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Is RAID 0 overrated?

StrangerGuy

StrangerGuy

Diamond Member
Personally, I don't see a real big deal about using RAID 0. Building a RAID 0 array you need to buy a second identical drive, doubles (or even more) your harddisk subsystem failure rate but in the end the real-world performance increase is so minimal. I would rather spend money on more memory instead of RAID 0.

But then RAID 0 has become so popular everywhere and I don't really understand why.
 
How do you lose 50% of your disk capacity? If I RAID 2 120GB drives, I get a 240GB array with RAID 0. But I agree that it's often a waste of money, I too would prefer more RAM. But if you happen to have 2 identical drives to play with, RAID does sound like fun.
 
you're mixing up raid 1 and 0, here are the outlines:

raid 0:
+ no storage capacity loss
+ theorethically doubling of read/write performance
- double the risk of disk failure, and lossing a part means loosing all data, unlike a single drive where you would be able to recover some data from.
- in reality the performance increase is closer to 10-20%

raid 1:
+ data protection, if one disk fails the other still has all the data
+ theorethically doubling of read speed
- you loose one of the two disks, thus 50% of your storage space.
- in reality the performance increase is closer to 10-20%

read the AT raid FAQ next time please.
 
Originally posted by: boran
you're mixing up raid 1 and 0, here are the outlines:

raid 0:
+ no storage capacity loss
+ theorethically doubling of read/write performance
- double the risk of disk failure, and lossing a part means loosing all data, unlike a single drive where you would be able to recover some data from.
- in reality the performance increase is closer to 10-20%

raid 1:
+ data protection, if one disk fails the other still has all the data
+ theorethically doubling of read speed
- you loose one of the two disks, thus 50% of your storage space.
- in reality the performance increase is closer to 10-20%

read the AT raid FAQ next time please.
Click to expand...

Sorry guys...Looks like I the facts screwed up. I will be more careful next time.
 
RAID 5 is where it's at. Fault prtection across all volumes, hot-swapping, and speed increases as you add drives. Assuming a controller with unlimited channels, and unlimited number of drives is possible, and speed increases with every drive you add (though the law of dimishing returns applies). RAID 5 combines the best features of both 0 (speed) and 1 (fault protection) with hot-swapping in an array.
 
Originally posted by: Sahrin
RAID 5 is where it's at. Fault prtection across all volumes, hot-swapping, and speed increases as you add drives. Assuming a controller with unlimited channels, and unlimited number of drives is possible, and speed increases with every drive you add (though the law of dimishing returns applies). RAID 5 combines the best features of both 0 (speed) and 1 (fault protection) with hot-swapping in an array.
Click to expand...

Hotswapping has nothing to do with RAID-5, or any RAID level for that matter, except possibly 0 where it would be rather unwise.
It has to do with the interface.
 
Originally posted by: Sahrin
RAID 5 is where it's at. Fault prtection across all volumes, hot-swapping, and speed increases as you add drives. Assuming a controller with unlimited channels, and unlimited number of drives is possible, and speed increases with every drive you add (though the law of dimishing returns applies). RAID 5 combines the best features of both 0 (speed) and 1 (fault protection) with hot-swapping in an array.
Click to expand...

How many drives do you require, at a minimum for RAID 5?
 
Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Originally posted by: Sahrin
RAID 5 is where it's at. Fault prtection across all volumes, hot-swapping, and speed increases as you add drives. Assuming a controller with unlimited channels, and unlimited number of drives is possible, and speed increases with every drive you add (though the law of dimishing returns applies). RAID 5 combines the best features of both 0 (speed) and 1 (fault protection) with hot-swapping in an array.
Click to expand...

How many drives do you require, at a minimum for RAID 5?
Click to expand...

Three, but if you want good performance you'll need a hardware controller which is pretty costly even at the entry level.
 
The last raid5 ide controller I bought was around 250 bucks. Works well. It's been chugging away non-stop at a client's office for over 2 yrs now w/o a hiccup.

I personally run a raid 0 on my home workstation. All of my key files are stored on my server, so data loss would be minimal in case of drive failure. The last time I had a drive failure (actually the drive was still working, just excessively noisy), i tried dropping back to a single drive config (7200rpm/8m cache) and the difference was really obvious imho. Went back to raid 0 as soon as a replacement drive arrived.
 
I just got my RMA'd Western Digital Raptor back and reformatted the PC. I was running RAID0 with the 2 Raptors before and I can tell you there is quite a bit of difference in operating speed now that I had to go back to a single drive for about a month. I'm SO happy to have my RAID back! 🙂
 
Originally posted by: Sunner
Originally posted by: Sahrin
RAID 5 is where it's at. Fault prtection across all volumes, hot-swapping, and speed increases as you add drives. Assuming a controller with unlimited channels, and unlimited number of drives is possible, and speed increases with every drive you add (though the law of dimishing returns applies). RAID 5 combines the best features of both 0 (speed) and 1 (fault protection) with hot-swapping in an array.
Click to expand...

Hotswapping has nothing to do with RAID-5, or any RAID level for that matter, except possibly 0 where it would be rather unwise.
It has to do with the interface.
Click to expand...

Also, RAID5 has worse write performance than RAID0 (as the number of drives in the RAID5 increases, this penalty becomes less severe, but it's always there), worse read perfomance than a RAID1, and worse fault tolerance than RAID1 (any two disks failing ruins the array; RAID1 can lose all but one disk). Its space utilization is better than RAID1 but worse than RAID0 (again, dependant on the number of drives in the array for RAID5).

It's a compromise. A very good one for most situations, but still a compromise. It is, however, generally superior to RAID0+1 for 4-drive arrays (0+1 has better read performance, but only 50% space utilization as compared to 75% for RAID5), and unless you're super-paranoid about disk failures, it is usually the best choice for RAID arrays of >4 disks (unless your I/O is very, very read-heavy; RAID1 and 0+1 lose too much write performance as the number of disks grows).
 
Is RAID 0 overrated?
Click to expand...
Yes. For what most people here use it for, it is highly overrated. It of course has uses and is a benefit for some people, but for the most part it is mostly "placebo effect" or someone being "cool".

\Dan
 
I love my 2 raptors in raid 0 as well...there are times i may not be maxing the utilization...lol as some would say...

but i notice a big speed difference in most everything.but no hardware item is the end all be piece in a system...so ymmv

mike
 
if i ever get the money to get a decent raid controller and an extra drive, i will use RAID 0 just because it will do exactly what i want it to do for me: create one larger drive out of my two smaller ones. w/ all my current IDE channels full i need RAID to expand my storage. i look at the possibility of a drive failure with a RAID 0 config for my uses no worse than as it is now. i would be using the two as one large drive. if my drive fails now im out all my data. if it fails in RAID 0 im out my data but still at least have one working drive 🙂
 
I don;t think so... 1ms average access time ? I love it.. If I could get a 64bit slot mobo for my card, then my transfer rates would be right there also. (200)
 
its mostly good for video editing, single large fast volume. otherwise raid 1 is better for most users ..for the redundancy.
 
The performance decrease given by RAID1 is not worth it to your average user! RAID1 on backup/mp3/etc. drives on the other hand is a great idea but I don't usually suggest it for a OS/Apps drive if your looking ot get the best performance possible.
 
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