Your hard disk fails and you lose all your information. It takes between one day and one week to restore all the information a company had in the hard disk that just went to heaven. How can you solve this thing?
The average hard disk operating time it’s just five years. Some hard disks will last longer, sometimes more than 10 years, while others will fail on the same day they were bought.
What’s really important is how you can adapt yourself to this situation. The solution is a RAID system. RAID stands for an array of hard disks working all at the same time with the same information so if one fails, the other is still there with the information stored in the very same way. RAID 1 is what you need to have to know for sure that you will never lose your entire data in case of natural hard disk failure. If you just throw your computer out of the window, both will get permanent damage that is. The process to configure that system is somewhat complicated for the average computer user, so you should just go to your store and ask the owner to install a RAID system in your computer. The hard disks must be of the same size, speed and same model to avoid disparities and bad performance.
With RAID 1, if one disk fails, you have the other one ready to be used. It’s a perfect reflection of the first disk. Just connect the second disk and you have your computer ready to work. Needless to say you need to get a new one and then wait for the data to synchronize with the new disk.
RAID 0 is a way to boost your computer performance by using 2 hard disks just like they were one. The speed will double, as well as the chances of hard disk failure because with two, it only takes one disk to damage all the system and no bit of data can be recovered.
To solve this bad feature you can add another two hard disks, making a total of four, and then just make them run with RAID 0 + 1. This is the most expensive system.
Image via Wikipedia
Compare the price and performance and reliability compared with just using one hard disk.
RAID 0 – 100% + performance, half of the reliability, 2x more expensive
RAID 1 – same performance, double reliability, 2x more expensive
RAID 0 + 1 – double performance, same reliability, 4x times more expensive
The price is the most important consideration for building a raid system in a computer and the number one reason why this system is not well known.
The RAID 0 + 1 is the most expensive but doubles your speed while keeping the same reliability.
Let’s see if we can make the same thing with the new SSD disks. If they are already 2x faster, just imagine what a RAID will do with them!
One Response
Thanks dude, really helpful article!