[Gllug] Discs for a RAID1 pair

[James Roberts]

On 04/07/11 16:36, Chris Bell wrote:
>     I want to set up a new RAID1 pair of discs. I can have one Seagate
> Barracuda disc plus one Seagate Barracuda Green disc, or two Seagate
> Barracuda Green discs. Are there likely to be any unexpected problems with
> either combination?

First, if data security is at issue, then whatever box has these disks 
in it would be better on a UPS.

Back in the day people used to recommend that if using only two disks, 
it would be better if they were from different manufacturers. I still do 
this in larger RAID 6 arrays, I'll try to split half-and-half between 
(say) Seagate and Hitachi, or whatever.

I *have* had multiple failures within a day on a single array of 
identical disks, but only twice in 20 years...

> Should I try to disable the disc cache as a precaution?

As long as you have a UPS I don't believe this to be necessary. If you 
don't have a UPS (or a battery-backed RAID card) then RAID security is 
much diminished, I would disable write cache if forced to do that.

No doubt there will be other trenchant opinions :)


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