RAID Explanation.

E

emoretared

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 3, 2003
Messages
261
Hello. I hear RAId config is faster than standard SATA and IDE interfaces. But i see you need a RAId controler, i was wondering if it is a lot faster than just running 1 IDE HD or 2 SATA with RAID config for gaming, and general processing. Thanks
 
For general use, RAID 0 is not much faster. It helps mostly with boot times and the like from what I've heard. Also, RAID 0 is risky for your data because if either drive dies you are screwed. Other flavors of RAID are not ANY faster and some are even slower, with the excpetion of RAID 5 I believe.

Anyway, RAID 0 isn't worth it unless you have money to burn.
 
Don't most mobos have built in RAID now? What's the disadvantage to going RAID 0 (other than data loss)?
 
Higher-end mobos have RAID controllers, but certainly not most mobos in general. The only disadvantage other than data loss is the extra expense. To make RAID 0 actually faster than another setup, you should be using two fast SATA drives.
 
Gotta rememeber alot of raid 0 benefits are more or less synthetic in most cases. MaxPC proved a month or 2 ago that a Raid 0 setup loads games like Doom 3 SLOWER than a setup with just one of those drives. The difference was negligable, but why spend all the money when it doesn't make a difference in most applications. Although I'm sure there are sum it does, like benchies ;)
 
If your buying a motherboard with RAID bulit in, realize that they are usually only RAID 1 or RAID 0, you will not be able to run a RAID 5 with an onboard RAID controller.

RAID is meant for the server environment, where you have a RAID 1 for the OS hard drive so that if either fails, you can still run your business meaning no down time and no loss of data. Then you also run a RAID 5 for all the server's data files which gives you a good combination of redundancy, space, and performance.
 
Also remember that buying a motherboard with an onboard RAID controller doesn't mean you have to create an array...I have 6 HD's in my box; four are connected to the onboard RAID controller, but they're not in an array. They're just normal drives...but it's nice having 8 IDE connections!
 
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