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Is RAID worth it?

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oozish

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 27, 2003
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I have a 74gb RAPTOR and was contemplating getting another one and putting my OS in RAID 0. I used to have this with two 36gb raptors, and for those it was necessary.

It seems what I've read is that raid offers very little real world performance increases unless you're editing alot of video etc. I really don't do that much and don't want to just throw money at RAID for no tangible difference. A few seconds less loading a game or something isn't really convincing.

Thoughts?
 
If you're looking for a substantial performance increase from upgrading your hdd, get a Raptor 150 and sell the 74gb raptor. For most everyday applications, its faster than 74 gig raptors in Raid-0, with none of the downsides of Raid-0.
 
If you're looking to spend some money in the hard drive area, get a large second drive. I just bought the Seagate 7200.10 250 GB drive, and it's very fast. It was around $80, if I remember right, and is about as fast as your Raptor.
 
I heard the 74gig was almost as fast if not faster than the 150 somewhere...

I already have a 320 gig secondary backup/storage drive (seagate perpendicular technology); you're right that's a great drive. I'm also thinking of RAID 1 with that drive (x2); that might be the best bet since I keep valuable stuff on it.
 
I heard the 74gig was almost as fast if not faster than the 150 somewhere...
Click to expand...
They are very close. Actually all the new 16MB cache drives pretty much perform the same.
 
There are some access patterns that are not sped up by RAID-0 at all (but not (good) raid-1).

So unless you analyzed exactly what you are doing there your shouldn't go RAID. In particular not RAID-0 since it has added risk.
 
tuskenraider said:
Where do you get off writing this crap? Do you have any validation to this claim? I swear, people seem to over-hype the Perpendicular drives worse than Raptors. I can get a 7200rpm, 400GB drive that can match the 7200.10, never mind the Raptor:

http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&devID_2=296&devID_3=288&devID_4=323&devCnt=5
Click to expand...
If I built identical computers, with the exception of the drives...one was the Raptor, and one was the Perp. Seagate drive, I guarantee you, that you wouldn't notice a difference between the two, without looking into Device Manager or checking capacities. I'll say the exact same thing about my SE16 drive as well, compared to the Raptor.

If you want to climb down from your ASSumption soapbox for a minute, you'd realize I'm not trumping the perp. recording....but the 16 MB cache in the drives. Notice, as well, I'm not comparing the 150 GB Raptor, either. So, if you want to know where I get off writing this crap, it's from common sense, logic, and actual usage. :rolleyes:
 
oozish said:
I have a 74gb RAPTOR and was contemplating getting another one and putting my OS in RAID 0. I used to have this with two 36gb raptors, and for those it was necessary.

It seems what I've read is that raid offers very little real world performance increases unless you're editing alot of video etc. I really don't do that much and don't want to just throw money at RAID for no tangible difference. A few seconds less loading a game or something isn't really convincing.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I used to have a raid0+1 raptor 36.7 gb array.

I bought some diamondmax9 drives and raided them, too.

They were 90% the speed of the raptors. At least, in my computer.

Raptors are faster, but they aren't anywhere near as fast as they are hyped.
I can't speak for the 74s, OR the 150s.
 
I have two 36GB raptors as you said you did. It "seems" faster than my 250GB WD 16MB cache single drive. I say seems because I have nothing but my feel with the machine to back this up.

That said, you had the same, did it "seem" faster to you than the single 74GB model does now?

From what I've read (I'm not an expert) you get more of an increase when you use raptors vs. other drives when it comes to raid 0. I put my OS and games on it, and it is the fastest HD setup I've ever used... but I've never ran them in single drive configuration so I can't speak to that. As far as corruption, they are (from what I've read) similar build quality to server class HDs. I've never had an issue there in 1 1/2 years of use.
IMO, HDs are the slowest part of your computer, so why not go as fast as you can in that area?
 
