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SilentPanda

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Oct 8, 2002
9,997
33
The Bamboo Forest
Currently I have 2x500GB and 1x250GB in my Mac Pro. I use 1 500GB as my boot drive, another as my Time Machine drive, and the 250 GB as a scratch disk/boot camp (although honestly I usually forget it's there).

My free space on my main drive has been fluctuating between 20GB and 3 GB due to encoding video. So last night I went to Newegg's site and ordered a 1TB drive. My intent is to run the 2 500GB's in RAID.

So my question is... should I run the 1 TB as my boot drive or the 2x500GB as my boot drive? Short term it would be easiest to run the 1 TB as my boot drive since I'd clone it to the 1TB. If I want to run the 2x500GB as my boot drive I need to clone twice essentially.

Will I notice a difference in write speed if I use the 2x500GB as my boot drive? Probably doesn't matter too much I guess but I'm sure you guys will have pages of lecture about why one is superior... :D
 
Currently I have 2x500GB and 1x250GB in my Mac Pro. I use 1 500GB as my boot drive, another as my Time Machine drive, and the 250 GB as a scratch disk/boot camp (although honestly I usually forget it's there).

My free space on my main drive has been fluctuating between 20GB and 3 GB due to encoding video. So last night I went to Newegg's site and ordered a 1TB drive. My intent is to run the 2 500GB's in RAID.

So my question is... should I run the 1 TB as my boot drive or the 2x500GB as my boot drive? Short term it would be easiest to run the 1 TB as my boot drive since I'd clone it to the 1TB. If I want to run the 2x500GB as my boot drive I need to clone twice essentially.

Will I notice a difference in write speed if I use the 2x500GB as my boot drive? Probably doesn't matter too much I guess but I'm sure you guys will have pages of lecture about why one is superior... :D
Though I'm not a big fan of software RAID, using the 2x500GB in RAID 0 would give you a boost in drive speed vs a single OS drive. The 1TB drive covers you for backups, so if one does fail, you won't actually lose the data.

Good Luck. :)
 
Maybe I'm wrong here, but wouldn't the two drives become one single virtual drive under software RAID, making it a one-step process to back-up?
 
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