Best RAID Disk Layout for a Developer?

[CDigs]

So I'm finally upgrading next month or August with the release of Conroe and I started thinking about disk layout.

As I've never given much thought to this in the past (never had a board with RAID (yes, it's been that long since I upgraded (5-6 years))), I've started to wonder what the best disk layout for me would be.

Typical applications I run, day to day:

Visual Studio - Read intensive on load (especially with ReSharper installed as well), write intensive on build/save.
SQL Server - Mostly read.
IIS - Mostly read.
Photoshop - ??
VMWare/VPC - Heavy disk usage, both read and writes.
Remote Desktop - Disk usage is negligible.

Disk space is not really a priority; I've been using my laptop with a 60GB Hitachi divided into 3 partitions without any real issues. My primary goal is speed (w 7200 RPM SATA, 10K would be too expensive and noisy).

So I've been thinking of using three 200 GB disks. Two disks in RAID 1 in two partitions, C, D. C = 50 GB for Windows + Programs. D = rest of it for critical files (databases, project files, etc). The third disk, E, would be completely used as a file store for non-critical files like movies and such.

Another setup I've been debating is three 200 GB disks in RAID 5. This would net the same 400 GB total disk space and theoretically offer better read performance at the cost of a possible write performance penalty for calculating parity.

Or perhaps 1+0 would be a better choice? (But that would require 4 disks).

Any advice would be appreciated 🙂

 

[spyordie007]

On all of these things you're going to want fast non-sequential I/O and as you mentioned space isnt really the priority.

That said I would go for Raptors (10K RPM SATA), RAID isnt even going to be that important (save for VMWare). I would probably do 2x74GB Raptors in a RAID-1 array and than a slower, larger drive (200GB) to back up your data as needed.

I dont like to do RAID-5 unless I have a true dedicated hardware controller (which generally cost more than most are willing to spend on a desktop).

 

[XZeroII]

At work, I have two raptors. No raid. I use one for my OS and for general use. And the other is dedicated to virtual machines. It is an amazing configuration because my VMs hardly have any effect on my main OS since they are on separate drives. Very fast and I highly recommend it. If you raid them together, you'll have your regular machine and your VMs fighting all the time.