RAID 0 worthwhile improvements in my case?

Well my 150gb raptor just died. Rather unexpectedly but that's the way it goes sometimes. I have my data backed up so the only loss is my time to restore everything.

I can't afford a SSD drive now(though i'm trying hard to justify a 64gb kingston for $140, just don't think the wife would go for it.) but I do have 2 160gb seagate drives here. I was thinking if there would be a noticeable real world performance improvement I could throw them in RAID 0 and use that. It would be with the controller on a Asus P6T board. Day to day tasks such as web, email, some light photo editing, gaming, bluray rips, music, etc.

The reason I ask if it would be worthwhile instead of just trying it to see is one of those 160gb drives is currently in use and would make more work for me to yank it and use it for this. I'll do it if you guys think it's worth it. Otherwise i'll be using just a single 160gb drive for now. It's enough space for my system drive. My data is primarily on my server.
I do also have a 250gb drive in my system. I was using that to rip the blurays to and do the re-encoding. Since that takes a long time and would bog down my main drive I moved that off to this other drive. Maybe I could install my apps to this drive as well but put windows on a smaller SSD drive I could afford. Would that be very beneficial?
I'm open to other ideas. The cheaper the better.

I dont think you would notice in just straight normal usage. Your still gonna have to deal with access times and spin up/downs. You'll see higher through put, which will show up for stuff like the scratch file and loading times.

The only thing I use RAID for is for dumping my FRAPS videos. Its 2x 1TB 7200 RPM drives. It was the only way I could record 1920x1200 @ 30 FPS for gaming. Plus its a megaton of space since that kind of video eats it up like crazy. 4GB video chunks are just under 2 minutes long. But also not just for writing, but also reading. My other harddrives I can't just skip around freely on that video when in a video editor, it gets all choppy as it tries to keep up seeking around the frames. But with the RAID I can skip all around no problem.


But you can do what I did. Load the OS and program files and 1 or 2 games on the SSD and put everything else on the hard disks. I think once you experience just having the OS and basic program files on SSD you'll understand why all the rave. Go to your computer, and ctrl click Windows, Program Files and maybe the game you play the most and see how much space that is and if that would fit on a 64GB SSD (which is probably like 55GB formated).

Since even $140 is a lot for you right now, I would just leave everything as-is. SSD drives will continue to get cheaper in the coming years, so I would just wait until you're ready to upgrade your entire PC and have a bit more money to spend.

If you do an Advance Replacement RMA with Western Digital it should only take ~7 business days before your replacement Raptor arrives. You may even get lucky and have them send you back a Velociraptor, as a few people on these boards have reported lately.

As for the two 160GB Seagate drives in RAID-0, they would be worse then your Raptor as an OS drive. If you always backup your stuff, I would still go ahead in put them in RAID-0 though. Using the Raid-0 for ripping Blu-rays, the leaving the 250GB as the target for re-encoding and storage, while your 150GB Raptor system drive is completely free of I/O could have some benefits.

If you're referring the 160gb drive to ST3160811AS, I would like to recommend leaving as is. It's a really silent and small drive, access time isn't that fast. So, I'm only using the seagate drive for back ups.

I looked into it and i'm still under warranty so i'm going that route. I read up on their packing instructions and it seems that an anti static bag(I have a bunch around here) and 2" of bubble wrap is acceptable(I have a box of bubble wrap) so i'll do an advanced replacement and send this out to them.
Though they do say scratches are not acceptable and my drive is alittle scuffed up on the corner from going in and out of drive bays(been used in a few computers). So I hope they accept it.

Thanks!

As a tip, you can just re-use the same box and anti-static bag which they send the replacement in. WD uses 'approved packing' when they send out drives by Advance Replacement RMA.

Cyberbeing said:

As a tip, you can just re-use the same box and anti-static bag which they send the replacement in. WD uses 'approved packing' when they send out drives by Advance Replacement RMA.

Click to expand...