If you're looking to spend some money in the hard drive area, get a large second drive. I just bought the Seagate 7200.10 250 GB drive, and it's very fast. It was around $80, if I remember right, and is about as fast as your Raptor.
Click to expand...
Notice, as well, I'm not comparing the 150 GB Raptor, either. So, if you want to know where I get off writing this crap, it's from common sense, logic, and actual usage.
Click to expand...
And if you actually follow the link you see a 74GB GD drive for comparison. :eek:

If I built identical computers, with the exception of the drives...one was the Raptor, and one was the Perp. Seagate drive, I guarantee you, that you wouldn't notice a difference between the two, without looking into Device Manager or checking capacities. I'll say the exact same thing about my SE16 drive as well, compared to the Raptor.
Click to expand...
You can't guarantee anything, so is that using common sense or logic? :eek:
 
tuskenraider said:
And you specify a the size of a Raptor drive where?
Click to expand...
Right in the OP's first post. Don't make ASSumptions if you are trying to flame another user.
 
Ever though of doing software RAID in Ubuntu or something. I Tryed 1 rator 74gig with a 300 gig seagate seems to work well in RAID0 in ubuntu.
 
Has any one done any benchmarks like 1 150gb raptor vs 2 150gb raptors in raid 0? Real world, like loading a level in battlefield or extracting huge zip files? I'm thinking about getting a pair myself.
 
I don't know... I used to have 2 SATA drives in RAID 0... I then did a reinstall of the OS and decided to try it without RAID 0. I DID notice a difference in load times. Its enough to make me wish I had RAID 0 again. also, I have never had a hard drive competely fail on me. I have fixed a few comps that had it but those were usually 10yr drives. I have several 10 yr drives that still run fine on their respected computers. Im not worried about hard drives failing this day and age. I think that if they don't fail in the first 3 months your fine. The hard drive companies have done a goo job of nipping that in the but.
 
Has any one done any benchmarks like 1 150gb raptor vs 2 150gb raptors in raid 0? Real world, like loading a level in battlefield or extracting huge zip files? I'm thinking about getting a pair myself.
Click to expand...
Well here are benchmarks links to my 16MB cache 36GB Raptors in RAID0, which basically perform the same as the 150's.
Single
RAID0 16K Stripe
Bootup went from 44sec. to 37sec., launching America's Army video game went from 29sec. to 24sec., Photoshop launch improved like 4 secs. and I did a couple others but never wrote anything down to remember. So about 15-20% decrease in times for the heavier apps.
 
toddw said:
I have two 36GB raptors as you said you did. It "seems" faster than my 250GB WD 16MB cache single drive. I say seems because I have nothing but my feel with the machine to back this up.

That said, you had the same, did it "seem" faster to you than the single 74GB model does now?

From what I've read (I'm not an expert) you get more of an increase when you use raptors vs. other drives when it comes to raid 0. I put my OS and games on it, and it is the fastest HD setup I've ever used... but I've never ran them in single drive configuration so I can't speak to that. As far as corruption, they are (from what I've read) similar build quality to server class HDs. I've never had an issue there in 1 1/2 years of use.
IMO, HDs are the slowest part of your computer, so why not go as fast as you can in that area?
Click to expand...

1 of my 2 in my old 36 gig array died and I had to call warranty and get it. Then I shipped it to WD and they 'lost' the drive, told me there was no drive in the box I sent and couldn't honor the warranty. I got with the UPS shop I sent it from and tangled with them for a while proving I had 'weight' in my box (they sent me a picture of an empty box! 'sorry nothing in here). It looked like someone stole the raptor...the point of my rant is that I've had trouble with the 36gigs.

not only that, they're NOISY as crap...I'm still using one in my wifes computer.

The 74gig I have now is very fast, and is DEFINATELY faster than the 36 (feels much faster and is quiet too)....

but I'd have to agree with others here talking about the perpendicular that I can't really tell any difference between the two in speed from feel, and given the opportunity and experience with both maybe I would have saved some money. But I got the raptor at Best buy for only about 120 bucks withsome rewards points so NOW I HAVE BRAGGIN RIGHTS....lol.
 
oozish, cool. It's all about what you're happy with. Mine, for example, aren't noisier than other HDs I've used, and I love them.

