D-Link Forums

The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-321 => Topic started by: abarenbe on December 29, 2009, 09:19:20 AM

Title: Partioning to make raid drives
Post by: abarenbe on December 29, 2009, 09:19:20 AM
Hello,

Just got the 321 and have 2x1tb   harddrives coming in the mail.  Before I set it up I wanted to know if this is possible.

I have some valuable data for which I wand the redundancy of RAID 1. I also have unvaluable video files for which I would want the speed and size of RAID 0.

Is it possible to partition each drive into 500 Gb partitions,  use one partition for each drive to make a 500GB RAID 1 drive for my valuable information; and use a partition from each drive to make a 1TB RAID 0 partition for my videos?

thanks,
Andy
Title: Re: Partioning to make raid drives
Post by: gunrunnerjohn on December 29, 2009, 10:24:52 AM
RAID of any level is not backup.  You need to have two copies of any important data anyway, so I'd probably just configure the two volumes separately on that box.
Title: Re: Partioning to make raid drives
Post by: mzpx on December 29, 2009, 11:37:15 AM
Andy

- I do not know the answer to your question. I do not KNOW if you can have multiple partitions with different setups. It might be possible. I never tried it.

- It is a constant theme on these forums that the DNS-321 is NOT a very fast machine. It is not the disks that will hold you back, so RAID0 (striping) would make no sense for speed. In any case, if you need FAST, this is not the box for you. But if you mention RAID0 only to describe that you intend to create a bigger volume out of two identical smaller ones, that could work.

- While I agree generally with The John Who Runs With Weapons, I think you understand the difference between RAID1 (mirroring) and a real (preferably offsite) backup. Just in case: RAID1 saves your bacon when a drive fails, backup protects you against your own mistakes, buggy programs, viruses or hackers deleting your data. Offsite backup might even save your data in case fire or some natural disasters. Backup can be a pain (creating, regularly, restoring, managing, etc.), RAID1 is pretty much automatic. Backup typically happens periodically, RAID1 happens real time. (And then there is the apple time machine, which is .... let's not go there.)

- When you get your drives, please try to create that dual setup and let us know if it worked. I am curious. I see no reason why technically it should not, but I am not sure the stock firmware supports it. Sorry.

Title: Re: Partioning to make raid drives
Post by: ECF on January 04, 2010, 01:17:00 PM
Hello,

Just got the 321 and have 2x1tb   harddrives coming in the mail.  Before I set it up I wanted to know if this is possible.

I have some valuable data for which I wand the redundancy of RAID 1. I also have unvaluable video files for which I would want the speed and size of RAID 0.

Is it possible to partition each drive into 500 Gb partitions,  use one partition for each drive to make a 500GB RAID 1 drive for my valuable information; and use a partition from each drive to make a 1TB RAID 0 partition for my videos?

thanks,
Andy

You cannot configure the drives in RAID1 and RAID0. What will happen is you can configure the drives as RAID1 and set the size you want the RADI1 then the remaining space on both the drives will become a JBOD volume which you can store you not so important data on.