[mythtvnz] Myth & Raid. SW or HW..

[James Booth]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:59:47 Hadley Rich wrote:
> On 18/07/12 20:42, Johan Schuld wrote:
> > So, as HD will inevitably die, my plan is to buy some new HD's and put
> > them in a RAID array. Thinking RAID1 as I currently don't have the funds
> > to buy more than 2 drives.
> 
> Why? Do you need minimal downtime of your recordings? That's what RAID
> is for.
> 
> > Regardless of SW or HW, I'm thinking of 2x 2TB drives, in Raid1. I've
> > been looking at the WD Green ones as they are competitively priced and
> > silent (pc is under the TV). That drive has been discussed many times
> > here so I am aware that they might have issues in SW raid, I'm just
> > still looking at a similar drive from another vendor.
> 
> The WD Green drives (and other consumer drives) have issues with any
> RAID, be it software or hardware. Their firmware just isn't designed for it.
> 
> I use WD Green drives, but I don't use RAID, I don't consider the
> recordings worth it. I do have backups though.
> 
> hads

Many seem to take the view that there is little point to RAID since primary 
storage is for TV recordings, which I agree are low value. However, in my case 
the bulk of my data is not taken up with TV recordings but movies and music, 
which I consider very high value since I don't know how many hours of labour I 
put in ripping my rather huge DVD and CD collection.

Performance wise there is no need for RAID, and storage groups make expanding 
storage easy. So just go RAID if you really don't want to loose whatever media 
you have stored on those disks to a disk failure and to maximise uptime for 
your system. But as others have noted, RAID will not help against fire or 
theft - that's what backups are for.