The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Ok-Development7092 on 2024-12-26 17:27:34.
I thought this might fit this subreddit better than r/techsupport so here I am.
I will preface this with some info first:
I'm a college student who just experienced data loss for the first time a year ago because of the damn windows EFS(Encrypting File System) and am very afraid of my data being lost again.
A few months ago, I got for free an old acer pc that I have been using for testing out linux distros, and stores the only copy of old data from my devices (so I could reformat). Thing is, all 3 drives in there are used/2nd-hand and one of them even has read errors on some sectors whenever I tried a full disk test
( I kept that part unformatted).
CPU : AMD A6-6400K APU
Motherboard: MSI A68HM-E33 V2
And now I want to use it as a simple backup pc so I can at least have some peace of mind if ever one of my devices fail, or if one of the drives fail( at least I could rebuild the array, better than nothing). The motherboard has 4 SATA ports, so I'll use one port for the OS(M$/Linux distros), then the 3 for the array.
Also, I can only buy used HDDs. Used 512GB HDDs are $8 max where I am, so I can buy three after 4 weeks or so. I know that raid is not a good backup solution but I don't have much in choices right now. I DO plan on thoroughly testing the drives first before I try to store my data on it.
Also, I do not care about read/write speeds. This will only be used for backup and testing linux distros(on a different HDD), and I am considering a RAID 5 with three 512GB drives. Currently, 1TB can fit all of my important data so I'm fine with that. The PC will also be kept disconnected(after updates) so no worries on that part.
Here's the questions:
- Before everything else, is it even worth it to RAID the drives with these specs?
- If so, which OS should I use? win10 and debloat it heavily, or linux with mdadm?
- Is it fine to have different brands/sizes(2.5 or 3.5) of HDDs?
- Is there anything else I could consider? or anything else I'm missing?