I'm pretty sure I'm getting what tuskenraider said - 20% improvement over my other sata 16MB cache drive. I like it, and for me, the raid is worth 20%. 5-10 seconds difference every time I load a game makes it worth it to me.

Keep in mind all drives are probably slowly getting faster through the years just on new designs/new models. Raided raptors aint "all that", but IMO they are still the way to go if you want the quickest HDs around.
 
I have been running the original 74gb Raptor in RAID 0 for 2 1/2 years now, the drives will get slugish because of XP and all the crap on it, but as long as they are defraged, they are still running like champs. Unzip 350mb files in seconds, loads games so much faster then on friends machines. All running off of an intel mobo socket 478 for all these years, never had an error come up nor a crashed array.

Of course now I will since I am posting this but I have been thinking of breaking the array anyways. :p
 
tuskenraider said:
Well here are benchmarks links to my 16MB cache 36GB Raptors in RAID0, which basically perform the same as the 150's.
Click to expand...

36GB raptors are made the same and have the same components, but they are not 150GB raptors by any means.
 
but they are not 150GB raptors by any means.
Click to expand...
By any means? Like they don't perform as well? Pffft. Well why don't you educate me with some believable proof about it beyond that they have one more platter and three more read heads and will therefore produce a couple more MB/s in STR's, but result in slower seeks times.
 
Hi everyone,

Benchmarks for WD drives, taken frm the best of 2 readings using hdtach

WD500YS
Burst Speed and average read
188.4Mb/s and 60.8MB/s

1 X WD150Gb raptor
135.7MB/s and 78.1MB/s

2 X WD150Gb raptor running on raod 0, 32kb cluster
253.1MB/s and 112.3MB/s

(If someone can point me where to post the actual hdtach results here, would appreciate it)

Anyway the benchmarks results are not bad i think, but real world usage not what id expected frm the raid 0's, or am i expecting too much. :D on the whole not much to complain tho. :D
 
tuskenraider said:
By any means? Like they don't perform as well? Pffft. Well why don't you educate me with some believable proof about it beyond that they have one more platter and three more read heads and will therefore produce a couple more MB/s in STR's, but result in slower seeks times.
Click to expand...

Well, seeing as they are different drives, they are different. Sure they are manufactured the same way and have the same parts, but each drive is its own drive.

After this, I just cannot argue anymore. It becomes pointless when someone is being dense.

/sigh
 
protias said:
Well, seeing as they are different drives, they are different. Sure they are manufactured the same way and have the same parts, but each drive is its own drive.

After this, I just cannot argue anymore. It becomes pointless when someone is being dense.

/sigh
Click to expand...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the 36 and 74 GB Raptors have 8 MB of cache, and the new 150 GB Raptors have 16 each? I know my 36 GB Raptor only has 8 MB.
 
djnes said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the 36 and 74 GB Raptors have 8 MB of cache, and the new 150 GB Raptors have 16 each? I know my 36 GB Raptor only has 8 MB.
Click to expand...

The ADFD (most recent) models have 16 MB cache (here).
 
OK, how many RAID0 threads come up per week? And how many times does everyone get so emotional when they come up?

Speaking from personal experience and 8+ years of messing with different RAID types in the home and the Enterprise.

I have had all versions of the Raptors at one time or another except for the new ADFD 36GBers. The WD740ADFD's are faster than the WD150ADFD's in single HDD scenarios - this has been proven in multiple benchmarks on the web.

I can tell you, you WILL notice a substantial difference in game load times, boot times, file transfers, etc. with a RAID0 setup. I've tried it many ways many times. So have many other people. Most of the people that discredit the benefits of RAID0 have never owned a RAID0 setuup, or have somehow misconfigured it.

Or, simply aren't sensitive enough to notice the speed difference.

When someone tells me they don't notice a difference between a single Raptor and a 2500KS or similar HDD, I gotta think "you're on drugs." I own both of those drives and had tried them in any and all configurations. Is it only 10% - 15% or so? Maybe - that's substantial to me. Is it 1/4 (25%) faster like the RPM suggests? No. But 10% for sure.

