Mini Server Raid-0 Upgrade...

Giuly said:

A RAID0 of some 128GB SSDs is faster than this for small block sizes. And you should be able to fuse this with an external (RAID of) hard drives via FW800 as well.

Also, a 2009 Mac Mini doesn't have internal SATA-III, it's SATA-II, but you can always do the eSATA mod to route out something faster than 1GBit/s.

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YEAH I posted a long thread on this site on how to do that mod. I actually have all the parts in my parts drawer. I still think he should return the gear he purchased sell the old mini on ebay and get newer stuff.

monkeybagel said:

That would be the main point there. With the other RAID formats, there would be zero downtime, where with RAID0 you are guaranteed downtime, even with a perfect backup.

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We do agree for the most part here.

If one were to stripe internal drives or use a single drive, then have a good backup, they could boot from the backup if the internal drive(s) fail. The catch of course is the time between the drive(s) failure and the last back up and any data created in that span of time being lost.

As for using something like RAID 5 (as example), if a drive failed the RAID 5 remaining drives would keep working but often at a slower speed. Some RAID 5 set ups don't even really work until the drive is replaced (this is rare but I have seen this before).

Obviously, there are trade offs. If one had Tbolt set up, they could run striped drives internally and mirror to an equivalent counterpart externally without taking much of a hit on speed. If a drive fails, switch to the mirrored set of drives and continue. Again, there is still the chance for yet another drive to fail before replacement of original failed drive occurs.

There are many variations on this theme and everyone has a slightly different approach. I suppose that running all external, RAID 6 with fast mechanical drives or better yet - SSD's, would be very safe. Then again, there is always opportunity for the external enclosure or DAS to fail and it is just another iteration of realizing that every combination has a critical point.

I have the same mini. My current setup is a 120GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD boot drive and one of the original 500GB drives as a secondary. My data lives on a 4TB WD My Book Studio II (2TB after mirroring) - I clone important stuff to the other original 500GB drive in a USB enclosure. Currently running Mountain Lion, but debating going back to Snow Leopard as I'm not 100% impressed with ML. My $.02