a RAID-0 config for the speed; it certainly was fast. Well, I had a drive failure after five years, and had to rebuild my system. Forutnately, I had all my documents and images backed up to a WD-MyBook Elite, so I was OK, aside from having to reinstall programs, drivers, and such.
RAID configurations can be troublesome, as Dan indicated, because they do not provide true backup. I installed a second 500GB HD and use that, and another drive on a networked PC for backup. I also set the second internal drive as my PS scratch disk.
Jim, do take a look at Puget Systems. They have an exellent forum that the techs keep an eye on and answer questions.
--P
Posted by Dan Borzynski on August 25, 2010 at 6:06 PM
Again, another custom builder with a very good reputation. They don't have quite the variety of options as Puget Systems but they also don't compromise on the parts as well. I would have had them build my current system if it wasn't for cost and the need to be up and running as quickly as possible. Not that they are slow - I just needed something yesterday to finish a job.
Discussion
4 repliesFor example ... I fully intend to utilize a more robust external hard drive array with the new desktop computer. I've been reading great things about Drobo. So ... are there still advantages to having dual internal hard drives configured with RAID 1? Will that configuration result in a complete mirror of the boot drive so that if it fails the operating system and applications will function as normal from the other drive? If this isn't the case, then it seems like it would be advantageous to not have the internal drives configured with RAID, thereby increasing the overall storage capacity of the internal drives.
Also, it seems that when employing RAID, all of the internal drives must be identical and they all are part of the RAID configuration. Is it not possible for example to have two smaller identical internal hard drives (the boot drive and an additional identical drive) configured with RAID 1, and another larger internal hard drive not in the RAID 1 configuration which is just used for document storage and which of course gets backed up to the external hard drive array.
Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions.
I configured a great system with a SSD "C" drive for all software, a Western Digital Velociraptor 1 TB "D" drive for all images and a 500Gb "E" drive for non photo data and Win 7 Home Premium for a lot less than anyone else. The system just screams! BTW, you get only what you want/need. No crap-ware installed on the HD to take up space and slow things down.
RE back up there are many opinions. I, personally, don't like RAID. It is not really a back up but rather a data redundancy. If there is an error on one drive it will be copied to the second automatically. I prefer Just A Bunch Of Disks (JABOD). I use my D drive for the current 2 years images. I have a 2 TB external drive as back up for them as well as the older archived images. The 2 TB external is in turn backed up to another drive stored off site.
This way I have 3 copies of the current 2 years and 2 copies of the older files.
I recently began to use SyncToy as a back up software. This is a great way to ensure each new file is copied tot he back up and that any changed file has its changes copied over the original file on the back up drive. This is so easy once you get the first back up done that I now back up to the external every evening after I work on images.
This system, to me, seems much cheaper than DROBO or other multiple HD cases using RAID and, frankly safer as I do not copy anything that isn't proven to be error free.
Hope this helps.
Technically, it copies the contents the first drive over to the second drive, so you do have a backup of each file. That, however, is also its weakness. If the fatal error of the first drive is the result of massive file corruption, the second drive will faithfully copy over all of the massive file corruptions as well, at least up to the point the everything comes crashing down.
I am running RAID 1 on my current machine, knowing full well both the strengths and weaknesses of the setup up. More importantly, I have a lot of multiply backed up external drives as well.
Even with a DROBO, I'd still have a set of off site drives somewhere backing THAT up as well.
For your last paragraph, the two drives which are RAID 1, they have to be an identical size due to the way they operate. I really don't know how a third drive changes things.
RAID 0 is niether a backup strategy nor a recovery strategy. It is designed to make read/write operations to your drive look as fast as possible. If one drive fails, you lose the data on both drives, since half or so of each file lies on each drive. For a Photoshop editting machine, this is a dumb strategy since you effectively double your chances of a hard drive failure and recovering the lost data on both drives is a nightmare even for recovery services. Buy a fast drive for Photoshop scratch space or better yet, more RAM.
For applications like gaming where speed is a higher priority, it makes more sense.
"RAID 0 is neither a backup strategy nor a recovery strategy. It is designed to make read/write operations to your drive look as fast as possible. If one drive fails, you lose the data on both drives..."
When I bought my current PC, a Dell, I had them build a RAID-0 config for the speed; it certainly was fast. Well, I had a drive failure after five years, and had to rebuild my system. Forutnately, I had all my documents and images backed up to a WD-MyBook Elite, so I was OK, aside from having to reinstall programs, drivers, and such.
RAID configurations can be troublesome, as Dan indicated, because they do not provide true backup. I installed a second 500GB HD and use that, and another drive on a networked PC for backup. I also set the second internal drive as my PS scratch disk.
Jim, do take a look at Puget Systems. They have an exellent forum that the techs keep an eye on and answer questions.
--P
http://www.falcon-nw.com/
Again, another custom builder with a very good reputation. They don't have quite the variety of options as Puget Systems but they also don't compromise on the parts as well. I would have had them build my current system if it wasn't for cost and the need to be up and running as quickly as possible. Not that they are slow - I just needed something yesterday to finish a job.