I’ve been having some problems with my computer’s hard drive recently. The drive is actually a RAID level 0 two drive configuration. And while RAID 0 technically isn’t RAID, because it offers no data redundancy, I set up my desktop computer at this RAID level to make two 250 GB SATA 3 drives into one large and very speedy 500GB drive. I would have gone for a RAID level that offered some data redundancy, but my budget at the time did not allow for a third drive. Now I’m suffering a little pain from that decision.

RAIDCalc for online RAID disk space calculation

I’m in the process of fixing my problem, and if all goes well, I’ll write about my solution to my problem in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, I was trying decide which RAID configuration I should switch to now that I can add an additional drive. I was trying to figure out how much disk space I would have under different RAID settings and in the process found this extremely handy online tool: RAIDCalc.

RAIDCalc allows you to specify how many drives you have, the size of each drive, and then select the various RAID options to see how much disk space you’ll end up with for a particular RAID level. For each setting you also get a short break down of the pros/cons of each RAID level broken down into 4 categories: definition, redundancy, performance, and drawbacks. It’s a great little online tool and well worth a visit if you’re considering doing a RAID setup for your personal computer or for a server class machine at work.

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Filed under: Friday Finds