/delete

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I just installed another Hitachi 160gb SATA-150 hd, and transformed the array from a JBOD single disk array to a 2 disk RAID 0 array. These are the benchmarks I recorded:

HDTach on JBOD single disk
burst: 119.5 mb/s
access: 12.6 ms
CPU: 2%
avg: 47.8 mb/s

Studio 9 on JBOD single disk:
read: 38.7 mb
write: 16.7 mb

HDTach on RAID 0:
burst: 221.1 mb/s
access: 12.9 ms
CPU: 4%
avg: 93.5 mb/s

Studio 9 on RAID 0:
read: 53.0 mb
write: 30.2 mb

And while synthetics don't account for a whole lot, I honestly could tell a difference on the time it took for me to be able to start accessing programs after windows came up. So I'm happy. Here's the Disk Management screen shot...

 

[TerryMathews]

But both the reviews from Anandtech and SR.com clearly show on paragraph 8 of page 3 of the RAID 0 is for lusers review that there is no benefit to running RAID 0 on the desktop.

</idiot rant>

RAID is like SMP. It's a tool for work, not a toy for play. I hate when people say that, "2GB of RAM is useless for gaming. SMP is useless for gaming. RAID 0 is useless for gaming." I get it in real life too, some geek will ask me what my machine is, and being the nice guy I am, I oblige then I get a lecture on the proper way to build a gaming rig on a shoestring budget. Guess what... The only game I play is EVE-Online. Everything else is work-related in some manner. Even my personal Exchange server.

BTW, in case anyone cares, EVE is beautiful spread across two 19" CRTs.

 

[DaveSimmons]

RAID-0 is a bad way to spend money if your primary use is for gaming. Small real-world gains with double the risk of data loss. It's the last thing a pure gamer should spend money on, only adding it after they've bought the next-to-best CPU, 2 GB of RAM and a $500 video card.

But obviously for an application that can use the raw disk speed it can make sense for scratch disk use.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: TerryMathews
But both the reviews from Anandtech and SR.com clearly show on paragraph 8 of page 3 of the RAID 0 is for lusers review that there is no benefit to running RAID 0 on the desktop.

I agree. It is much less useful on a desktop, but it is useful on mine. As is the 2GB RAM and SMP. And it makes no sense when it is used as the primary partition. I'm merely providing my own review.

 

[MadAd]

its useful on mine too, fps games I play are team based and having a raid 0(+1) array means i regularly get to pick sniper in DoD, panzer in ET or even engineer in TFC since altho there isnt that much difference in load times seen in benchmarks (i believe the last AT review tried measuring game load times) there is a couple of seconds difference and thats enough- im only competing against one or two other early enter'ers for those precious slots instead of the whole server.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
RAID-0 is a bad way to spend money if your primary use is for gaming. Small real-world gains with double the risk of data loss.

Don't store important information on the RAID 0 array FTW!

Seriously though, you can't tell me that is completely true. People incorrectly setting up RAID 0 arrays doesn't make them useless. Put your page file on a RAID 0 array. Unless you've got so much RAM that you never page, you will see a dramatic speed increase every time you page something into or out of RAM.

And I have never bought the argument that RAID 0 increases the likelihood of data loss. Mathematically that is the way the MTBF is calculated. However, assume for the sake of argument that we're considering a 2 drive RAID 0, made up of HD1 and HD2.

HD1 and HD2 each have MTBFs of 1,000,000 hours, giving the RAID 0 array an MTBF of 500,000 hours.

HD1 dies at 250,000 hours, taking the array with it.

Right there, you'd be tempted to go "A ha! If you'd had a regular setup, you'd have gone twice as long without a failure." But you'd be wrong. You'd be just as likely to have bought HD1 as you would've HD2, and the RAID doesn't make HD1 fail - it would've even if it were being used in a single-drive environment.

MTBF is like car fuel economy figures, they are indicators but they don't directly have anything to do with reality.

 

[DaveSimmons]

In your example (single drive vs. 2-drive RAID0) the chance of buying a bad drive is still roughly 1/2 the chance of buying a bad drive in your set of 2.

You walk up to a barrel of 10 apples, one of which is coated with a deadly poison.

You buy 1 apple and eat it, chance of death is 10%

If you buy 2 apples to double-bite in tandem, chance of death rises to 20%.


Of course buying _2_ drives not-in-RAID vs. 2 drives in-RAID you have an equal chance of a drive dying, but if the drives aren't RAIDed you only lose information from the dead drive not both of them.

