EggXpert

I am looking upgrade my two Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB hard drives to 1 TB.  Which would be the best approach: getting two more of the same drive or getting a single Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB hard drive?  The two current drive are in a RAID 0 configuration and while reformatting is not a problem could I simply add the new drive(s) to the existing array without loosing any data?  Any other suggestions are welcome.  I am looking to keep the costs to a minimum as well, under $200 would be nice.

Thank you,
Kryptonyte
 

To add to an existing array, you would have to rebuild the array which would mean reinstalling everything.  I would not recommend having a 4 drive RAID 0 array with large drives since your data security would be compromised.  Losing one out of four drives would result in losing all your data.

I would say if you need more space get a 500 GB drive and keep it separate from the RAID 0 array.  500 GB WD drives go for about $110 at Newegg.

In general, most RAID controllers cannot extend RAID volumes on the fly when you're looking to add additional drives to the volume.  On many server level RAID controllers, you in fact can extend existing RAID volumes to new drives.  The process does take a while to complete, you have to have a certain amount of free space left on your existing RAID volume, and your read/write performance will be in the toilet until the process is complete.

Zx10guy has it right. You can extend it but the controller has to support it, and it will take some time for the array to restripe itself. Most likely, you controller doesn't, so fabulousccops is right in that respect.

 

I think I will go with the single 500GB hard drive and rebuild the array to make use of the extra space.  I would just leave it seperate, but that would be another headache since trying to separate all the files between the two drives would prove to be quite a challenge.  I keep daily backups of my most important files so if the setup does fail I'm not out much besides re-formatting and restoring my backups.

Thank you for your help. 

 I just checked and my controller appears to support rebuilding the array.  Now that I think of it though I do need to reformat everything so I might just remove the array and re-create it.
 

Not recommended but good luck

 

Not sure if you are planning on doing this, but it would not make sense to build an array from 2x250 and 1x500.  In a RAID 0 array you would get 750 GB and waste half of the 500 GB drive.  I thought you would just add the 500 GB drive as a separate drive (not in a RAID array).

If you are planning a JBOD then it should add up to 1 TB.

Well I thought it over some more and decided to sell the two 250GB hard drives to a friend and instead buy two 500GB hard drives.  I was actually wondering about that in my first post if mixing different sized drives would cause problems in the RAID 0 array.  I'm also considering if it is worth the extra money for the single 1TB drive from Hitachi?  Anyone know anything about it or a better one?

Maybe I should just ask, what would be the cheapest (without sacrificing quality and reliability) way to reach the 1TB mark?  I figure 1TB is a little overkill, but I thought the same thing about 500GB a month ago and I am already running out of space. 

You might want to spend a few minutes reading the sticky about Hard Drive Optimization to get a feel for what your needs are.

 

Well after reading that (great article by the way) I think the best solution is to move away from the RAID0 and keep the drives separate with games/programs on one and os/documents on the other.  Now to find out how to relocate the program files directories to save myself some time having to manually change the installation path for every program.