Performance SATA: RAID 0 or 1?

MWoody

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Dec 8, 1999
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I've saved up some cash and started planning my uber-gaming machine. Got my ATIx800xt on preorder, beginning to price Opterons, but one big question remains: How to set up my HDDs? From research, it looks like dual WD Raptor 74Gb drives are the creme da la creme right now. However, should I have them pooled together or mirrored?

As 74Gb is more than enough space for a pure gaming machine, I don't care about the storage lost in RAID 1. But I back up my machines fairly regularly, and game saves aren't exactly mission critical data, so I don't mind the loss in reliability RAID 0 presents (besides, a 5 yr warranty leads me to believe that these puppies are in it for the long haul). In short, based on a pure gaming performance need, which setup would work best? Or does any RAID at all reduce speed below a single drive?

Thanks in advance for the help!
 

Schadenfroh

Elite Member
Mar 8, 2003
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Mirroring = raid1 = slightly slower, backsup data onto secound drive
Striping = raid0 = slightly faster, 1 drive fails and your fvked
 

Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
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Opterons?

If you're planning to go dual, put your money elsewhere, like in the bank. Dually systems will do just about zero for your gaming performance, unless you plan to game and run some intensive apps in the background. I guess you could run two of those MMORPGs or whatever.
 

Agamar

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Oct 9, 1999
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Reading will be slightly faster with mirrored drives, since both drives can seek and read the info.
 

MWoody

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Dec 8, 1999
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Just meant "price Opterons" in terms of pricing the different tiers of Opteron (haven't really started that in earnest yet). I don't intend to go dual processors; I've never been a fan of that setup, especially for gaming. Although I've read that some of ID's games will take advantage of it...
 

crsgardner

Senior member
Apr 23, 2004
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I set up a 2x 10,000 RPM HD RAID 0 in the new rig, and the performance benefit was definitely visible. HD performance benchmarks almost doubled, and file-related operations were noticably faster.

Keep in mind that any high-end RAID system isn't cheap. My drives were quite a bit each. But I'm definitely happy with the performance.
 

bigshooter

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Oct 12, 1999
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Originally posted by: MWoody
Just meant "price Opterons" in terms of pricing the different tiers of Opteron (haven't really started that in earnest yet). I don't intend to go dual processors; I've never been a fan of that setup, especially for gaming. Although I've read that some of ID's games will take advantage of it...

Why price opteron instead of a regular Athlon 64? Keep in mind that socket 939 is right around the corner.
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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For a pure gaming machine, it seems your aim is off.
SMP will do little to nothing for the vast majority of games out there, as will the disk system, assuming you don't need to go to swap, in which case any disk system will be insufficent(any within reason anyway).

Athlon 64/FX and a single Raptor would work just as well if your only goal is a good gaming machine, what you want is a fast CPU(not two), a fast videocard, and 1 GB of RAM.
 

MWoody

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Dec 8, 1999
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Sorry for the error; I had the wrong processors in mind when I said Opteron. I may either go for the 64/FX route or wait a couple of days and see if I can grab one of the few 939 processors AMD will be producing.

And I want the fast HDDs because I hate load times. ^_^
 

MWoody

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Dec 8, 1999
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Originally posted by: Agamar
Reading will be slightly faster with mirrored drives, since both drives can seek and read the info.

Now, that's what I thought, too. And write speed is almost never an issue with gaming. But noone talks about RAID 1 for speed; do current RAID controllers take advantage of this speed possibility?