| Everything you need to know about RAID |
|
|
| $ Check REAL-TIME pricing for Highpoint Technologies RocketRAID 1640 Serial ATA Controller $ |
|
|
|
| Basics: Data Mirroring |
Mirroring – also known as RAID 1 – consists of automatically copying the entire contents of a hard disk to another one. In other words, if you equip your computer such a system, the second hard disk will be the spitting image of the first. If your main hard disk goes up in smoke, the second will automatically activate.
It is amazing: mirroring is automatic backing up via hardware, enhancing your computer's safety factor. It goes without saying that this system eliminates the need to backup (seeing it is possible that both hard disks collapse together – an extremely remote, but real probability) but it really provides a feeling of safety to people that cannot, under any circumstances whatsoever, lose data stored on their hard disks. The best thing about mirroring is that it is carried out automatically by hardware on the motherboard or controller card, not requiring any operating system set up for backing up (as the system believes that the computer has a single hard disk).
And better still: mirroring does not have to be implemented at the time you format your hard disk and install the operating system. You can take a disk with years-old data and start mirroring it. Upon configuring – done by a self set up – the contents of the main hard disk will be copied to the backup hard disk (a procedure that takes some time, of course).
Data splitting and mirroring can be set to work at the same time through a set-up usually called RAID 0+1. This set-up requires at least four hard disks. Data splitting will be used on two disks, to increase the speed, while the other two disks will provide backup the first pair. If one of the disks goes down, the system starts acting like a RAID0 system, i.e. just data stripping. Another system for putting RAID0 and RAID1 together is called RAID10. It works like RAID0+1 but if a had disk fails, the RAID10 the system becomes a RAID1 system, i.e. just mirroring.
Modern systems allows the use of RAID0+1 using just two hard disks. This setup is called JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) and works using only half of each hard disk capacity, thus simulating four hard drives. For example, using two 40 GB hard disks with JBOD RAID configuration, the total available space will be 20 GB (the other 20 GB space will be used for backing up the data from the first half of the disk). Of course this system is slower than RAID0+1. |
| Pages (4): « 1 [2] 3 4 » |
| Print Version | Send to Friend |
|
Bookmark Article
| Comments (2)
|
|
| Recommended Deals |  | Seagate Barracuda (ST3500641AS) 500 GB SATA II Hard Drive
|  | Western Digital Raptor® X WD1500AHFD 150 GB SATA Hard Drive (Retail Version)
|  | Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750 GB SATA II Hard Drive
|  | Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500 GB SATA Hard Drive
|  | Western Digital (WD5000AAKS) 500 GB SATA Hard Drive
|
|
Latest News |
September 5, 2008 - 7:28 AM PST |
September 4, 2008 - 10:59 AM PST |
September 3, 2008 - 7:54 AM PST |
September 2, 2008 - 7:55 AM PST |
September 1, 2008 - 11:16 AM PST |
September 1, 2008 - 10:24 AM PST |
August 29, 2008 - 9:24 AM PST |
August 28, 2008 - 11:43 AM PST |
August 28, 2008 - 11:13 AM PST |
August 28, 2008 - 10:39 AM PST |
| .:: More News ::. |
|
Latest Content |
|
|
| Our Most Popular Articles |
772,085 views
|
480,270 views
|
425,613 views
|
413,843 views
|
408,607 views
|
385,053 views
|
347,723 views
|
333,031 views
|
280,102 views
|
270,304 views
|
|
| Latest Threads in Our Forums |
by tomahawk 1705 |
by BedCommando |
by jedsky |
by Wall'E |
by Gabriel Torres |
by Gabriel Torres |
by Hardware Secrets Team |
by andybarrel |
by Hardware Secrets Team |
by Retratserif |
| .:: Visit Our Forums ::. |
|
|