ATA RAID is appropiate/suitable for what kind of user?

[andylawcc]

from what I've seen, ATA RAID only booast theorectical benchmarks, even lower framerate in games too.

so is it better suited for file server ftp stuff?

edit: also, you guys RAID 1, 0, or 0+1?

 

[Mutilator]

Well I started using IDE RAID again a couple days ago w/windows 2000 and you do notice a nice boost in speed.. especially when installing stuff and copying files around... so it'd be best suited for power users and people who just like that extra boost of speed and booting into windows 5-10 seconds faster
Edit: BTW I'm a gamer and I havn't noticed any decrease in framerates in HL & Q2.. ofcouse with my system I'm getting well over my maxfps caps so I wouldn't ever notice anyway heh...

 

[andylawcc]

cool, thanks...

you do RAID 1, or 0, or 0+1?

 

[jtshaw]

There are definitly problems with IDE RAID. For starters, IDE is not multitasking, so if you put two drives on the same chain and stripe them it could slow performance because it can only read from one drive at a time. Second, none of the IDE raid controllers I have seen are truely hardware RAID controllers. What I mean by this is they don't actually perform the RAID functions themselves, they require a software driver to do it for them. This cause IDE RAID to be far more CPU intensive then a true hardware array. I believe they do have full hardware IDE RAID cards but they are very expensive, like there SCSI counterparts. I also know that with early version of the Promise drivers for the Fasttrak series (hopefully they fixed this) they incorrectly stripped the drives at times... a friend of mine lost everything when the thing failed on him.

 

[Mutilator]

Right now I'm using RAID 0 with 2 15.3GB Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 40s... seems to work pretty good with the newest drivers... a while ago I couldn't use win2k because it wasn't bootable.. new drivers fixed that problem so I'm back to RAID

 

[Workin']

IDE RAID has a few advantages for certain users who also happen to have a limited budget. I would not put more than 1 drive on each connector, then you avoid master/slave and multitasking issues.

Mirroring is appropriate for someone who needs extra protection agains data loss due to drive failure. Good for small businesses.

Striping mostly benefits reading/writing VERY large files where the data access is sequential and therefore speeded up by being able to read/write from the array drives simultaneoulsy. Let's say editing .wav audio files or video editing. I have an original FastTrack set up this way using 2 older Maxtor 6.8GB drives, and using a 350MB .wav file as a reference for informal testing, the RAID array could read and write the file ~40% faster than using the same drive set up as a single unit.

I don't recommend Mirroring + Striping using an IDE RAID controller. If you need this kind of setup, I'd say go SCSI.

 

[Dug]

I installed 2 IBM's on an Abit Hot Rod 100, and have noticed a significant boost in speed (RAID 0). I mostly do gaming, and it's nice to have everything load up faster. I personally haven't seen any drop in framerates.

jtshaw- You don't put both drives on the same chain. It doesn't matter if it's in software or hardware, you won't notice the cpu utilization. (It's very minimal btw.) And nothing wrong with software drivers telling it what to do. Almost everything in your computer needs software drivers to tell it what to do.

Anyway- to answer your question andylawcc, I believe it's better suited for people that want more speed no matter what your doing.

 

[jtshaw]

I know if you put them on seperate chains it will work fine, it was just a warning to not put them on the same chain. And there is real hardware RAID btw, where the OS doesn't even know there are more then one HD present, the card handles absolutely everything. The beauty of those kinds of RAID is they work with basically any OS.

 

[nickdakick]

Jonnyguru did a RAID test and posted it here. This should answer all your questions.
edit: see sig

 

[ALstonLoong]

i still not so sure how raid works....can anyone tell me about that ? thanks

alston

 

[jtshaw]

There are various kinds of RAID. Basically they all involve either stripping data, or mirroring data, or both. If you stripe data on an array of disks it (simple explination) would alternate bytes of a file from one disk to the other, so you have the speed of two harddrives working to load the data. When you mirror a disk it means you have an identical disk with identical data. If one of the two drives goes bad you still have the other to work off of.

That was really simplistic, I am sure there is a RAID artical out there somewhere that will give you more detail.

 

[nickdakick]

ALstonLoong, what jtshaw said and more in jonnyguru's article i linkified above, it's not just a test but gives you insight to RAID basics.

 

[ALstonLoong]

thank guys

 

[ALstonLoong]

by comparing scsi and raid which one is better ? scsi ?

alston

 

[networkman]

SCSI is better by far! However, regardless of which path you take, RAID 0 can definitely give you a speed boost, HOWEVER, do make sure you've got a good backup solution, because if one drive of a pair goes bad, you'll lose the data on both! Mirroring would protect against that, but then mirroring isn't RAID 0 either.

 

[Mday]

note, hardware IDE RAID controllers exist, cost less than $400.

adaptec has one, and promise has two (66 and 100).

 

[Pariah]

SCSI is better in the majority of situations. One spot it loses out is cost, so if you can't afford it, the point is rather moot.