RAID Sata/IDE

shenry

shenry

Member
Hi I'm just wondering if I can use RAID to combine a SATA and IDE drive or do they both have to be one kind?
 
Um, well you can get IDE->SATA converter and visa versa, not sure how well they they work particularly if your trying to Raid. So I'd keep them separate if i were you, but hey stranger combo's have worked :P
 
If you are doing software raid, you are totally fine and hardware raid will be fine as long as you convert the sata to ide or vice versa.

I once made a raid 5 array of 8 200GB IDE drives and 4 200GB SATA drives, and it was fine (other than the performance of the SATA drives was lost )
 
if you don't use the same size/speed drives with a RAID you tend to get bottle neck issues.

Also, RAIDs do not increase regular operating performance. Things like internet browsing, gaming, etc do not have any performance increase.

RAIDs are generally server side technologies or for people who do like video editing or audio recording/mastering. Otherwise a RAID is pointless and it increases the chance of failure.
 
Seth said:
Um, well you can get IDE->SATA converter and visa versa, not sure how well they they work particularly if your trying to Raid. So I'd keep them separate if i were you, but hey stranger combo's have worked :P
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That wouldnt work because RAID needs identical drives. So having an IDE and SATA wont work, even if the IDE has an IDE > SATA converter... I believe.
 
It doesn't need identicle drives, that's just best practice. I don't see any reason it wouldn't work as long as you are keeping it on the same interface (even if you have to use converters). You can mix drive sizes as well but the array will be size limited by the smallest drive. Like tlarkin said, mixing them will almost always make a bottleneck and RAID isn't very useful to the average home user.
 
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