Actual Speed IDE vs. SATA vs. SATA RAID 0

[barryng]

I am in the process of upgrading my computer. I am trying to make a decision relative to the hard drive configuration I will use. Originally I intended to build a SATA RAID 0 array. I just discovered GHOST may not be able to easily clone the array so I will not have the safety of a full backup as I do now. I was naively intending to clone the RAID array to the large IDE hard drive I am currently using as my main drive.

I was going to the SATA RAID 0 array only because of speed. I am now wondering how much faster it really is compared to a single SATA drive. For that matter, how does the speed compare to a single Ultra ATA 100 IDE drive?

In other words, numbers aside, will a 150MB/sec SATA drive be noticeably faster than an Ultra ATA 100 IDE drive or just marginally so. Similarly, how would the apparent speed of a RAID 0 array compare to a single SATA drive.

I already purchased two WD 120 MB SATA drives and an IC7-Max3 mobo so I have the flexibilty of going in any direction I want. I just want to get a qualitative feel for the various options available.

 

[sharkeeper]

Ghost works fine with SiSATA and Intel ICH SATA RAID controllers.

I've only run into one (SCSI) HBA that would not work with Ghost unless you booted with a DOS 6.22 floppy and then you had to use a FAT16 target. Ugh.

Cheers!

 

[barryng]

Thanks for the response, that solves one of the two hurdles to set it up as a RAID array. I was pleasantly surprised as I did not think GHOST would work. I now just need to find out if committing two hard drives to a RAID array will result in any consequential gain in performance.

 

[lordtyranus2]

I've heard RAID 0 adds an average 15-20% hard disk speed.

 

[NOX]

RAID0 will be faster but nothing earth-shattering... but for many fast enough to be happy.

Has anyone heard about Ghost and the SiliconImage SATA chip, which is on the Abit NF2?

 

[Arcanedeath]

When using ghost w/ a Sil. based IDE HBA I needed to load dos drivers for the HBA to get ghost to rec. the drives on the card, it was an standards PATA 133 HBA though based on the Silicon Image 3112 chipset if I recall correctly, it did work but it was a pain getting dos drivers for my card to work correctly, I haven't had this issue w/ more main stream cards or scsi adaptors, but I suspect you'll need dos drivers for you Sil. Image HBA to make ghost work, also I'm not sure it ghost will copy a raid array correctly, infact I'm fairly sure ghost does not work on raid arrays, the best it can do is clone each drive bit for bit, if you force it to do this through command line switches. Hope this helps and good luck...

 

[EeyoreX]

In other words, numbers aside, will a 150MB/sec SATA drive be noticeably faster than an Ultra ATA 100 IDE drive or just marginally so. Similarly, how would the apparent speed of a RAID 0 array compare to a single SATA drive.

Theory: SATA currently supports 150MB/s speeds, ATA supports up to 133MB/s, so SATA is faster.

Real world: Neither will reach those speeds, so it really doesn't matter. Current hard drives are barely able to saturate the ATA66 bus, so ATA100/133 and SATA150 is currently useless, as far as speed/performance differences. This is of course, with exceptions. The WD Raptor, for example, is a bit faster than other drives. This is not because of SATA however, it is because of a 10,000rpm rotational speed. Most other mainstream drives top out at 7200rpm, and this is where the current bottleneck lies.

RAID0 performance can be as much as 20% over single drive performance, but this depends on what you are doing with it. If you will be doing things like video editing and such, RAID0 will be a benefit. For everyday computing, however, RAID0 is not that big a deal, and doesn't offer that much gain.

\Dan

 

[barryng]

I certainly apprecxiate all the responses. Based on all the input, I am going to go with a single SATA 120 Gig drive. I will use my "old" 120 gig PATA IDE drive as the usually powered down backup for use with Ghost. The the second SATA 120 gig drive I just bought can be better used as a second drive for use with my Hauppauge PVR-350 video capture card. Since the second drive will be used only as a "digital vcr tape" I am not at all concerned if it never gets backed up.