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<blockquote data-quote="Scythe42" data-source="post: 516565" data-attributes="member: 95833"><p>There's no real performance gain using a stripe set (RAID 0) in a HTPC setup with an onboard RAID. And if one HD fails the whole array will fail and you lose all data. You should never ever use a stripe set. One HD defect and everything's gone, probably your whole media library.</p><p></p><p>It's better to use stripe sets with parity (RAID 5 or 6), so your data is protected for one or two HD failures at the same time. But never do this without a dedicated RAID controller (aka hardware RAID) as the performance impact will be huge as the CPU has to do everything or most of the work. Only an option if you really have CPU power to spare (example an older PC configured for NAS usage).</p><p></p><p>General rule: onboard RAID = software RAID (except for a few very pricy MBs). </p><p></p><p>The only difference is that the BIOS will know about the RAID array and you can boot from it. Booting form software RAID 1 (Mirroring) is always possible even with no BIOS support.</p><p></p><p>RAID 1 (Mirroring) on the other hand can be used with an onboard controller to provide redundancy for the boot drive and it's the preferred home solution of a software RAID. Of course there's some performance vs. redundancy thing here when using software mirroring.</p><p></p><p>Even though other RAID levels might be supported please stay away from them (and always stay away from RAID 0). It's not worth it from my experience.</p><p></p><p>If you just don't want to deal with a lot of drive letters I recommend just mounting each of your old HDs as a sub directory in another directory. There's no need for using one drive letter of each HD anymore since a lot of years. For the Boot Disk you could opt for Mirroring though.</p><p></p><p>PS: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels" target="_blank">Standard RAID levels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scythe42, post: 516565, member: 95833"] There's no real performance gain using a stripe set (RAID 0) in a HTPC setup with an onboard RAID. And if one HD fails the whole array will fail and you lose all data. You should never ever use a stripe set. One HD defect and everything's gone, probably your whole media library. It's better to use stripe sets with parity (RAID 5 or 6), so your data is protected for one or two HD failures at the same time. But never do this without a dedicated RAID controller (aka hardware RAID) as the performance impact will be huge as the CPU has to do everything or most of the work. Only an option if you really have CPU power to spare (example an older PC configured for NAS usage). General rule: onboard RAID = software RAID (except for a few very pricy MBs). The only difference is that the BIOS will know about the RAID array and you can boot from it. Booting form software RAID 1 (Mirroring) is always possible even with no BIOS support. RAID 1 (Mirroring) on the other hand can be used with an onboard controller to provide redundancy for the boot drive and it's the preferred home solution of a software RAID. Of course there's some performance vs. redundancy thing here when using software mirroring. Even though other RAID levels might be supported please stay away from them (and always stay away from RAID 0). It's not worth it from my experience. If you just don't want to deal with a lot of drive letters I recommend just mounting each of your old HDs as a sub directory in another directory. There's no need for using one drive letter of each HD anymore since a lot of years. For the Boot Disk you could opt for Mirroring though. PS: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels]Standard RAID levels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url] [/QUOTE]
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