RAID 0 vs. non RAID benchmarks??

[DReborn]

OK, I know this topic has been killed but it seems like there is still a major discrepency in the community. Anandtech wrote that famous article debunking RAID 0 as "just not worth it" but then Kyle and team put a RAID 0 setup in the latest 2000 dollar upgrade guide (2x raptors).

I am building a video editing/gaming/multitasking beast and I just would love to see the actual real world performance benefits of RAID 0 (2x raptors) vs just one raptor.

Ever been done?

[DougLite]

I will be looking into it if I can get a worthwhile testbed assembled. I don't think you want to pay to find out though, so you'll have to accept my limited financial means :p

For multitasking work with content creation apps, RAID-0 is exceedingly useful. A narray of two large and fast 7200RPM drives with a WD740GD boot drive is a sweet setup.

[drizzt81]

OK, I know this topic has been killed but it seems like there is still a major discrepency in the community. Anandtech wrote that famous article debunking RAID 0 as "just not worth it" but then Kyle and team put a RAID 0 setup in the latest 2000 dollar upgrade guide (2x raptors).

I am building a video editing/gaming/multitasking beast and I just would love to see the actual real world performance benefits of RAID 0 (2x raptors) vs just one raptor.

Ever been done?
not to disrepect the people here, but if you go over to SR, there are plenty of very knowledgable people and the basic consensus is:

virtually regardless of what you are doing, if you plan your storage layout in a smart way, you will always have better performance than a RAID-0 array. By layout I mean which disks will store what files. Generally, it makes more sense to use the multiple spindles to improve access times by spreading parallel tasks over mopre than one HDD, e.g. your CS install directory is on drive D, while your swapfile is on drive C and you are ripping DVDs to drive E (all on seperate channels).

Not only will such a layout improve the access times, it also allows you to copy files between the drives much quicker, which may make a big difference.

the only problem is that such a smart layout actually requires the user to think and PLAN, RAID-0ing drives is a simple thing to do, which requires minimal user intelligence.

ps.; yes windows may boot a 'tad' slower in this regard, but the question is what do you do more ofen - boot windows or run programs in windows?

[Boltaction]

I have RAID 0 and I mainly move many gigs around my network and on my computer, and play games. It's honestly not worth the risk of data loss, I am only holding onto mine because it's a little late now. I tried with one HD a while ago and there really wasn't much of a difference. We are talking a few seconds loading a super busy game or windows booting. Do yourself a favor and get more than 1GB of ram, that made games rock more for me. BF2, Doom 3, Etc.