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Need recommendation on Raptor configuration

W

Wild1

Member
Just starting a new build (last component arrived today). Bought 2 74G Raptors because I was planning a boot drive with Raid 0. That was before I read all the threads on how Raid 0 may not provide a benefit. So the ? is: what would be the best use of these beasts. The raptors are already paid for so cost is no longer an issue. I?m planning to put both in my system along with a 7200 drive for addl storage. System will be used 30% audio/video editing, 30% gaming use (3-4 max games loaded at a time), 40% general computing. I will be using Norton ghost to back up the system and to provide a clean install capability for when I get too much crap loaded. So reliability of the boot drive is not a big concern. I was planning to put my ?files directory (pictures, office docs, tunes) on the 7200 drive without RAID.

So with this type of use will I see any benefit with the raptors in a raid 0? Will I get an improvement in audio /video ripping? Previous system really slowed down when Spybot and Norton System scan kicked in - Will raid 0 improve this over a single raptor?

I also saw some concerns regarding OCing and corrupted data with RAID. I am planning to OC the system, will the possibility of corrupted data be a concern with the A8N? I?ll have the backup but I still want stability.

Alternatively, would one Raptor for the boot/system/games drive and 1 Raptor for the files drive be a better use of the 2 drives? (74 G is plenty for now, could always add the 7200 later)

Anxious to get this system built this weekend so hope you guys can recommend the best config!
 
If you read the big Raptor thread that I started, it explains all about that stuff in there. From what I gathered, raid 0 for gaming is worthless, for large editing tasks, its worth it. In a nutshell. As for data corruption, doesnt happen near as much as people would like to belive.. the main thing you have to worry about raid 0 your drives is that you effectively have a 50% higher chance of data loss to one drive or another. What does this mean in the real world? probably nothing but raid 0 theoretically cuts the MTBF in half because your using two drives to maintain data integrity instead of one.
 
Piro, Thanks for the input. The thread you started was mostly 7200 vs raptor. Raptor won. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have 2 raptors sitting here on my desk wondering how best to be configured. Raid 0 -or- boot drive + separate files drive. Will the overall benefit of 2 fast volumes be better than one RAID 0 boot drive for the type of use I described above?

Since I will have a Ghost image of the RAID drive, the MTBF concern is not an issue for me
 
If you're going for speed then yes RAID 0 would be better than keeping the drives separate (As you said one for main use one for archival purposes) It can't hurt thats for sure especially if you've ghosted the drives.
 
Ribbon, do you expect the RAID 0 config will give me the overall best performance then? I was wondering if 2 drives in non RAID can provide a benefit for my typical use. I'm thinking something like OS info being fed to the system at the same time as data is being read from the data drive. Does it work that way?? Or will RAID the only way to get data being fed in parallel?.
 
The only benefit I could possibly see from singling them would be to have the page file on a seperate drive, but even then if the system was really paging, the higher file transfer would also be better in RAID0... and if your board supports NCQ, simultaneous accesses would also provide singling no benefit vs RAID0.
 
Yea I don't want to mess with putting the page file on a separate drive anyway because I'm not sure how Norton Ghost would handle that. Maybe it would work but sounds like no real benefit anyway. Any comment about the tradeoff of the "files" data coming off a slower 7200 drive? Will RAID make up for this negative? Most of the access is OS system anyway isn't it.? And when I am doing audio/vid editing I'm thinking I will work of the RAID drive (doesn't have to be permantely stored there). Sound right?
 
"Any comment about the tradeoff of the "files" data coming off a slower 7200 drive?" I don't understand your question.
 
I meant if I singled them, both OS and files drive would be 10000rpm vs if I RAID the OS drive and use a 7200rpm drive for the data drive (for my pictures, office docs...) these files would be located on a slower 7200 drive.... For reliability reasons I was planning to not place my files on the RAID 0 drives. Just wanted to be sure the downside of having these files on a 7200 rpm drive wasn't offsetting the benefit gained by putting the 2 raptors in RAID
 
In all reality the Raptors are more safe for your files than the 7200rpm drives in terms of possible disc failure. They are built for 100% duty in servers, and are basically SCSI disc and chassis layout with a SATA microcontroller. That's why they are expensive.

And since picturess and documens are tiny anyway... there would be nothing wrong with keeping em on a 7200rpm
 
Good point on the SCSI like reliability.

Ribbon, Thanks for the input. I?m going to set them up in the RAID 0 config. My two Raptors have different firmware versions, FLA1 and FLA2. In a previous post, you said there might be a utility to copy and flash the newer firmware to the down rev drive. Do you think I should make the drives the same FLA version for RAIDing? Any idea where I can get that utility? Do you still have a copy?
 
For any type of A/V editing, it is recommended 100% of the time to have a dedicated drive. So split them up. For typical use, having 2 seperate drives will be faster for most users anyway.

Raptors don't support NCQ, so I fail to see the benefit of having a motherboard that does support it.
 
Where'd you go Ribbon? The pdf isn't that big.

Different firmware should not be any sort of issue for a RAID array, and will not affect performance. Still, I would not recommend using RAID in the first place.
 
" Enterprise-class throughput ? includes Western Digital's Ultra/150 Command Queuing
technology that optimizes the sequence of data transfers to the hard drive from the host,
providing increased data transfer efficiency resulting in higher performance for enterprise
applications. (74 GB drive only)"
 
"Once in the OS, Intel's Application Accelerator software must be installed to install the AHCI driver. IAA 4.5 will also give you an overview of your storage system to let you know which drives are NCQ enabled and which are not. While our Maxtor DiamondMax 10 drives showed up with NCQ enabled from the get-go, we could not get our Western Digital Raptor drives to run in NCQ mode. While Western Digital states that their drives support Command Queuing, they do not specifically say Native Command Queuing."
 
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