Anyone here use Raid 0 for Home PC?

H

Hamfiles

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Messages
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I have an Asus Pv4P 800e deluxe mainboard, and I recently installed my OS to a Raid 0 array. It does seem slightly faster, but I can't help thinking about reduced reliability. Does anyone else here use Raid 0, and if you don't, do you think it is worth the risk, of basically doubling the chance of a Hard drive failure forcing you to lose all of your data?

Thanks for any replies,
-Hamfiles-
 
i use raid 0 with a pair of hitachi deathstars 80gbs lol. all i really have on it is benchmark apps/games so i dont really care. All critical data is stored on my mac and a back up external drive. And yes... with 2gb,cable and raid 0 i load first in BF2 where my tank is waiting for me :)
 
This should have been posted in the disk storage section.

RAID 0 vs single disk in tests have shown very little benefit for real world uses. The only exception would be file extractions, copying, etc. But that's not much of a daily thing, is it?

I don't use RAID 0 and never was convinced to bother with it. If I find my WD 80 GB PATA HD to be fast already, then how could RAID 0 convince me? Going SATA with NCQ and 16 MB cache proves enough as a good jump for me (and is faster than most RAID 0 set ups).

If you really don't care about the data you put on your hard drives (e.g. benchmarking, gaming, experimenting, etc), then go for RAID 0. If you do care, then no - it's not worth any risk.

Bottom line: most people around here will advise you to steer clear of RAID 0 and you will want to avoid it either way.

-J.
 
I have my storage drives setup as a RAID mainly so they both show up as a single drive.
 
I tend to put the OS on a RAID 0 array and any data I care about on another disk for data and back that one up frequently with an external drive dedicated to this that is normally turned off. The RAID 0/single disk is a never ending debate but I like the feel of RAID 0 even if it doesn't benchmark faster.

I've never had to reinstall for a disk failure on a RAID array (*cough, other than Deathstars), but I can reinstall the OS and all my apps in about an hour so I don't bother backing up or making an image of the OS/RAID 0 array.

Remember, using a single disk doesn't help you out for data security if you never back up that single disk!
 
If I had ever thought of running my hard drives in RAID 0 configuration, I was turned away from it years ago via fears of losing data and the fact that it doesn't offer much of a speed up (it's not RAID, it's just AID)

Yes, RAID 0 provides increased sequential reading performance, helpful for a handful of applications in which accessing large/giant files is key, such as video editing. For regular desktop user patterns, it might not be of much benefit at all because most data access is not sequential.

Via http://faq.storagereview.com/SingleDriveVsRaid0 (SR is the definitive source for storage related news and reviews)

Again, RAID 0 does have its advantages in a handful of key applications and uses where data files are huge and/or data requests are highly sequential in nature. Data requests are not highly sequential, however, in typical desktop productivity and most gaming usage patterns, the most often cited in "Help me build my RAID 0!" posts.
Click to expand...

And of course...

To summarize, RAID 0 offers generally minimal performance gains, significantly increased risk of data loss, and greater cost. That said, it offers the ability to have one large partition using the combined space of your identical drives, and there are situations where the benefit of the benefits outweight the disadvantages. It is your computer: The choice is up to you.
Click to expand...

I think it would be much better to use the two hard drives separately. In fact, performance could even be increased as the two hard drives could be performing different tasks (one disk pages, other hard drive accesses files).

And of course, there is the increased risk of data loss. I've said it many times before: don't keep anything vital on a RAID 0 configuration if you can help it. That or make occasional backups, which is a recommended practice even if you don't use AID 0. One drive goes, the whole array goes (this is also why it's AID, not RAID - there's no redundancy). I just can't take that risk for such minimal performance gains, especially when I can just get a 16 MB cache drive (no NCQ, can't use it :p ) with great performance.
 
I love my RAID0.
My theory is that anyone that has the knowledge/ability to create a RAID is also smart enough to back up their data.
-- by the way, you should have backups anyway, no matter what kind of setup your running!!

Just get an extra drive or two and back up regularly with a synchronization program. For myself, I also backup to a couple drives on another computer on my LAN.
 
Excavator said:
I love my RAID0.
My theory is that anyone that has the knowledge/ability to create a RAID is also smart enough to back up their data.
-- by the way, you should have backups anyway, no matter what kind of setup your running!!

Just get an extra drive or two and back up regularly with a synchronization program. For myself, I also backup to a couple drives on another computer on my LAN.
Click to expand...

LoL, if only. I can't even count the number of times I have had people want me to try to help them recover data from a RAID 0 array when one drive, or the controller dies. (been successfull on a controller dieing a couple times)

==>Lazn
 
Thank you all for your replies. I do notice a slight performance increase. I will prob. stick w/ RADI 0, at least until I buy a new fast Hard drive.
 
The very best example of a placebo effect on these boards are the people who say they notice an increase in performance using RAID0. It's simple logic at this point. If it really offered a huge increase in performance, it would be worth debating. Considering it doesn't, but there's a list of negative aspects, it's actually quite worthless in a desktop setting. As BillLeeLee detailed beautifully, you'd be much better of with two drives separately. I used to unr dual Raptors in RAID0, but then after the forums had many of us do some actual testing, I split them up. I'm using a single one now, with a bigger storage drive, and I've lost nothing in the way of performance, including level load times in games.
 
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