2x WD6400AAKS in RAID 0 for gaming: worth it?

[Jon55]

This has probably been brought up before, but would 2 WD6400AAKS's in RAID 0 be beneficial for a gaming rig? Any benchmarks out there?

A buddy of mine has one already, but asked me about getting another for RAID 0. I mean they're cheap drives, so no worries there, but are the performance benefits worth it?

[ShagnWagn]

RAID0 won't give you any more FPS in games. It will only make them load faster. It varies from game to game. The real question is... why wouldn't you run RAID0? :p

[Somnambulator]

it will load textures from HD to GFX memory faster, which could increase FPS drops during some games that dynamically load taxtures, but for the most part it's not really worth it even for the cheap pirces of 6400AKS'

[Jon55]

it will load textures from HD to GFX memory faster, which could increase FPS drops during some games that dynamically load taxtures, but for the most part it's not really worth it even for the cheap pirces of 6400AKS'


That is what I'm curious about. I know it obviously won't increase FPS. If I were looking to do that tell him to grab a new GPU. It'll increase loading times, but by how much is what I'm asking.

[Jon55]

Anyone?

[bigsnyder]

Check out this article (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2328723,00.asp). It includes RAID benches for the AAKS.

[Jon55]

Check out this article (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2328723,00.asp). It includes RAID benches for the AAKS.

Holy shit

http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/21/0,1425,i=218427,00.jpg

Maybe I should tell him to get 2 of those WD1001FALS's (Caviar black) instead :eek:

[DeathFromBelow]

Those numbers seem off. No increase whatsoever with the AAKS drives in RAID 0?

I think Tom's Hardware did a similar set of benches awhile back that showed the AAKS drives did quite well in RAID 0.

[xxEIEIOxx]

The AAKS should do very well in RAID 0. I just put a pair of WD6401AALS in mine and they are great. As others have said, they will not help your FPS, not any. But load times will be faster.

[bigsnyder]

The PCMark Gaming test was about the only test the 1TB black bested the AAKS array. Which is the reason I asked the question in another thread about the 1TB FALS performance in a RAID setup.

[TheGamerZ]

I have 2 of the AAKS drives in RAID0 and it's quite fast. That graph doesn't accurately reflect how they scale.

[Jon55]

I have 2 of the AAKS drives in RAID0 and it's quite fast. That graph doesn't accurately reflect how they scale.

Go figure. So I'm guess you never had any issues with them dropping out or anything like that? Reason I ask is because of this Newegg review (of which I have no evidence if there's any truth to it):

Pros: 1TB - If they work they perform fine but nothing spectacular over other 1TB drives.

Cons: These drives run hot but that seems to be the same for most 1TB drives. I'd recommend some direct cooling.
Western Digital does not support running these drives in a RAID configuration. I bought 5 of these drives. 1 was DOA (likely due to shipping as the bubble wrap was popped in areas) and one other will fall out of a RAID set every 2 days. According to WD it is because the drive enters a deep recovery cycle and the RAID controller times it out. Why it needs to enter a deep recovery cycle so often is a question they won't answer. Western Digital wants you to pay more for their RAID edition drives which don't enter the deep recovery cycle. I've never has this problem with other HD manufacturers (before these drives I used mainly Hitachi and Seagate with hardware RAID controllers). I use Areca RAID controllers which have worked great for me in the past. The 3 remaining drives I have work fine but WD won't replace this drive just because it fails in a RAID array.

Other Thoughts: You would think we should be able to run HDs in a RAID array without having to spend extra for a drive designed to operate 24x7 when that is not the intended use.
Here are some of the replies from Western Digital support:

"The WD Caviar Black SATA drive is not a RAID edition drive. When creating a RAID, we recommend that you use our RAID edition drives. We cannot guarantee RAID functionality of our desktop drives for reasons listed in the article below.

