Compare Raid 0 (250GB) vs 1 Velociraptor

[Roger Huston]

All,

I am putting together a new rig and I am considering a faster boot drive configuration. While I am a part-time gamer, I am a person who needs to have a bunch of apps open at the same time, including photoshop, etc.

I am looking to speed all that up.

At first I was considering 1 new Velociraptor drive as a boot drive. But I have been reading about Raid 0 and two 250 or similar drives will give good performance too at half the price. i will get a green 1TB drive as a data drive.

How do they compare?

- Roger

P.S. Has anyone used smart card in Vista to improve performance? Is there a PCIe x1 card that will do that for a desktop?

[nitrobass24]

How much space do you need for boot drive?
How much money do you want to spend?

[Roger Huston]

Well, for a boot drive, I would expect room for all of my apps which is less than 30 GB. However, with games, I would say at max 80GB of boot drive space.

Money, well, I can afford 1 Velociraptor at $299, for this.

[Old Hippie]

But I have been reading about Raid 0 and two 250 or similar drives will give good performance too at half the price.

Have you also read about the double chance of failure and the miniscule, if any, performance increases in a desktop environment?

Read the glowing reviews and stats for the Velociraptor, go to Pricewatch for the lowest price (http://castle.pricewatch.com/s/search.asp?s=velociraptor&group1=2&sci=26&c=Hard+%2F+Removable+Drives), purchase and enjoy.

Mine is a really nice drive!

Good Luck!

[nitrobass24]

Honestly i would get a WD6400AAKS over a vraptor right now with the current price points

WD Vraptor - $300
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/2008/wd-velociraptor-launch/wd300hdtuneS.jpg

WD6400AAKS - $100
http://home.arcor.de/data-home/benches/WD6400AAKS/hdtune.jpg

A couple of these in a RAID0 would be sick.

[Old Hippie]

Hey Nitro, what's those dips in your Raptor's chart?

Mine doesn't do that........

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/5747/hdtunebenchmarkwdcwd300zw5.png

[nitrobass24]

Thats Anandtech's review of the drive I read it and im not sure.

[Roger Huston]

Yes, I have read about the doubling the failure rate if I go raid 0. Hell, for $300, I could go to Raid 10 for the same price, but then I would have 4 drives in my system before I get to the nice big 1TB data drive.

I just would like to hear if anyone has tried both. A Stripped array vs VR. I am using a desktop environment but will have lots of apps open over several monitors.

Also, has anyone tried readydrive for vista? Does it work? Are there solutions out there that don't use USB?

[XS Janus]

I think I rememberthat anand's drive was flawed. I think they said so in the preview article or the comments themselves.
The other hdune posted look much better

[general]

"Have you also read about the double chance of failure"

It's actually greater than 4x chance given that data corruption and not drive failure is how a RAID 0 failure usually happens.

[Robstar]

Your IOPS might be better with the velocirapper

[nitrobass24]

You will have lower access times with the raptor, and raid will give you higher throughput.

[unhappy_mage]

Do you use large images with Photoshop to the point that you need a scratch disk? The Raptor will run away with that job. Otherwise get the larger disk, you'll appreciate the space.

[dandragonrage]

As far as the drives dying, the chance is not doubled. It's 1-((1-Cf)^n) where Cf is the chance of failure (there might be a standard notation for that, but I don't know it if so) and n is the number of drives.

[Old Hippie]

As far as the drives dying, the chance is not doubled. It's 1-((1-Cf)^n) where Cf is the chance of failure (there might be a standard notation for that, but I don't know it if so) and n is the number of drives.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Ya, What he said! :D:eek::D:confused:;):eek::confused::p:D

[Deliximus]

you have to include the chance of the drives BOTH dying, same that is more than 2x. But who cares, who ever is going to do RAID0 is fully aware of that happening. backing up regularly should be done whether you have a RAID or a SINGLE drive. I found it hilarious that after using RAID 0 for 5 years, it's my backup drive that went kapput.

[drastic]

i ama huge fan of the new VR harddrives, competely badass

[nitrobass24]

i ama huge fan of the new VR harddrives, competely badass

Waste of Money

For $300 you can get two 146GB 15k Seagate Cheetahs, same amt of space and faster.

[unhappy_mage]

Waste of Money

For $300 you can get two 146GB 15k Seagate Cheetahs, same amt of space and faster.

They take up more physical space, and need a controller and cables that aren't free. Plus for single-user loads they're not faster.

[dandragonrage]

They take up more physical space, and need a controller and cables that aren't free. Plus for single-user loads they're not faster.

Right, but Fujitsu 15K drives are. 15k.5 is terrible for single user. And you can get a LSI U320 card or an Adaptec 29160 for $20-25 often enough on Ebay. Not that I'm saying SCSI is necessarily the way to go as I've dumped it myself at least for the moment because my 147GB died.

[nitrobass24]

They take up more physical space, and need a controller and cables that aren't free. Plus for single-user loads they're not faster.

How do they take up more physical space? Its still a 3.5in drive?

[unhappy_mage]

How do they take up more physical space? Its still a 3.5in drive?

Two drives are bigger than one, last I checked ;) And parallel SCSI cables are wider than sata.

[nitrobass24]

And parallel SCSI cables are wider than sata.

SAS cables are not any bigger than sata, were not talking about SCSI u320 get with the program d00d.

[dandragonrage]

SAS cables are not any bigger than sata, were not talking about SCSI u320 get with the program d00d.

Well, I actually was. It's cheaper.