With todays cheap drives, I recommend that everyone uses at least 2 HDs of same manufacturer, size and model in a RAID 1 array for a quick easy precaution against single HD failure.
This is a mirrored array in which the primary disk is "mirrored" on the second drive .... this is NOT a backup solution per se.
Motherboard must support as most current ones do, as well as have RAID chip/controller, again as most do. Having same everything for both HDs is most efficient but not required however the array will only mirror equal to the smaller size of two unequal Gigs.
Below is quick C&P of the different types of arrays .. if speed gain and not mirroring is desired the RAID 0 is what ya want.
Arrays with 3 similar HDs can be setup for hot swapping assuming HD can technically accomodate.
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There are various combinations of these approaches giving different trade-offs of protection against data loss, capacity, and speed. RAID levels 0, 1, and 5 are the most commonly found, and cover most requirements.
* RAID 0 (striped disks) distributes data across several disks in a way that gives improved speed and full capacity, but all data on all disks will be lost if any one disk fails.
* RAID 1 (mirrored disks) could be described as a backup solution, using two (possibly more) disks that each store the same data so that data is not lost as long as one disk survives. Total capacity of the array is just the capacity of a single disk. The failure of one drive, in the event of a hardware or software malfunction, does not increase the chance of a failure nor decrease the reliability of the remaining drives (second, third, etc).
* RAID 5 (striped disks with parity) combines three or more disks in a way that protects data against loss of any one disk; the storage capacity of the array is reduced by one disk.
* RAID 6 (less common) can recover from the loss of two disks.
* RAID 10 (or 1+0) uses both striping and mirroring.
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Luck
LTBH |
