IDE, SATA, RAID0, RAID4, and RAID5

[markw at mohawksoft.com (markw at mohawksoft.com)]

> Quoting markw at mohawksoft.com:
>
>> (1) There was nothing on the drives to read.
>> (2) Read is almost always faster than write and write is usually the
>> least
>> cached data transfer, so, to me at least, write would seem to be the
>> most
>> indicative of real performance.
>>
>> I really just wanted to confirm some basic assumptions and thought the
>> results might be useful to people thinking similarly.
>
> I'm more worried about stability of the RAID in the face of drive
> failure..

Drive failures will happen. The question is always what data will it take
with it when it goes. You should always back up your data to separate
media.

RAID5 is safer than RAID0, but not as fast. RAID1 (I didn't test, shoot!)
is supposedly the safest, but if lightening hits your house, you're still
going to lose data.

Evaluating risk is a difficult thing, in 25 years of PC usage, I've lost
two hard disks that were in personal use. In my home system, I upgrade
disks every couple years, so I never see them fail. My two exceptions have
been laptop batteries. I lost a couple hard disks in a COLO system because
of overheating due to a bad fan.

A good drive, treated well, will last a long time. Assume you replace it
every 18 month, and you minimize risk right there.



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