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RAID 0 RAID 5 4 HD's WTF...

X

Xenozx

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
2,127
OK, so I have 2 120 gb seagate baracuda's 8m SATA 150 in RAID 0 array. This has been working good, but I am running low on space. I am looking for a solution to get more storage and at the same time get more performance from my HD's.

I was looking at maybe picking up 2 more Baracudas and doing a RAID 5. That would be 3 HD's in RAID 0 basically, with the 4th there incase one dies so it can rebuild it. Is this a feasable solution and would 3 drives provide more performance over 2?

Also are there any other suggestions or paths I may have missed that you would suggest?
 
Just so you know: A lot of consumer grade RAID-5 solutions are not much faster in terms of STR than a single drive. Their access time will show the same penalty (or lack thereof) as a RAID-0 solution.
Depending on your disk usage patterns, there are other options that are likely to improve performance more than RAID-0-ing drives.
I should also note that some members suggest that it is a bad idea to have an Operating system installed on a RAID-5 array.

I worded my response this vaguely, since I do not wish to start a RAID-0 vs. independent disks vs. faster disks flame war.
 
R5 != R0 + parity.
calculating the parity bits slow down the writes, so speed it highly dependant on the controller.
 
I would be using the controller on my DFI mobo. Only problem I have with having 3 or 4 drives is if 1 failed the whole array and all data on it is lost. I dont really like that idea :( I have a 300 GB IDE drive in my PC too. I store all my important stuff here. Would I be better off just purchasing some raptors or something? Raid 0 raptors sounds hawt.

or would 1 raptor be faster then my 2 seagates in RAID 0?
 
Xenozx said:
I would be using the controller on my DFI mobo. Only problem I have with having 3 or 4 drives is if 1 failed the whole array and all data on it is lost. I dont really like that idea :( I have a 300 GB IDE drive in my PC too. I store all my important stuff here. Would I be better off just purchasing some raptors or something? Raid 0 raptors sounds hawt.

or would 1 raptor be faster then my 2 seagates in RAID 0?
Click to expand...
it depends

in all honesty, maybe if you told us for what application you "need more speed" we can make a more educated guess about what solution would make the most sense. Also, it's not clear what your budget on this upgrade is, nor do we know whether "speed above all" or "more storage" or "redundancy" is your goal.
Any solution that you will purchase will be limited to a surface within these three parameters, whose position and shape is determined by the amount of money you want to spend.

Of course, it'd be easy to tell you the answer that you'd get on a lot of forums:
"Omg, RAID-5 is -like- soooo [H]awt right now"
but that would not help you much, would it? After you have your OS on the RAID-5 array and find out that your software controller sucks up 20% of your CPU and your write STR is at 50MB/s instead of the 150MB/s you hoped for.

Say you are a gamer, for you it would make a lot of sense to buy two disks, which both are fast, use one for OS and the other for games. If you can spring it, a pair of raptors may make a lot of sense. However, some people argue that two RAID-0'd raptors would be faster. Since there are no definite benchmarks at this point that I know of all I can do do is make a recommendation on what I believe to know.

If you are a video editor, whose major workload will be STR limited, the best choice may be two RAID-0 arrays with one being a source the other being a target.

A general trend is that a bigger HDD with faster platters will perform better than an old setup. You said that you have two, possibly older, Seagates. With that in mind, it is very likely that even a single raptor will show a benchmarkable and likely noticable increase in most every workload that you can throw at it.

The bottom line is that I think it is hard to make a recommendation without knowing all the details. Even then, I believe it's important to manage expectations: In a lot of cases you may not notice a difference even if there is a benchmarkable one.
 
Your best bet is to sell your 120's and get a faster SATA drive. You likely don't need/benefit from RAID-0, so a fast single drive would be better. You could then use your ide drive in an external USB case to backup your data.
 
Anyway, I primarily game, and dont like long load times or issues when a game is cacheing or pulling data from the hard drive. I can tell the difference between my 2 drives in raid 0 and 1 IDE drive when windows is installed. The 1 drive seems to have a lag when opening the start menu or IE, where the two drives are like instantanious. also load times in games are definately increased. I download alot and enjoy storage but also like to have quick setup even if just small for the games I install. Reading that article it says RAID-0 has no performance benefit for single user type work (aka gaming etc) so I dont see how that can be the case hence I can tell the difference between my 1 and 2 drive setups when I have set it up that way.

Anyway I am going to look into purchasing a single raptor and see how that goes. Damn they are expensive.

Drittz you play UT? I swear Ive seen that name somehwere.
 
Xenozx said:
Anyway, I primarily game, and dont like long load times or issues when a game is cacheing or pulling data from the hard drive. I can tell the difference between my 2 drives in raid 0 and 1 IDE drive when windows is installed. The 1 drive seems to have a lag when opening the start menu or IE, where the two drives are like instantanious. also load times in games are definately increased. I download alot and enjoy storage but also like to have quick setup even if just small for the games I install. Reading that article it says RAID-0 has no performance benefit for single user type work (aka gaming etc) so I dont see how that can be the case hence I can tell the difference between my 1 and 2 drive setups when I have set it up that way.

Anyway I am going to look into purchasing a single raptor and see how that goes. Damn they are expensive.
Click to expand...
if you are willing to spring for that, it would make sense to do either:
1. Raptor for OS and RAID-0 for game installs
2. RAID-0 for OS and Raptor for game installs
Drittz you play UT? I swear Ive seen that name somehwere.
Click to expand...
I used to play UT2K4 a while ago.
 
OK, so the main benefit would be getting my windows install and game installs off the same drive or raid array?
 
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