Which RAID will be faster for me?

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YelloFelloJP

Weaksauce
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Jan 7, 2004
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I'm in the planning stages of building a new performance desktop rig and I need some input on the HDD setup I should use. I've been considering two different RAID setups but I need some help in determining which setup would be better for me.

Speed is the most important factor for me, followed by noise, and lastly heat generation. This decision will probably also determine the type of motherboard I will be using for this build since this will tell me the number of IDE/SATA connections I need.

Option 1: (4) x WD800JB running in RAID 0 +1

Option 2: (2) x WD740ADFD running in RAID 0

I already have the four WD800JB drives on hand so Option 1 is looking to be the more economical choice. Option 2 will set me back $300. If I choose to go with Option 2, will the performance improvement be worth the extra $300?
 
So I guess data redundancy isn't important then?

Why not run those 4 WD drives in raid 0. 4 of those vs 2 raptors in raid0. The WDs might be slightly faster. Nothing huge. But you should have higher sustained read rates. Your random seek times will be slower though.

Save the money and keep your 80gb drives in Raid0.
 
Thanks for the feedback.

The reason I didn't list RAID 0 with four drives as an option is because it doubles the risk of failure as opposed to two drives in RAID 0, which is already a greater risk than no RAID at all. Speed is important, but speed is nothing without reliability. I'm willing to risk running a RAID 0 with two brand new drives with new warranties, but four older drives with no mirroring sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen.
 
Raid5 is always an option for you then.

You have redundancy and speeds that are higher than a single drive. Not sure how fast it would be compared to the raptors in Raid0. I would imagine it would be slower.
 
I'm not all that familiar with RAID 5, but from what I recall, it's basically RAID 0 with an additional parity drive that corrects smaller errors (please correct me if I am mistaken).

What happens in the case of a drive failure in a RAID 5 setup?
 
YelloFelloJP said:
I'm not all that familiar with RAID 5, but from what I recall, it's basically RAID 0 with an additional parity drive that corrects smaller errors (please correct me if I am mistaken).

What happens in the case of a drive failure in a RAID 5 setup?
Click to expand...

You're safe in the situation of a drive failure. BUT... I'm not sure if you can keep using the existing 3 drives. I really don't think you can until you get the other drive replaced and rebuild the array.

Now that I'm thinking about it... Just do the 4 drives with 0+1. That's your cheapest option and its not going to be too slow either.
 
Thanks for all your help DriveEuro, but I have one last request.

Do you know of any place where I could get some HDD benchmarks, specifically for the 74gb Raptors in RAID 0 and 7200RPM drives in RAID 0?
 
DriveEuro said:
You're safe in the situation of a drive failure. BUT... I'm not sure if you can keep using the existing 3 drives. I really don't think you can until you get the other drive replaced and rebuild the array.

Now that I'm thinking about it... Just do the 4 drives with 0+1. That's your cheapest option and its not going to be too slow either.
Click to expand...

Yes, if one drive fails, you can continue to use the array. However, if another drive fails, say goodbye to all your data.

With Raid 5 comes the expense, if you are willing to pay for it, I would suggest doing it.
 
So what you're saying is that if I choose to go for a RAID 5 with four drives, it would be the equivalent of a three drive RAID 0 with room for a single drive failure?

Also, the WD800JB drives I have are IDE drives. Will that affect performance in a RAID setup? I know that the SATA interface allows for greater bandwidth all around, but could the slower IDE interface create a bottleneck of sorts if I went for the RAID 5?
 
YelloFelloJP said:
So what you're saying is that if I choose to go for a RAID 5 with four drives, it would be the equivalent of a three drive RAID 0 with room for a single drive failure?

Also, the WD800JB drives I have are IDE drives. Will that affect performance in a RAID setup? I know that the SATA interface allows for greater bandwidth all around, but could the slower IDE interface create a bottleneck of sorts if I went for the RAID 5?
Click to expand...

a full IDE channel should not hamper performance, but unless you have a mobo with 4 IDE channels, you are looking at putting two drives on each IDE channels, which limits the theoretical throughput per diskpair to 133 MB/s. This should not be that big of a bottleneck, but it might cause you to not pull all the speed you can from it

my suggestion would be to try the raid 5 thing, IIRC there are some mobos with integrated RAID 5 capacity, and as said, it does allow for a drive to fail, while it offers more capacity then 0+1
 
I'd probably be more likely to max out the bandwidth of the RAID controller before I max out the IDE channels, huh?
 
