Decisions...decisions

[Brig]

Two questions on hard drive installation, please.

I?m getting ready to install a pair of 75GXP?s on a BX133-Raid board (440bx,ata100,hpt370,700e @ hopefully about 950mhz, 128mb). My ?logic? self says to set them up raid1. My ?fun? self says to set them up raid0. (When you think about it, that?s quite a decision for a gamer; speed of access vs tons of patches, mods, etc. Not excluding others here, just only talking about what I know.)

First question:
Is there really any noticeable benefit to be gained in a game by going to raid0 ? I understand that the system drive stats would look better, but what about human perception ? Will the overall game actually feel ?smoother?, or will the speed of ata100 already be pushing data as fast as the software can actually use it ? Know what I mean ?

Second question:
I?ve searched, and can find no reference for an answer to this question. Given that no more devices will be hooked up to the high speed channels, are there any advantages to be gained by setting the drives (either raid0, or raid1) as master/slave on one channel, or both as master on two channels ?

Wasn?t quite sure about which forum to put this on, but it seems to me like these are more of a ?chip? question than a ?drive? or a ?game? question.

Thanks

 

[Ausm]

I would set it for 0 + 1 stripping and mirroring to get both performance and system restoration capabilities..

Ausm

 

[Brig]

ausm

Thanks, I would love it, but I'm limited to the two drives (need four for that set up).

 

[toph99]

personally i'd go for the raid-0 and use my zip to back up anythin important... but thats me other than that, i'm not sure about the master/slave config etc. i THINK <l>www.sharkeyextreme.com</l> had somethin on it, but i might be mistaken. ask jeeves maybe? i dunno, sorry

 

[Ulysses]

I'm not a gamer, but I would think that since you went for the Abit RAID board you wantted performance, so I would say go for the RAID 0 set up, which will give much better performance, generally speaking, than a RAID 1 or no RAID. But you must still make some plan for backups 'cause the RAID 0 leaves you very vulnerable (or at least twice as vulnerable as no RAID, if you are using just two drives.

Personally, I'm planning to set up a RAID 0, but with an add-in board, and I intend to use 3 HDD's - 2 for the RAID &amp; 1 for backup.

 

[Brig]

Yep, you're absolutely right ! Why own an eight cylinder engine if you're only gonna fire four cylinders.

toph99-
I will do exactly that, run raid0...backup directories to zip.

Ulysses-
Hmmm...interesting about the three drive approach. You know, the thought of doing that did cross my mind. But, all info I found about raid said that drive combinations needed to be physical drives, not logical devices. I'm very interested to know what you have/will find out about that. Maybe makes a difference with an add-on card vice on-board controller ? I don't know. Whaddya think ?

 

[Ulysses]

It is hard to find good comparisons of the integrated vs. add-in RAID controllers, but I think the Promise RAID cards are hard to beat. And they can be moved from mobo to mobo.

My intention is to use a Promise RAID board with a couple of IBM 75GXP's in a RAID 0. For backup I want to use a 3rd HDD that will be disconnected (removed) for security except during the backup process. The backup would be maybe once a week using Norton Ghost to make an image of the RAID onto the removable 3rd HDD. But I'm still thinking about this.

 

[Brig]

Doh ! You did say &quot;3 HDD's - 2 for the RAID &amp; 1 for backup&quot;. My eyes must have been crossed when I read it because, of course, I saw '3 HDD's'...then the brain disengaged from the eyes. But...you already knew that.

That may also be the perfect (such a thing ?) backup setup in my situation. Would certainly be easier than zip disks. Although, the security factor isn't an issue in my case, so it's going to come down to a cost/benefit thing with me.

Thanks for the good idea.