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Both Western Digital and Seagate drives in same RAID array
We just received brand two brand new Dell Optiplex 960 desktops. Both had 2 x 320 GB drives in a Raid 1 configuration, however both had one Western Digital and a Seagate. On one system the seagate was on Port 0 while on the other it was on Port 1. Both systems seem to be working fine, however I am worried that this could cause problems later on. From what I found on the web it it generally a bad idea to mix different drive within the same Raid array.
Any thought or suggestion on this. Is this normal or is this a defect ?
disord3r
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March 3rd, 2010 07:00
Sooooooo.... put the two WDs in the same system and the two Seagates in the other? :)
I do find it a bit odd. I've seen people do this on their own just because, they didn't know any better, and it worked. I myself tried to do that once just because I had the drives laying around, and it didn't. I'm assuming the more similar the drives are, the more likely it is to work, or maybe some controllers do it and other don't. No ideas. I just buy drives in pairs when I want to do RAID.
But when an OEM puts different drives together, that doesn't seem right. Performance and capacity could suffer, and you essentially may not be getting what you've paid for. There's no guarantee that you can even do any better by shuffling the drives around to pair the WDs in one system and the Seagates in the other - they might be different models from the same manufacturer.
Definitely strange.
lostinspace2011
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March 3rd, 2010 10:00
Yes, I also thought of that. It's just annoying having to rebuild the raid array on both computers.