I think a two or three drive RAID-0 and a manual backup to a seperate unRAIDed drive is best for both performance and reliability. From my experience RAID of any level is much more prone to failure than a single drive just because the controller and RAID add another point of failure to the system. Also data recovery from a failed RAID can be much more difficult than from a single drive.
 
YelloFelloJP said:
I'm not all that familiar with RAID 5, but from what I recall, it's basically RAID 0 with an additional parity drive that corrects smaller errors (please correct me if I am mistaken).

What happens in the case of a drive failure in a RAID 5 setup?
Click to expand...

How about you take a look at the RAID FAQ here:
http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=RaidLevels

DriveEuro said:
Why not run those 4 WD drives in raid 0. 4 of those vs 2 raptors in raid0. The WDs might be slightly faster. Nothing huge. But you should have higher sustained read rates. Your random seek times will be slower though.

Save the money and keep your 80gb drives in Raid0.
Click to expand...

What if his application is mostly limited by seek times?
 
I'll be using this computer for playing awesome games, watching hi-def content off the HDD and messing around in photoshop, in case you were wondering what this computer will be doing.
 
YelloFelloJP said:
I'll be using this computer for playing awesome games,
Click to expand...
some games benefit more from a fast-seeking drive, others from a high-STR drive.
watching hi-def content off the HDD[
Click to expand...
depending on which player you are using and whether you are interested in skipping a lot, the operation is more STR or more seek dependent. I am not quite sure on the HD data rate, but I think it is much less than the STR of any current generation HDD, so you will likely only benefit if you can reduce the seek times in order to skip around in the movie. This can be done by reducing the seek distance (higher data density on the platter) or increasing the seek speed (higher RPM drive, faster seeking head).
 
I don't know if someone addressed this already, but the fact he is using IDE drives poses a problem. Optimum performance for IDE drives is when they are on the primary IDE channel. Also, how many mobos out there offer IDE RAID? If you do find it, you will only have 2 connectors at best meaning 2 primary and 2 secondary, I would think that would cause a performance hit. There is also using an external IDE RAID controller which will add cost, especially one that supports RAID 5. I think a pair newer SATAII Seagate7200.10 drives in RAID 0 will offer similar performance, more space, less noise and heat than 2 Raptors and depending on size, you can save $100-$150. You can even sell your 80GB drives for about $20-$25 each and recoup some of your cost. I think that's your best bet,
 
YelloFelloJP said:
I'll be using this computer for playing awesome games, watching hi-def content off the HDD and messing around in photoshop, in case you were wondering what this computer will be doing.
Click to expand...
drizz hit it right. Games benefit from high disk speeds. As for the hi-def content, I would think you would benefit more from a better video card than how much space or speed you need.
wolfofsin said:
I don't know if someone addressed this already, but the fact he is using IDE drives poses a problem. Optimum performance for IDE drives is when they are on the primary IDE channel. Also, how many mobos out there offer IDE RAID? If you do find it, you will only have 2 connectors at best meaning 2 primary and 2 secondary, I would think that would cause a performance hit. There is also using an external IDE RAID controller which will add cost, especially one that supports RAID 5. I think a pair newer SATAII Seagate7200.10 drives in RAID 0 will offer similar performance, more space, less noise and heat than 2 Raptors and depending on size, you can save $100-$150. You can even sell your 80GB drives for about $20-$25 each and recoup some of your cost. I think that's your best bet,
Click to expand...
There are very few motherboards that have RAID 5 IDE. Motherboard RAID 5 is not as fast (or as good) as a separate card. You can also do software RAID in Linux, but again, it is not as fast as a RAID card.
 
zOMG so I just checked out Newegg.com to see what all this 7200.10 nonsense was about (mind you the last computer I built was over four years ago, so I've been kind of out of the loop). Well it turns out that Newegg is having one of those combo deals where I can get one 250gb Seagate 7200.10 drive plus the Antec P182 tower for two and a half bucks (after mail-in rebate).

Well it just so happens that the P182 is the case that I've been planning my build for. Not exactly the Kind-of-Tacky-Totally-Chromed-Out Edition-with-Spinners-and-Optional-Moonroof that they're tootin' their horns about on the deal, but I'm willing to make compromises to save some green.

So I'll probably get another 7200.10 and RAID 0 those suckers and deal with manual backups from time to time.
What do you guys think? Good buy or not?
 
I think 2x 7200.10s would be the best way to go. And the P182 ain't half bad either, lol
 
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