I have two identical hard drives and i want to set up raid split. So can use both drives as one but I don't know should i get two external enclosures and use software raid located in disk utility to set it up or get a raid enclosure for the two drives and just have hardware to do it.
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Software Raid vs. Hardware Raid
- Thread starter mosesaro
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Hardware or Software
I prefer hardware raid over software raid. Main reason is overhead. Software uses the CPU and OS. Hardware takes the load off of the computer. Both have overall speed issues but freeing up the computer to other things is better overall in my opinion.
I prefer hardware raid over software raid. Main reason is overhead. Software uses the CPU and OS. Hardware takes the load off of the computer. Both have overall speed issues but freeing up the computer to other things is better overall in my opinion.
Hardware RAID FTW.
If your computer craps the bed and you need to move your external RAID to another machine - one without the RAID software - you could have a problem.
And like hamlinspahn says, much lower overhead on your computer's CPU and RAM.
If your computer craps the bed and you need to move your external RAID to another machine - one without the RAID software - you could have a problem.
And like hamlinspahn says, much lower overhead on your computer's CPU and RAM.
Each has their advantages.
Hardware RAID has the advantage that all of the processing and the suchlike is done by dedicated hardware in between the pc and the hdds. The downside is that it suffers slightly on the "Redundancy" aspect. If, at some point in the future, after the hardware has been discontinued, and you can't get ahold of the controller anymore, your controller dies, then that can mean the end of your RAID array altogether!
On the other hand, I'm assuming, given that you are putting this on the iMac forum, that it'll be RAID 0, and so security is less of an issue, it's more about spped. In which case, yes, go hardware all the way!
Hardware RAID has the advantage that all of the processing and the suchlike is done by dedicated hardware in between the pc and the hdds. The downside is that it suffers slightly on the "Redundancy" aspect. If, at some point in the future, after the hardware has been discontinued, and you can't get ahold of the controller anymore, your controller dies, then that can mean the end of your RAID array altogether!
On the other hand, I'm assuming, given that you are putting this on the iMac forum, that it'll be RAID 0, and so security is less of an issue, it's more about spped. In which case, yes, go hardware all the way!