Forget about cost for one minute-because THAT is 80% of why people dislike RAID0 and Raptors or both. "Is it worth it?" This has nothing to do if it's worth it. We're talking about WHAT is the faster desktop SATA setup you can have. Cost is different things to a lot of people and has no place in a speed comparison without confusing things.

Find me a faster SATA desktop setup than ADFD Raptors in RAID0 properly configured. In benchies or real-world. Betcha can't.
 
Brahmzy said:
I can tell you, you WILL notice a substantial difference in game load times, boot times, file transfers, etc. with a RAID0 setup. I've tried it many ways many times. So have many other people. Most of the people that discredit the benefits of RAID0 have never owned a RAID0 setuup, or have somehow misconfigured it.
Click to expand...
Glad to see you think some of the most respected sites on the web are wrong. I've owned a RAID0 setup, and I've done the testing along with many people on here well over a year ago. You can find all the nice shiny synthetic benchies you want to support your case, but when it comes to real world differences, they are few. Most people actually found their seek times go up with RAID0. For a typical windows environment, that can be a bad thing. So what if games load a few seconds faster....does that matter? Does that outweight the negatives? Nope, not even close. The fact is, the industry has moved on, and RAID0 on a desktop has been declared dead quite sometime ago. It's not even worth arguing anymore, and frankly, it's just a waste of time.

If you disagree, don't take it up with me. Do us all a favor, and e-mail Anand from Anandtech, and tell him why he's wrong. I'm being completely serious. Send him a message explaining why he's wrong, and why no one should listen to him.
 
Well, seeing as they are different drives, they are different. Sure they are manufactured the same way and have the same parts, but each drive is its own drive. After this, I just cannot argue anymore. It becomes pointless when someone is being dense.
Click to expand...
So different drives can't perform the basically the same? NO proof, no experince, just words. Thought so.
So what if games load a few seconds faster....does that matter?
Click to expand...
Of course it does because that's what defines the difference between average and best. No different than upgrading a CPU for a couple hundred mhz or a bigger cache, getting that memory that'll go 10-20mhz faster with tighter timings, etc. If YOU choose to not pay the cost or except the "risks" of RAID0, fine. For many, like maybe computer geeks here(duh), knocking off 5 seconds in a game load is much welcomed.
Glad to see you think some of the most respected sites on the web are wrong.
Click to expand...
Who cares what Anandtech says about RAID0 when I get way better results than they do? If they show an average improvement of 2 secs in their tests and I get 8, does that invalidate my results? Sure doesn't and makes you wonder how they got such poor results.
 
Y'know, if I had the power this thread would be locked. Until someone posts accurate, repeatable benchmarks of real-world applications, everyone STFU. There's no reason to reiterate the same old tired argument every week. If someone would run the benchmarks (warning: this will take a solid week, and a good thousand bucks worth of drives!) we'd be done with this once and for all.

My stance is, it's not cost effective to put two hard drives in a machine. It may be faster, but even if you got 25% improvement out of adding another drive, there are things that will give you a better percentage improvement with that money. Buy a second card and do SLI. Buy another gig or two of memory. Get a second core, or buy a speed faster processor. Hard drives may be the slowest part of the system, but that's because they're used the least. You might hit a few hundred IOPS on your hard drive, but your memory can probably do a few billion ;)

 
The benchmarks that I have run (CS:S load time) show a small improvement when going from a single to 2 or 3 7200rpm drives in RAID-0:
Going from a single to 3 Samsung drives (R0): ~11% reduction in load time.
Going from 3 Samsung drives (R0) to a single Raptor: ~16% reduction in load time.


http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1107222
 
djnes said:
The fact is, the industry has moved on, and RAID0 on a desktop has been declared dead quite sometime ago. It's not even worth arguing anymore, and frankly, it's just a waste of time.
Click to expand...
Bwahahahaha!