 

[tropic]

I use a striping array on my home machine. I do a lot of video editing, and there's no way I'll go back to a single drive when I have a nice fast array for swap space and temporary files. Two 400GB drives in RAID1 reassure me that I won't lose any finished products.

@TerryMatthews: I DO buy the argument that a 2-disk striping array is more prone to data loss than a single drive; I also wonder what the heck people are thinking striping two huge drives and storing important stuff on the array. For me there are too many caveats with striping arrays to store anything but temporary or replaceable data on them. The array is pretty much tied to the controller it was created on; broken stripes are rare, but they happen; one drive fails, and you lose the data on BOTH drives, etc. I guess I'm of the opinion that a striping array isn't something you setup just because you can, but rather something that will provide more benefit (fast HDD I/O) than cost/risk in your specific setup.

Sorry if that sounded self-righteous.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: tropic
I use a striping array on my home machine. I do a lot of video editing, and there's no way I'll go back to a single drive when I have a nice fast array for swap space and temporary files. Two 400GB drives in RAID1 reassure me that I won't lose any finished products.

@TerryMatthews: I DO buy the argument that a 2-disk striping array is more prone to data loss than a single drive; I also wonder what the heck people are thinking striping two huge drives and storing important stuff on the array. For me there are too many caveats with striping arrays to store anything but temporary or replaceable data on them. The array is pretty much tied to the controller it was created on; broken stripes are rare, but they happen; one drive fails, and you lose the data on BOTH drives, etc. I guess I'm of the opinion that a striping array isn't something you setup just because you can, but rather something that will provide more benefit (fast HDD I/O) than cost/risk in your specific setup.

Sorry if that sounded self-righteous.

A) Your point about the controller is easily mitigated if you buy from a reputable RAID controller company like Promise. Promise RAIDs are compatible across controller models, even across product lines. I've personally used a RAID 0 array created on a FastTrak 66 on a SuperTrak SX6000. The FastTrak 66 was even able to recgonize the stripe from the RAID 5, although it couldn't deal with the parity information and read the RAID type as 0+1.

B) I guess I laid out my argument but didn't put my conclusion in place - my bad. If you're talking about major corporations then yes you would see higher survival rates due to volume. On a single computer scale, however, I disagree with both of you. I think you're equally likely to have bought the drive that would fail as a single drive as you are to have bought it as a part of a striped set. I know the math isn't on my side on this one, but I think there's something fundamentally flawed with the way that we deal with MTBFs anyway. Maybe someday I'll put all of my college calc and stats to use and see if I can come up with a better way.

My point though was that playing the odds against MTBF isn't a good idea whether you're talking about RAID 0 or not. None of armchair statistics talk can even come close to replacing a good backup system. RAID 5 is good; tape is better.

Another thing to keep in mind: RAID can't tolerate multiple-drive failures. Lose 2 and you're out. Even with RAID 0+1, lose the right 2 and you're out (drive one from primary stripe, drive one from mirrored stripe).

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

TerryMathews, here's a fixed rig link for you

http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.aspx?rigid=5849

 

[TheRyuu]

The OP said he didn't want to start a war. And it looks like a war has begun. Don't get me wrong, your providing good arguments but there should be a sticky or somehting explaing why or whynot to get RAID0. That being said I just got sucked into the argument.

My take on RAID0 is if the data isn't important, then go ahead and do it to make you feel special. If it is important, either back it up or don't do RAID.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I edited the title, so this thread would end... Too bad, as I was hoping to add some information to the topic. Oh well.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
The OP said he didn't want to start a war.

If you think this is a RAID 0 war, you haven't been here long enough. :evil:

 

[JEDIYoda]

lets be very blunt!!
Only those who are not hardcore gamers say that raid0 shows no real world increases!

But both the reviews from Anandtech and SR.com clearly show on paragraph 8 of page 3 of the RAID 0 is for lusers review that there is no benefit to running RAID 0 on the desktop.

The above just is not true if you are a hardcore gamer.
Thats the bottom line!! You can spout figures and facts all you want it still does not make that statement true!
You let those who claim its not true become avid hardcore gamers and you hand them a properly set up raid0 gaming system and they will quite frankly not want to give back thats system!

Raid0 has its adavantages in gaming apps!

Granted you need to use alot of common sense also when using a raid 0 set up!!
For example always back everything up to a drive that is NOT set up in a raid0 config.
or better yet never ever put anything important on your raid0 set up!!

Yes I do realize that raid0 is a huge waste of space for just a gaming rig with 2 harddrives and possibly even 1 or 2 games!!