Geek=Karma-Kills= wrote:
RAID is Redundant Array of Independent Drives - basically its a way of using multiple hard drives for redundancy (backup in case one fails).
There are many different types (levels) of RAID, for different situations, though RAID 0, 1 and 5 are the most common.
Technically speaking RAID 0 isnt RAID, as it offers no redundancy (if one drive fails, the whole RAID array also fails) - in that sense its just AID!
RAID 0 (Stripping) is where all your data is broken down into little chunks. These chunks are then saved "randomly" across the two drives, in the location thats fastest to do. RAID 0 offers really fast write times because of this and is recommended if you want really good harddrive performance. However, say you have 2 x 250GB drives in RAID 0, that would appear as 1 x 500GB drive - but if one of the 250GB drives were to fail, you would loose all your data - so backup is important.
As an example, RAID 1 (Mirroring) on the otherhand is where each "chunk" is saved to both drives - so if one drive fails the other one can take over.
Read more here.
BTW if you hear of, and get confused about, hardware / software RAID, just know that you'd probably using software RAID (where the Operating System handles the RAID - as this is cheaper), compared to better performance hardware RAID, that uses a physical RAID card (which is expensive and mainly used in servers).
phew - that was RAID 101.
Still, thanks
Nah I have 1 80GB Hardddd driiive. Does me fine. I don't think I'd need anything over RAID 0 because I've never had a system fail or file delete... ever..
Hell, I don't even think I need over 250GB.