What friggin' world are you living in dude? Get off your friggin' high horse.


unhappy_mage said:
My stance is, it's not cost effective to put two hard drives in a machine. It may be faster, but even if you got 25% improvement out of adding another drive, there are things that will give you a better percentage improvement with that money. Buy a second card and do SLI. Buy another gig or two of memory. Get a second core, or buy a speed faster processor. Hard drives may be the slowest part of the system, but that's because they're used the least. You might hit a few hundred IOPS on your hard drive, but your memory can probably do a few billion ;)
Click to expand...
Brahmzy said:
Forget about cost for one minute-because THAT is 80% of why people dislike RAID0 and Raptors or both. "Is it worth it?" This has nothing to do if it's worth it. We're talking about WHAT is the faster desktop SATA setup you can have. Cost is different things to a lot of people and has no place in a speed comparison without confusing things.
Click to expand...
 
Brahmzy said:
Bwahahahaha!

What friggin' world are you living in dude? Get off your friggin' high horse.
Click to expand...
That's quite funny. I wasn't the one trying to make a end-all post, like I was the world's foremost authority on RAID. I'd again suggest you take issue with the well respected websites who ahve debunked RAID. Sounds like you might not be too sure of yourself if you aren't willing to discuss it with them. Either that, or you're just trolling for a flame war with anyone who dare disagree with you.
 
Brahmzy said:
Cost is different things to a lot of people and has no place in a speed comparison without confusing things.
Click to expand...
If cost is roughly irrelevant, can I ask why you aren't running a SCSI Ultra320 RAID5 array? Why not a SAN? Why not Gigabyte's RAM drive? :rolleyes:

Maybe because cost is an issue...and when you can have nearly the same performance, much more capacity, for much less money, it's a no-brainer.
 
Brahmzy said:
Forget about cost for one minute-because THAT is 80% of why people dislike RAID0 and Raptors or both. "Is it worth it?" This has nothing to do if it's worth it. We're talking about WHAT is the faster desktop SATA setup you can have. Cost is different things to a lot of people and has no place in a speed comparison without confusing things.
Click to expand...
"Is it worth it" is the title of the thread. If you want to ignore that, find another thread. To paraphrase, get off your friggin' dead horse ;)

The OP isn't building the fastest array EVAR OMG, he's looking to spend his money in a reasonable manner. Most people who consider raid would be better served by a single drive and an upgrade in another area.

Why is the raptor raid 0 setup so appealing to you? Scsi will give higher benchmarks, and probably have a higher cool factor too. To draw a bad analogy, "The fastest sata setup" is like "the most expensive Honda".
 
drizzt81 said:
The benchmarks that I have run (CS:S load time) show a small improvement when going from a single to 2 or 3 7200rpm drives in RAID-0:
Going from a single to 3 Samsung drives (R0): ~11% reduction in load time.
Going from 3 Samsung drives (R0) to a single Raptor: ~16% reduction in load time.


http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1107222
Click to expand...

Thanks for the benchies, I went with a single raptor 150 myself. Ran out of money with the cost of the g80 and 4gb of ddr I bought earlyer :cool:
For me its all about lag in MMORPGs (or whatever their called)
IE running WoW and walking near and AH / Bank and waiting for every ones character to load.
It's also nice for bragging rights... "Damn dood your still loading?!"

Think I have decided, if I need faster, to go scsi hardware raid0, 15k rpm drives. ;)
 
Most people who consider raid would be better served by a single drive and an upgrade in another area.
Click to expand...
This is obviously seems system dependant and the OP only needs to purchase another 74GB Raptor which he could pick up used for $100. I agreed the OP already reasoned himself out of going for RAID0 at the beginning of this thread and to forget it. Of course various posts got everyone all riled up with what they think are the facts. The fact is some here have seen really good benefits of RAID0, some claim not and it's up to the OP whether or not to take the gamble. He's got a pretty sharp system with a Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, decent video card, so a hard drive system "upgrade" for $100 doesn't seem like a complete misuse of funds in his situation.....................................................IMO.
 
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