A hard disk crash remains one of the more likely unpleasant events that a computer owner will encounter.. RAID is the only true preventative solution to that very real program.
-mouser
Unless the RAID controller
itself is the culprit. I've been involved in several situations where inexpensive RAID controllers introduced their own data corruption problems. And these problems rendered
every element in the array absolutely useless for recovery.
And because you have data spread across multiple drives, data recovery from elements in a RAID array (other than RAID-1) is extremely difficult and generally requires expert (i.e. $$$) outside assistance.
Sometimes the greater the level of protection afforded, the greater the problems created should it ever fail.
Or as a friend of mine once put it:
Slay one monster and it's only a matter of time before a bigger monster take its place.Then there's the issue of disk make and model. E/SATA drives are
not created equal. And not
every drive from
every manufacturer will be compatible with
every RAID controller. You need to check the compatibility lists they publish. Because even though most drives will format and can be initialized as part of an array, it's only a matter of time before weird problems start cropping up. I've seen that happen with MOBO and inexpensive controller cards trying to implement RAID-5 far more often than I'd like.
There's also chipset compatibility issues with some RAID controllers.
So:
First - check your host machines specs and verify what chipset you're using.
Second - select your RAID controller, making sure it's compatible with your chipset and other system specs. And if you're doing
anything other than mirroring don't bother with any controller found on the motherboard. Get a separate RAID controller card with its own CPU and battery. These are sometimes called
hardware or hardware-based RAID cards. And shop quality. Don't automatically buy the cheapest controller you can find - even if it is from a "name" you recognize.
Third - get the list of recommended drives from the RAID controller's website. Use
only the makes and specific models recommended for your specific controller. Also read any user forum posts on the RAID controller's website. Disk manufacturers will sometimes change the specifications on a drive without notice - and not always update their SKU code to reflect it. When that happens, the only way to discover there's a compatibility problem is if you (or preferably somebody else
) experiences it first.
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