Title: What is the difference between Desktop edition and RAID (Enterprise) edition hard drives?
URL: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1397&p_created=1131638613 "


"It is normal to experience dropouts in RAID arrays with desktop drives. I recommend returning or exchanging the drives to the place of purchase for RAID edition drives, or contact your RAID controller manufacturer to see if they can provide a RAID controller that can see drives that are in a deep recovery cycle. "

[DeathFromBelow]

Go figure. So I'm guess you never had any issues with them dropping out or anything like that? Reason I ask is because of this Newegg review (of which I have no evidence if there's any truth to it):

I have two of the AAKS drives myself and have never had any issues with them.

[Forceman]

Holy shit

http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/21/0,1425,i=218427,00.jpg

Maybe I should tell him to get 2 of those WD1001FALS's (Caviar black) instead :eek:

How is a Velociraptor RAID solution slower than a single drive? What does that test even measure - anyone know? MB/sec of what?

[EnderW]

would 2 WD6400AAKS's in RAID 0 be beneficial for a gaming rig? Any benchmarks out there?

A buddy of mine has one already, but asked me about getting another for RAID 0. I mean they're cheap drives, so no worries there, but are the performance benefits worth it?
no
yes
no

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=10
http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/barracudaraid/
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16291/5

your games may load 1-2 seconds faster
you'd be a lot better off saving that $60 for a GPU upgrade

[EnderW]

How is a Velociraptor RAID solution slower than a single drive? What does that test even measure - anyone know? MB/sec of what?
it's obviously flawed - the results don't even make sense - a single VR is slower than 2 in RAID0?

here a X25-M is 33% faster than a VR at the same test
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=12
but only loads games a couple seconds faster except for Crysis where it is 9 seconds faster
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=14

[Jon55]

Damn those results are impressive.

[Roliath]

Don't know how this will help, but I have 2x Seagate ST31000340NS in raid 0 on my evga 780i onboard raid. This is just for fun, I am waiting on two more to run them in raid 5 on my adaptec 3405.

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/87/hdtach1k.th.jpg (http://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hdtach1k.jpg)http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/285/hdtach1kraid0780i.th.jpg (http://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hdtach1kraid0780i.jpg)

I'm currently restoring the data to this array, so I'll know how it performs in games soon.

[xenotype]

no
yes
no

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=10
http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/barracudaraid/
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16291/5

your games may load 1-2 seconds faster
you'd be a lot better off saving that $60 for a GPU upgrade



Yes. Yes Yes. QFT.

EnderW is entirely correct, and has better supported benchies.

[haadij404]

i think two aak's in RAID 0 is worth it. snappy load times... great transfer speeds, improved access times and a massive amount of storage space. 1280GB is quite a bit of porn :D

i just ran hdtune on my raided drives. my ancient 650i struggles with burst speeds but its good for transfer speeds and access time.

my e-peen grows bigger everytime im the first on the server after a map change.

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/5622/640aaksraid0.jpg

[fe_918]

i think two aak's in RAID 0 is worth it. snappy load times... great transfer speeds, improved access times and a massive amount of storage space. 1280GB is quite a bit of porn :D

i just ran hdtune on my raided drives. my ancient 650i struggles with burst speeds but its good for transfer speeds and access time.

my e-peen grows bigger everytime im the first on the server after a map change.

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/5622/640aaksraid0.jpg

how is it for normal use? Boot speed? Photoshop etc?

I'm also thinking of raiding a pair of AAKS or AALS, but don't know if its worth it..

[haadij404]

how is it for normal use? Boot speed? Photoshop etc?

for everyday tasks its really not noticeably faster. pretty much the same as having one aaks. obviously programs that access the hard drive will be faster.

bootspeed probably increased by a second or two. nothing drastic.

i dont use photoshop so i cant comment on that.

i bought mine when newegg was selling them for $60 a pop. $120 is pretty good for 1.2tb of space and also improved speeds etc... cant really beat the bang for the buck aaks in raid 0 provide.

[fe_918]

so... the overall effect isn't that noticeable at all? im currently using seagate.11 500gb one and has average read speed of 68mb/s. I may not upgrade at all if i won't even notice that much difference.

