System Disk + Storage array VS. One big Array

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Dr.Khron

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 28, 2002
Messages
259
Is it still worth doing the old System Disk + Storage array, or is that an obsolete concept?

Some background first:

I have not built a new PC in 5 years, cause I've been tight on funds, and I havn't been playing as much games. I've always been a HUGE fan of keeping a smaller system disk, and then larger storage disks. The primary reason is that I like to backup my system disk, first with Ghost and now with Acronis. My current rig is an AMD on an Asus A7N8X mobo with an Adaptec U160 SCSI controller. When I ran out of disk space last year, I added a Rosewill singleport SATA controller so I could add some more space
C: 9 GB SCSI 160 (10K RPM)
D: 73 GB SCSI 160 (15K RPM)
E: 320 GB SATA

Well, last night my beautiful speed demon (the 73 GB), died on me from heat exhaustion. Thankfully, it contained very little data that was not backed up, so I was able to save it all with the freezer trick.


Well, I've got the cash, and I badly need a faster comp, so now its finally time to plan for the next PC... I've been researching and browsing all night, but I really can't come to a conclusion on what my storage set up should be. I want to come up with a goal, an end solution for my final build, BEFORE I make a contingency plan to hold me over until I get the new PC built (which could be a few months, depending on how long I can hold out for the new processors).

I want some redundancy, so I'd like to go with a RAID 1 or possibly RAID 5. (Although it seems like its worth buying an expensive hardware-based RAID card if you want to do RAID 5)

So, to reiterate, is it still worth doing the old System Disk + Storage array, or is that an obsolete concept? If I just go with one big array, I can always make a separate partition for the C: drive. Alot of guys now seem to just go with 3-4 identicle drives on one big array, either all RAID 0 or 0+1 or 5.

Comments, suggestions are greatly appreciated.
 
As UM has said many of times, your system will drastically slow. In my systems, I have one that is Raid 5 and I set that up as with a single disk, then 8x320GB array.
 
Separate OS and storage is still the rule -- it is much easier for configuration and maintenance. It's mainly home user types who find adding another drive (or two) for the OS to be significant in cost/space who avoid this and go with single arrays for everything and esp. partitions / Matrix RAID for separating the OS/swap/temp from the data -- this has a performance impact due to seeking.
 
Yah, I understand the performance hit of multiple partitions vs multiple drives.. I just figured that if you have an insanely fast array, it might not matter so much.

I'm harboring fantasies of buying a nice hardware raid card, and if I do that, it would seem a shame to leave a drive out of the array.

Then again, I suppose I could buy an expensive 15K SAS drive to use for my system, and throw 3-4 500 GB SATA drives into a RAID 5 array for storage...
The expensive hardware RAID cards will let you mix and match SAS and SATA, right?
 
Unfortunately, fantasies about impact of drive performance, esp. the OS drive, on application performance don't match up with reality. Reality is that if you have a seriously drive-bound application, you can design and tune a storage system for it, but tuning the OS in the same way in the same array is not likely to be a good idea.

But hey, it's your system to do with as you please. Have fun!
 
I strongly suggest going with a separate drive for your system, if for no other reason than it makes it a lot easier to fix if something goes wrong. If your RAID goes bad for some reason (unlikely, but it happens), you'll still have a working system to try and fix it with. If your system goes bad (more likely), it makes it a lot easier to just wipe and reimage.
 
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