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titaniumone
n00b
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2007
- Messages
- 63
I'm considering getting two Hitachi 7k160 SATA drives (160GB each) and setting them up as a RAID0 array. These drives seem to be very fast, and are only $50 each (so $100 for the array). I'll be using my Gigabyte P35-DS3R's onboard (ICH9R) controller for the RAID 0. I'm basing this largely on http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx=33&model1=280&model2=676&chart=31 which shows these drives are quite fast for the price. I realize a denser drive would be faster, but 500+GB drives aren't exactly cheap; these are.
I'm fully aware of the risks of RAID0. I'd be using these drives for application data only; my OS, pagefile, games, etc. No documents, pictures, music, or other important data would be stored on the array.
Questions:
1) Is this worth it? My normal system drive is a 320GB Barracuda. It's a good drive, but these drives appear to be really fast, and in RAID0 ought to be super zippy. I just want an all around responsive system. I know a lot of benchmarks show only a tiny amount of improvement in things like loading games, but these benchmarks are totally skewed because I, unlike a benchmarking system, have three dozen applications running when I load the game -- and I think the faster disk subsystem will make a difference.
The cost is low and they should easily beat a Raptor for transfer rates and general system responsiveness. At least, that's what I would think.
2) On the motherboard, there are 6 SATA ports which run on the ICH9R. Can I set up a 2-disk RAID0 array on the Hitachi drives, and plug in other drives to the remaining 4 ports, or is RAID0 on this chipset "all or nothing"? I do not want to have all 6 SATA ports confined to only functioning as a RAID0 array!
What are your general experiences with these drives, RAID, and (with any luck) these drives IN RAID? If someone could tell me they've done it and they had problems/no problems/huge speed increases/huge decreases, whatever -- I'd appreciate it.
If it matters, my system is soon to be:
Q6600
4GB Crucial Ballistix
Corsair 620HX
Temjin TJ09B
320GB Barracuda (current sys. drive), 2x 300GB Barracuda
I'm fully aware of the risks of RAID0. I'd be using these drives for application data only; my OS, pagefile, games, etc. No documents, pictures, music, or other important data would be stored on the array.
Questions:
1) Is this worth it? My normal system drive is a 320GB Barracuda. It's a good drive, but these drives appear to be really fast, and in RAID0 ought to be super zippy. I just want an all around responsive system. I know a lot of benchmarks show only a tiny amount of improvement in things like loading games, but these benchmarks are totally skewed because I, unlike a benchmarking system, have three dozen applications running when I load the game -- and I think the faster disk subsystem will make a difference.
The cost is low and they should easily beat a Raptor for transfer rates and general system responsiveness. At least, that's what I would think.
2) On the motherboard, there are 6 SATA ports which run on the ICH9R. Can I set up a 2-disk RAID0 array on the Hitachi drives, and plug in other drives to the remaining 4 ports, or is RAID0 on this chipset "all or nothing"? I do not want to have all 6 SATA ports confined to only functioning as a RAID0 array!
What are your general experiences with these drives, RAID, and (with any luck) these drives IN RAID? If someone could tell me they've done it and they had problems/no problems/huge speed increases/huge decreases, whatever -- I'd appreciate it.
If it matters, my system is soon to be:
Q6600
4GB Crucial Ballistix
Corsair 620HX
Temjin TJ09B
320GB Barracuda (current sys. drive), 2x 300GB Barracuda