Can I RAID like this?

I am in the middle of adjusting my Mac and Mac OS Server to a more future proof setting.

Having a bit of dilemma here, can't choose between if I should RAID or I should Clone - or if it's even possible to RAID in the way I want to?

Look at this:



This is the initial plan for my main Mac.
It has 2x 240GB SSDs and 1TB external HDD.
Thinking of RAID1 the SSDs and use the 1TB as TimeMachine.

Benefits will be continues data replicas with better read speeds as a bonus, without the need to schedule a specific time to clone the drives, it just automatically runs in the background.

Another way of doing essentially the same is this:



I will loose the speed benefits of RAID0, I have to setup a program like CCC to run my cloning on a specific time of day but I will be secured from any RAID corruption as what can occur with software based RAIDs.


Almost the same happens with my server that have two 2TB drives (which will be partitioned as 2x1.5) and one 3TB drive. On top of that It runs from a 64GB SSD with a 64GB USB stick and a 500GB external as backup for the OS part.

Is it possible to make a combined RAID0 and use that as one half of a RAD1?



or




For short, what is the best solutions - A1, B1, A2, B2?

So one guy said RAID1 + TM for my Mac and RAID0 + Clone for my server, what do others think?

Bear said:

I think your diagrams are not clear it looks like you're building a complex volume structure from the pictures.

For instances A2 looks like have a concatenated volume consisting of a mirrored SSD pair and a regular hard drive. Presuming the SSD is your system drive, I would say if both drives are internal, mirroring is fine. if one is external, clone.

Click to expand...

SSDs are both internal and one is my OS drive.
So I guess +1 for A2 from you = two votes for that version

New ideas:

The server have four internal drives and one external consisting of:
2x2TB Hitachi 5K3000
1x3TB Hitachi 5K3000
1x64GB Plextor M3 SSD

1x64GB External Integral Xcel flash pen

To utilise all avaliable space in the best possible way (an most secure) I am thinking about doing like so:



Partition the 2x2TB drives into 2x500GB RAID1 + 2x1.5TB RAID0
The content of the RAID0 is daily cloned at 16:00 and 04:00 to the 1x3TB drive
The 2x500GB RAID1 is used as hourly TimeMachine for the 64GB SSD
The 64GB SSD is also cloned at 04:00 to the 64GB external pen (one time a day is good enough as the RAID1 is a backup in itself)

-----------------------

The everyday Mac have two internal SSDs and one external HDD consisting of:
2x240GB Intel 520Series SSDs

1x1TB WD My Passport Studio FW800

To utilise all avaliable space in the best possible way (an most secure) I am thinking about doing like so:



Partition the 1x1TB external drive into three, one 500GB part as hourly TimeMachine, one 250GB as daily clone at 21:00 and one 250 as free external space (for large files I am working on).
The two internal SSDs will then be setup in RAID1 to lower the risk of drive failures (I know it's not a good idea to have both TM and clone on one drive, so that's why I want to RAID1 and not RAID0 them).




What do you say, better??