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4 reasons why you shouldn't use RAID on your home PC
- SSDs don't need RAID due to longer lifespan and faster performance.
- RAID reduces storage capacity, especially with RAID 1 mirroring.
- RAID requires additional drives and costs but isn't a substitute for backups.
A redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) has been around for decades where multiple drives can be bundled into a single array for better redundancy. Hard drives eventually failed and having a RAID allowed software to recover from the failed drive by retrieving data from a dedicated recovery partition and loading it on the replacement drive. Do you need a RAID inside your desktop PC? I'd say no because most systems will have a few drives and the majority of them will be SSDs. Backing up your data would be a better safeguard against data loss.
Keeping all your data safe on larger storage volumes since the 1970s
You don't need RAID for SSDs
An SSD works differently from a mechanical HDD. Gone are the spinning platters and motor. In their place are a single PCB, controller, some memory chips, and a few other parts. Instead of magnetically storing data, an SSD uses electricity to charge and discharge memory cells. Due to the nature of the device not using anything that physically moves, the endurance is far greater than even the best HDDs and that's simply down to physics and the incredible manufacturing precision required for mechanical drives.
Because an SSD will last far longer than an HDD and is only limited by the amount of data that can be written to the drive. So long as you don't plan on writing too much data to the SSD, there's a good chance it will last longer than your PC. This makes an NVMe SSD great for storing games as the performance is considerably better than a SATA drive with plenty of bandwidth over PCI lanes. RAID can positively impact hard drives because of the additional throughput available by pooling the drives together.
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You'll lose storage capacity
Using RAID will reserve at least one drive, depending on which RAID you choose. It all starts with RAID 1, which mirrors the data between two drives, cutting the maximum capacity by half. Using RAID 1 on two 4 TB drives would result in a usable capacity of just 4 TB. RAID is useful for servers and NAS where sacrificing some capacity isn't a serious issue due to larger HDDs being available. This is why I recommend splashing out on larger drives than smaller counterparts. It's better to buy two 20 TB drives than five 4 TB drives, though it would cost more.
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Additional drives and costs
To get the most out of your storage drives with RAID, you'd need to buy additional units to provide more capacity for storing data. This will result in higher costs associated with multiple drives. Although an SSD typically costs more than a hard drive when comparing the same capacities, not using RAID will save you considerably the more drives you have. Then there's the cost of a RAID controller. Because using software (ie. Windows) isn't as reliable, you will need to buy a dedicated RAID controller and the more expensive ones (less likely to fail) can cost a fair amount.
RAID isn't backing up
I recommend using RAID on NAS, servers, and other storage solutions but one should never rely on RAID for backing up data. It shouldn't be included with the 3-2-1 backup rule. This is because there are still multiple points of failure, including the RAID controller, the OS, and the drive itself. It's only suitable for quickly recovering from drive failures and improving the performance of slower SATA drives. You should always save at least one copy of the data you wish to protect on your PC and store it externally.
Back up your files elsewhere
The best way to protect your data is through a reliable backup plan. The 3-2-1 backup rule is great to follow to ensure you never lose a single file. RAID is handy for recovering from a drive failure, but so long as you have backups of all your data stored elsewhere, a drive inside the desktop PC can be quickly replaced and data reloaded. We've covered network-attached storage (NAS) extensively on XDA and I recommend checking out some reasons why you should buy one.
