Making a decision to continue Raid 0, advice request

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djgizmo

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 24, 2006
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long time ago, in a far away galaxy (called 2004) I purchased one of the first Sata II drives from WD.

I purchased 2 80GB 7200rpm drives and a SIIG raid card (mobo back then did not have raid) (SIIG did make GREAT RAID cards back in the day)

Loved every minute of it.

Since then, I've had those drives in raid 0 from one system to another etc etc. Don't get me wrong, I love my 80x2 setup because it's very fast for me, however with since I'm in school for recording arts now and I'm in need to install several LARGE programs. I'm at less than 20GB left out of 160 (I have a separate 250+500 drives for data storage) After reading reviews / testing on Toms on the Samsung Spinpoint 1TB drive and the 7200.11 drives from Seagate, I wonder if raid 0 is even worth it.

I've even kicked around the idea of Raid 5, but I haven't been able to find a decent hardware raid card for less than $200.

Can anyone provide some constructive feedback? Thanks
 
RAID 0 is a good option if you want the fastest speed possible and if you use already fast drives like Raptors or the new 320GB platter Western Digital drives.

More than likely your 80GB drives in RAID 0 can be beaten by a single drive these days. However, if you RAID 0 those newer drives, you will get a performance boost.

Though if you're asking whether or not to keep your RAID 0 setup, keep it if it still working for you. It's probably still plenty fast. But if you have the cash and back up your OS often, then RAID 0 some newer drives.

As for decent hardware RAID cards for under $200, haven't seen any.
 
Thanks for the reply Danny! Looks like I'll be getting some new drives soon (prolly in 2 months)

With the new 320GB platter Western Digital drives, how is that comparable to the the Seagate 7200.11 drives (think they're 2nd gen perpendicular) in regards to performance.
 
IIRC, the 320GB platter drives are still faster than the Seagate 7200.11, even with the Seagate's larger cache. So your best bet for performance will be the new WD 320GB platter drives.
 
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