[Michaelius]

Hmm this is something i wonder about
but if we have a pair of 7200 rpm drives like AAKS wouldn't it actually be better to put OS all temps, pagefile etc on one drive and games/aps on second one?
Since it should reduce access times to HDD and in real life random acess and random reads are more important than sequential speeds ?

[Jon55]

From the research I've gathered, RAID 0 is only worth it if you're moving a large amount of files. Otherwise, you'd see a few seconds shaved off, at best. I've decided against doing RAID 0.

[fluke420]

my e-peen grows bigger everytime im the first on the server after a map change.

I know its lame but I'm the same way.

[fe_918]

From the research I've gathered, RAID 0 is only worth it if you're moving a large amount of files. Otherwise, you'd see a few seconds shaved off, at best. I've decided against doing RAID 0.

what about when using fraps? I do a lot of video editing and sometimes use fraps to film games. Do you guys think RAID0 would help with that?

[SiG357]

The drives are cheap, I bought 4. Raided both pairs and short-stroked them.

Windows and Games load a bit faster.

http://www.ls1.com/ed/computer/raid0.jpg

[Logan321]

so... the overall effect isn't that noticeable at all? im currently using seagate.11 500gb one and has average read speed of 68mb/s. I may not upgrade at all if i won't even notice that much difference.

For what it's worth, if you've already got one 7200.11 500gig drive, why not just grab a second one? The difference between raided .11 and the WD isn't going to be significant, plus you'll save buying 2 hds.

[Jon55]

Holy shit, the Best Buy near me has Velociraptor drives at $212. Have they really dropped in price that much? I might get two of those and RAID 0 them instead.

[Rembrandt]

Would I loose a lot of the speed increase if I run it in Raid 10 instead?

[SiG357]

Holy shit, the Best Buy near me has Velociraptor drives at $212. Have they really dropped in price that much? I might get two of those and RAID 0 them instead.

I thought about that too, but I think that is too expensive. You can get two 640's for the price of one Velociraptor.

[DonDon]

I thought about that too, but I think that is too expensive. You can get two 640's for the price of one Velociraptor.

More like 3. Short stroke them and it will be faster than a Vraptor in every respect.

Don

[Logan321]

More like 3. Short stroke them and it will be faster than a Vraptor in every respect.

Don

Short stroking doesn't eliminate spindle spin latency, only slightly reduces arm sweep latency. You aren't going to get vraptor latencies by short stroking a 7200rpm drive, nor will you get vraptor speeds.

2x WD in raid vs 1 vraptor, sure... but you're still not going to decrease latency to the speed of a vraptor. You're just increasing data transfer speed of files larger than the raid 0 block size.

[fe_918]

dude, how much of a delay would that transfer to real life time when we are talking about the speed that the "arm" on the hdd moves?...

100mb/s read speed transfers to like a few seconds during actual use, unless you are EXTREMELY anal about ur hdd speed i doubt you will notice any difference due to "spindle spin latency" or "arm sweep latency"

[SiG357]

Short stroking doesn't eliminate spindle spin latency, only slightly reduces arm sweep latency. You aren't going to get vraptor latencies by short stroking a 7200rpm drive, nor will you get vraptor speeds.

2x WD in raid vs 1 vraptor, sure... but you're still not going to decrease latency to the speed of a vraptor. You're just increasing data transfer speed of files larger than the raid 0 block size.


Maybe, but I don't think its worth the $$$

[Logan321]

Maybe, but I don't think its worth the $$$

That's how I feel about SLIing GTX 295s but some people still do it. :rolleyes: Enthusiasts don't necessarily choose the most economical route. *I* won't be buying any vraptors... The one raptor I bought was overly expensive for what I got... should have bought 2x 250gig drives instead at the time instead of 1x 74gig.

Having said that, if you're looking to eek out the highest possible performance, price no object, raided vraptors or raided SSDs are the way to go.