help!!**to RAID or not to RAID, that is the questions**

[Zedfu]

currently i have two 40g maxtor hard drive, one 7200rpm and the other 5400...in RAID-0 mode, is the RAID performance worthwhile compared to the performance of the 7200 drive alone, speedwise? or will the RAID performance suffer to a level less of that of the 7200rpm HDD? please help, anybody! any input is appreciated.

 

[LarryJoe]

No way, don't do it. Even if a 7200 and a 5400 combined will let you create the RAID 0 array, the speed difference of the drives will create problems. It kind of defeats the purpose of RAID 0. In RAID 0 data is split and written to both drives at the same time, this includes single files. i.e., and 8MB file will be split in half in small packets and written to both drives. The speed difference in the drives WILL cause data corruption.

Personally, RAID 0 is over-rated and extremely prone to data corruption under Windows XP and even more so if you overclock. I tried my best and wanted it to work in the worst way, but I found myself constantly reinstalling XP. Also, the benches showed no real speed advantage over a single drive. I found the most stable and secure set-up is to have your boot/OS drive on your mobo (Intel) IDE controller and to use the Highpoint/Promise RAID controllers for storage drives.

RAID 0 is a pain in the arse, IMO.

LJ

 

[Rkonster]

I'm not a RAID fan either. Don't need twice the failure rate! :Q

 

[Spac3d]

I'm not a RAID fan either. Don't need twice the failure rate! :Q

 

[Jwyatt]

Ive been using ide raid for about a year now. Its OK, but probably not worth the money you put into it. I dont have any HD corruption in xp. Using ata133 raid Benchmarks show very little over ata100 raid, but not much.

In your situation I would think it would increase the performance, but by a slime margin.

 

[AMDfreak]

In your situation I would think it would increase the performance, but by a slime margin.

Since when are performance gains slimy?

 

[Swanny]

Since when are performance gains slimy?

LOL