I didn't even think about that. That's a great idea. Thanks for the tip.

The only improvement you would see is in benchmarks. Nothing you seem to do probably even comes close to the throughput maximum of even one of your hdd's.

Cyberbeing said:

You may even get lucky and have them send you back a Velociraptor, as a few people on these boards have reported lately.

Click to expand...

You can now add myself to that list. Last Wednesday I also just so happened to be processing an Advance Replacement RMA on two 1st Generation 74GB Raptors (WD740GD) I bought back in 2005, which began failing a few days prior. I got an email yesterday that they are sending me back two 3rd Generation 74GB Velociraptors (WD740HLFS) as replacements. Nice little upgrade right there, considering the Velociraptors are literally twice as fast as my 1st Generation Raptors.

While Western Digital drives may be fail-happy (call me lucky/unlucky, but every single WD drive I've owned has developed issues needing RMA before the warranty period was up), they do have the best RMA process out of all the companies to compensate. Such is my love-hate relationship with Western Digital.

Looks like they are sending the same 150gb raptor to me. So not so lucky on getting a velociraptor.

I also filled out the advanced RMA last thursday but they didn't ship the new one until yesterday. It will be here Friday. Been booting in my snow leopard hackintosh drive in the meantime but I find myself actually missing windows 7.

Mine just arrived today, exactly 1 week after I submitted my RMA.

*Begin Rant*
Interestingly in the product description, Western Digital calls the WD740HLFS "Viking 10000 16M Serial ATA II 74.0GB 1HD RE (RAID Edition)".

This is the first time I've ever heard a Velociraptor referred to as a Viking RAID Edition. Viking must be the Velociraptor codename, but that they refer to it as a RAID Edition drive is the more interesting tidbit.

Confirmation that the HLFS model really is designed for running in RAID, while the GLFS (Consumer Edition?) is not? I remember that during the Velociraptor firmware debacle awhile back, WD was claiming something similar about how only the HLFS and BLFS were the getting the firmware fix because they were the only ones WD supported in a RAID configuration. Not that it really helps people all that much if they only refer to the HLFS as a RE drive internally at WD and don't share such info on their website.
*End Rant*

Interestingly in the product description, Western Digital calls the WD740HLFS "Viking 10000 16M Serial ATA II 74.0GB 1HD RE (RAID Edition)".

Click to expand...

I've never head of this "Viking" thing.

Got a link?

Took a photo because I'm to lazy to scan it:


Edit:
*Begin Rant #2*
Well it turns out one of the replacement 74GB Velociraptors was broken. The drive rattled like a maraka when given a light shake. Amazingly after a couple tries it actually did spin-up and was detected, but no way I'm keeping a time-bomb like that. Called up WD this morning and talked to some woman from a call center in India, who I could barely understand. Luckily she understood me well enough, as she processed a new RMA for the defective 74GB Velociraptor, and even offered me a free shipping label so I wouldn't have to pay return shipping for something that was obviously their mistake.

Just now this evening, I checked my RMA status and amazingly in less then half a day they had shipped out a replacement drive. A big difference from the 4 days it took for them to process my original RMA. Even more amazingly, they are sending me back a 150GB WD1500HLFS Velociraptor this time. Hard to beat that when the original drive was a 74GB WD740GD 1st generation Raptor. I'll now have an entire Velociraptor family. A pair of Daddy and Mommy 300GB, the teenage 150GB, and the baby 74GB. In some ways this is going to be a bit of a pain, since now I'll really need to re-structure my drive setup, but I can't complain.

Western Digital drives failing often.
+
Western Digital having an amazingly painless RMA process
+
Western Digital RMA replacement drives failing.
+
Western Digital occasionally sending out drive upgrades as RMA replacements.
+
Western Digital preventing the enabling of TLER on most new drives, and making firmware updates OEM exclusives.
+
Western Digital Black, Green, and Raptor all being top contenders in their segments.
=
Love-Hate relationship with Western Digital.
*End Rant #2*