HTPC hardware

[Rusty]

--- kurt at verruckt.org wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "brad" <brad at bradandkim.net>

>  Im not an expert on raid, but raid 0 is the
> fastest,
> splitting data across two drives (no mirroring or duplexing), raid 1
> is
> mirroring (basically a full copy on another disk), raid 5 (mirroriing
> with
> parity?) The main increase would come from the SATA interface, being
> that it
> is faster than IDE, and currently also faster in seek times to the
> 15k SCSI
> drives. Not to mention a WHOLE lot cheaper. Someone correct me if im
> wrong.
> 
> Kurt

I can't speak to the speed of the drives or their respective
interfaces, but I have just a bit of knowledge of raid. Raid 0
(striping ONLY) isn't really raid, since there's no fault tolerance. It
requires a minimum of 2 drives, but is better with 3. If you lose
anything in the array, you lose EVERYTHING in the array. Raid 1 is
mirroring (2 identical drives, one controller) or duplexing (2
identical drives, separate controllers - more fault tolerant). Raid 5
is striping with parity, requires a minimum of 3 drives, and is the
"most popular" form of fault tolerance. There are many more
levels/varieties of raid that do different combinations of
striping/mirroring/duplexing/parity. Most of them are proprietary, and
VERY expensive. 

HTH... Rusty

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