Do I want a RAID 0 setup?

R

RyanH

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
391
I plan on ordering a new computer from ava direct this week just like the one in my sig below with 2 of the new WD6400AAKS 640GB dual platter drives and the Abit IP35 Pro motherboard. I have a few questions I need to have answered in order to obtain optimal performance from my system

1) Is the Raid Controller on the motherboard good enough quality to run the 2 harddrives in a RAID 0 or perhaps even RAID 1 configuration? I know that the motherboard supports these 2 configurations but is it recommended that I buy a seperate RAID controller card? I read about many people that don't think their onboard raid isnt up to snuff for whatever reason and I can't figure out why. If so could you recommend some host cards for a raid 0 or 1 configuration

2) Will configuring my harddrives in a RAID 0 Array affect the system boot time at all? this appears to be one of this drives biggest weaknesses http://techreport.com/articles.x/14380/5
What else will improve other then the average read/wite transfer speeds?

3) Ive heard that creating a seperate boot partition on a harddrive can lower the random seek times and by extension boot times quite noticably, but is it possible to create this partition while 2 harddrives are in a RAID 0 configuration? Approximately how large would you recommend this boot partition be?

I really would like to save a little coin and just use the onboard raid but if using a dedicated raid card could shave off a second or two of my operating system boot time I would have no problem going that route. I plan on working in Windows Vista 64 bit.
 
1) yes mobo raid 0 is fine.

2) yes your booting will be faster with raid 0

3) yes you can make 60gb for OS and the rest for storage

I would recommend gettnig some raptors, i got 2 74gb raptors in raid0 and wow they are quick!
 
Onboard will be completely fine, and you can create multiple partitions on the RAID array. I'd say 20GB for a Vista boot partition if you're putting no programs, etc. on it. But I have to question your reasons for using RAID0. Boot times, and possible load times in games, will increase SLIGHTLY, but it isn't really worth the risk to your data on the various partitions. Keep the two drives seperate; use one for boot/applications and the other for your data.
 
Remember that if you lose one of those drives, you've lost all your data (barring some expensive recovery procedure that may or may not work). I agree with the previous poster who said it's not really worth the risk for the minimal speed gains. However, if you really want to do it and have data that you can't lose, setup a Raid 0+1 array. You get all the benefits of striping and mirroring, but you need four drives instead of two.
 
the way i see it. if ur not worried about loosing the os or games set up raid0. back up you stuff and you won't have to worry about loosing data. i have been running three 36gb raptors for over 4 years and have yet to have a raid0 failure. even if i did i have a failure my important stuff is backed up to a 320gb drive and burnt to dvd.
 
ALL4AMD said:
the way i see it. if ur not worried about loosing the os or games set up raid0. back up you stuff and you won't have to worry about loosing data. i have been running three 36gb raptors for over 4 years and have yet to have a raid0 failure. even if i did i have a failure my important stuff is backed up to a 320gb drive and burnt to dvd.
Click to expand...

+1 yup same here 2 74gb in RAID 0 , been running them for years now and no problems or failures.
 
vectravl400 said:
Remember that if you lose one of those drives, you've lost all your data (barring some expensive recovery procedure that may or may not work). I agree with the previous poster who said it's not really worth the risk for the minimal speed gains. However, if you really want to do it and have data that you can't lose, setup a Raid 0+1 array. You get all the benefits of striping and mirroring, but you need four drives instead of two.
Click to expand...

remember, if you lose your hard drive in a single drive system, you lose all of your data (barring some expensive recovery procedure that may or may not work).


I decided to throw my two 500GB (one a Samsung, the other a WD) together in a RAID0 and couldn't be happier. It is definately a noticeable increase in system responsiveness. You can't say it's just my head trying to justify the cost of two 500GB drive since I already have them on hand.
 
Raptors aren't worth it anymore. I stand behind this. Modern 7200RPM drives are better for everything save seek time, and I can stand to looks 2, 3 ms. Sorry.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top