hard drive question

[FrozenAthlon]

need some advice.
Western Digital 100GB SE w/ 8mb Cache
or 2 Seagate 60GB in RAID 0???

Which option will lead to better overall performance?

Thanks,
Frozen

 

[bacillus]

what the main usage of your pc??

 

[Mavrick007]

The raid 0 configuration should be faster overall, but you must realize that it's not a benefit unless you are doing alot of accessing of the hard drives. ie. Copying from drive to drive, video editing, loading of programs, running multiple concurrent users from a server, etc. Raid 0 is also not very safe for the fact that if one drive fails or you lose the raid array for some reason, then you lose everything from both or all drives. The really safe bet is to mirror(which gives you no speed increase) or stripe/mirror(which gives you speed, but also uses another drive to backup).

Now the WD SE drive with 8meg cache is the fastest ide drive out right now(mainly cause of the large cache, most ide drives have 2megs or less). It is going to be slower than a raid array of 2 drives and much slower than 4 drives, but most people's general uses are not as intensive to require a raid array because when you are already in a program, most operations do not take alot of time to execute on the drive. For instance, after a game loads, game speed isn't as much of a factor cause of your drive and you won't notice as much difference between a raid array or a single drive.

Now if you are going to be doing anything like running a server, or can't wait that extra few seconds for the program to load, doing high speed video transfer, or anything like that, then you might want a raid setup, or better yet, take a look at SCSI drives. I wouldn't use Raid 0 unless you were going to back up everything or use Raid 0+1. SCSI will cost you more cause of the controller and the drives themselves cost more but that's still an option since it's faster than just a Raid 0 setup, or compareable at least.

The WD SE 8meg cache single drive is a nice drive and I would definitely consider it if you want a "faster than the competition" drive, but again it just depends on what you want to do with the drive.

 

[FrozenAthlon]

thank you very much for your advice thus far....
I currently have a seagate 60gb HD thats works flawlessly, I almost dont want to give it up.
But my computer manufacturer is sending me a free upgrade but i have a choice, another 60gb HD or 100gb w/ 8mb...
Here's my mixed feelings. If i have them send me another HD I need to purchase raid card also I will be dealing with multiple drives.
If I take the 100GB I dont need any extras and still should improve my performance compared to what I have currently.

What will I be missing out on if I dont go with RAID? Also this is a gaming rig. no video editing

Thanks Again,
Frozen

 

[Whitedog]

RAID certainly does NOT improve your gaming experience. Most all games load what it needs into RAM and your set.

This business of "RAID being so much faster!!!" is sooooo over-hyped it's pathetic. The average user benifits ZERO from using a RAID configuration. Oh yea.. windows may boot up 5 or 6 seconds faster... big deal.

If you've ever experienced a hard drive crash (corrupted data) you would steer far from RAID0.

If it's performance you are looking for, and are a serious system builder , get a 10,000 rpm SCSI sysytem. 40x safer than RAID0 (stand alone drives, SCSI is 10x safer with your data than IDE) and just as fast (what you loose in transfer rate you gain back in Access time... and BTW, RAID0 does NOT increase access time, only transfer rate).
Of course most people don't want to fork out the $$$ for a SCSI system... but then again, most people are not "serious" when they "claim" to be a "hard-core" system builders.

.02

 

[Mavrick007]

OK, if you are just running a gaming rig, I would definitely go for the single WD SE 8meg cache drive. It's a great drive and larger than the 60gig(if you want another 60gig like the one you have to do raid or whatever in the future, you could always get the WD 100gig now, sell it for more than the 60gig and get yourself a 60gig plus a bit of extra money left over too). This way you don't have to purchase a raid card now since you don't already have the card or onboard raid.

You will probably achieve the best performance from the WD 100gig 8meg cache drive if you put it on the second channel and use it for your gaming needs or whatever you will be using mostly for programs. I would keep my os and utilities and whatever else, maybe a partition for a swap drive onto the other 60gig Seagate that you presently have. This way you don't have to go back and forth from drive to drive for access. Either that, or run everything off of the WD 100gig drive(os and games and what not), and use the 60gig Seagate as an archive or backup drive, but try to keep the hard drives on separate channels if not in raid.

You probably won't be missing out on much if you don't go raid. I was strongly considering Raid 0 for awhile myself and almost bought a mobo with raid (the Abit Kr7a-raid), but I decided against it since it's so risky for just more speed. Your games will still play plenty fast with the single drives but loading will probably take a couple of seconds longer, big whoop. At least if something goes wrong with a single drive, you will still have one good drive ready.

 

[Whitedog]

With as much memory as he has, he shouldn't concern himself about a "swap file". I certainly wouldn't waste creating a partition just for that. With 512MB ram, at most his swap file usage would be 10-20 megs, which no one would notice.

 

[FrozenAthlon]

thanks for your input, helps out alot!

RAID might be faster, 1 drive is easier to setup and safer with info.
Even though Im a performance kinda guy, i dont have the $$$ for SCSI!

But I will benefit from a 8meg cache correct?

 

[AluminumStudios]

I don't like RAID 0 - twice the chance of loosing everything (if a single drive dies all data is lost.)

In my last few years as a systems analyst I've sen more Seagate drives die than all other brands combined. I will never buy a Segate because of this. At one point I had so many dead ones I used to line them up and play HD dominos just to freak people out

So my vote is for the single WD

 

[Mavrick007]

True, with that much ram you probably don't need a swap file, but it depends on the OS being used too.
I suggest a partition for a swap file or virtual memory cause it makes it a bit more clean than using it off the C: drive, but it's not needed at all with his specs.

Yes, you will benefit with the 8meg cache, it should be a much faster drive than the current Seagate that you have.

 

[FrozenAthlon]

thanks again guys, the OS im using in winxp. I never did a seperate partition for swap file...

 

[Whitedog]

I don't know what you mean by "clean" for a swap file... If you can manage to get your swapfile as an unfragmented file it will remain that way forever as long as you don't change it and it absolutly doesn't affect the rest of the drive what-so-ever as far as performance. There is completely too much hype put into "tweaking your swapfile" and the end results gain you nothing. But don't take my word for it, the masses will say otherwise.

As for Frozen Dude, I would get the 8meg cache IDE drive. Those are good drives. You can't go wrong with them.

As for Seagates... Yes, their IDE line has had some REALLY bad drives... they are just old "Conner" technology (if anyone knows who Conner was, they made total $h1t drives), but Seagates SCSI Drives own! I'm just saying the scsi drives are really Good! Maybe not the best money can buy, but certainly worthy.

 

[FrozenAthlon]

bump

 

[FrozenAthlon]

how about another bump.