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Ok, what's a better upgrade- RAID or RAM?

D

Dug

Diamond Member
I'm running an IBM GXP 30g on my motherboards ATA100 controller with 128m ram right now.

I need to upgrade something cause I'm bored.

I'm really interested in comments from people that have gone to ATA RAID and what they think about the performanc.
 
RAM

Software RAID0 sucks CPU cycles.
So unless you have a very fast CPU and feel that you are very limited by the transfer rate of your hard drive SW RAID0 won't help you.

Get more RAM do it now while it's cheap.
Get 256MB more.
 
If you are seriuosly considering RAID, forget the HPT370 controller, it has timing issues with your IBM drive. Although the performance improvements in data throughput are not as good as a full hardware solution, current IDE RAID setups do offer some benefits. Raid 0 does a good job of balancing I/O activity equally across two drives, very difficult to do manually. CPU utilization increases quite a bit but if your not short on CPU its not that bad. Its probably a good experiment to advance your knowledge.
 
Noriaki-

I'm runnin at 952Mhz. And I realize that software raid sucks down cpu cycles- but your cpu isn't doing anything while it's accessing the hard drive, is it? Example- loading a new level in a game. The game isn't going to continue until it's loaded off of the hard drive. Am I wrong?
 
Not that big a deal. I reformat all the time. Nothin like a clean install to give you that oh so fresh feeling.
 


<< Example- loading a new level in a game. The game isn't going to continue until it's loaded off of the hard drive. Am I wrong? >>

Interesting point. I'd never thought of it that way before. I guess it would make sense that when you aren't accessing the disk you aren't using the extra CPU time. But if you try to access virtual memory in the middle of a game it would suck some CPU cycles. Though with a ~950 that's probably not a huge deal...

But if you use Win2k you defiantely want more than 128MB of RAM.
I was looking at performance monitor in Task Manager (hit Ctrl+Atl+Del and then Alt+T if you don't know where it is) and sitting with only one copy of IE and ICQ open was using over 64MB of RAM.
Win2k is a RAM hog..Win2k is why I'm moving above 128MB.

Maybe IDE RAID0 wouldn't be so bad after all, but either way in Win2k I'd want more than 128MB RAM.
 
Bump

I would also like to hear other ppl's opinions who are running raid 0.
Still haven't made up my mind if the little extra cash to set it up would be worth it.
 
I use to have RAID-0, but I sold it because I didn't notice a big difference in speed. I would go for RAM just because it's the buyer's market right now.
 
I'm running Raid-5 on an Abit BP6 with 5 - 20Gig maxtor HD's. I don't notice much of a difference in speed. I just use the Raid for redundancy and so the drives show up as one volume. Also note that I never did do any sort of a benchmark on the raid volume. If you play games, UT especially go for the extra ram.
 
I have both Raid 0 and 228mb ram. Both upgrades are noticeable in a game like UT. If you can only choose one I'd go with the ram first then Raid later.

I use 2 IBM 75gxp 15gb in Raid 0 and while UT loads in a matter of a few seconds the extra ram reduces disk thrashing. Both would be a win/win situation, but ram is always faster than disk access.

By my calculations though my raid setup gives me about a 90% increase in transfer rate over a single disk.

I get around 68k in HD-Tach and ~41000 score in Sandra.
 
Get more RAM. It is a VERY easy upgrade and you will notice a performance increase in most applications (especially games) since Win2K is so RAM hungry. Trust me, I've made the jump. Win2K loves RAM like it was going out of style.
 
raid
CS loads up 2x as fast
I've gone from 128 to 384 megs and the performance difference is not nearly what i gained from going to raid (2x ibm 15gb 75gxp's)
 
I'me running Raid0 with 2 x IBM GXP drives, and this was my best upgrade for speed, 256 meg of ram wasn't as noticable an upgrade as the raid was. my processor is a pIII @ 933 so the cpu usage wasn't a big issue. IMHO
 
Well certain games love the RAM more than the RAID. I think that it is a lot less headaches than installing RAID. I know RAID probably wasn't that hard, but the possibility of problems is much higher than with RAM as long as you observe ESD precautions with the RAM.
 
I have dual IBM 75GXP on RAID0 and 256MB RAM. Both of them makes very remarkable speed boost in my Win2000 system. My suggestion is:

If you devote more time in Win2000, get more RAM first. 128MB in W2K is jsut like 64MB in W98, swapping happens frequently.

If you use Win Me maily, then it will probably benefit from RAID0 more because 256MB RAM is a waste to Win9x legacy kernal.
 
Hmm, I was thinking of getting an Abit BX133 mobo and another IBM GXP75 to go with the one have now...so is this a know fact, the HPT370 has problems with the IBM drives in RAID 0?
 
Some people say yes, others say no... I hope not, because im building a computer with kt7-raid and 2x30GB 75GXPs that I plan to use in raid-0... i would like to hear any comments about this.
 
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