RAID 0+1 vs. RAID 1 or RAID 0 (or no RAID)

[Xatrix]

OK, building my first computer soon and have been familiarizing myself with all the latest and greatest out there.

I think I understand how RAID 1, 0, and 0+1 works... for RAID 1 and 0, you need 2 drives and for RAID 0+1 you need 4.

Obviously that's pretty expensive.

What do you guys recommend for a new gaming rig?

 

[carpenter]

For gaming you really don't need either. I run raid on one box and a single on the other and as far as gaming goes, the single hd box is faster because all the components are faster. A striped raid (0) setup will load faster, but it also boots a lot slower. System has to scan raid setup at every boot. The raid 1 setup is for backing up data and you don't need that for gaming. For most people, a fast master hd and a large slave storage drive is the way to go. I just had this conversation today with a young cousin of mine. He'll probably still go with the raid0 because he thinks it's cool and makes him sound more hi tech. Do you resemble any of this?
Also, for first comp, start simple and work up.

 

[Xatrix]

Hehe. Well I am *young* but not THAT young

I wouldnt get something just because it sounds cool. I just want the best bang for my buck. Plus I am going to probably get the s939 nforce4 SLI's when they come out, and they have uber 3 gb/s SATA action.

Not really sure if I need all that fire-power, but hey, I'm a nerd at heart

 

[carpenter]

I think running a Raptor serial drive would give you a performance boost. Not so much because of being serial, but because of the 10K rpm factor. If you want a very fast gaming rig, but want a lot of storage too, put in a raptor as master and a large 7200rpm serial drive as a slave storage drive and have the best of both worlds. It would make a great setup for everything. And you'll be playing the game while your buddy is still waiting for his raid setup to boot.

 

[Xatrix]

Thanks for the comment. I just wanted to know about RAID and how it performed. It seems, from my trolling of other threads on this site, that RAID is not really a great thing, although some people say it "feels" faster. I guess I will go with whatever gets me more bang for the buck

 

[thomsbrain]

i ran a striped RAID array for awhile, and it was certainly faster, especially for long file transfers or video work, but after the second time the array broke (drives were fine, but the array would go toes up) causing me to lose everything, i said to hell with this. i think you're better off using the drives as a mirrored array, or just as seperate drives with your important data backed up onto both of them.

 

[desy]

What you need to know about hard drives

 

[Xatrix]

Thank you Desy, that article was very helpful.

 

[dak125]

I used two WD 120 GB SE's and a cheap raid card I bought off ebay. I ran it in RAID-0 for 7 months and there was quite noticeable at first. Fast enough to do it again? I don't think I would. The risk factor of losing everything just doesn't make sense. I would just go with a Raptor drive for Windows/Programs and a nice big drive for storage purposes.

From articles I've read and what people have said there is no purpose in RAID-0 for home use, no noticeable gains. There may not be any gains via benchmarks but it sure felt faster. Or perhaps I just told myself it did .

 

[edmundoab]

no raid

 

[Frew]

Raid 5 or none.

 

[desy]

XP will boot much faster with Raid 0 as it is really optimized for it but once your up and running the dif is neglible and slower in certain functions

 

[Trashman]

Since were taking Raid here, was wondering what everones opinion on Intels new Matrix Raid, seems from what i am reading it's like the best of both worlds, raid 0 and raid 1 on a 2HD array....
link here.....Intel Matrix Raid

 

[SonicIce]

You'll save a few secs on loading tiems with Raid 0 or raptors. Not worth the money IMO.

 

[Pollock]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
You'll save a few secs on loading tiems with Raid 0 or raptors. Not worth the money IMO.

:thumbsup:
Probably no gain on loading games either, because those are generally random seeks - RAID 0 is only good for large sequential transfers.

 

[Kaiser__Sose]

Maximum pc did an article on this a couple months ago ... turned out that the RAID 0 was actually slower for gaming..
it's obviously faster for saving and storing large files etc...

you should also check out Matrix raid... has raid 1 for the OS and important files and Raid 0 for gaming and other stuff..
and it only requires 2 drives.. i think only the newer intel mobos support it though.

 

[gsellis]

Understanding it is a good thing. As a general rule though, if you don't know you need it to solve an issue, you don't need it. Installing an OS on a RAID volume will require special drivers and correctly interrupting the installation process or a special OS build. You may also need a floppy drive (I don't have one on my systems). So, if you need a big volume (and games usually don't) or need a little more fault resilience (and games usually don't), you may need to evaluate using a RAID type. RAID1 can also be answered with a good backup solution, but the RAID1 may be cheaper to implement (priced tapes and a tape drive to backup 30-80GB lately?) Although.... Nero Backup with a DVD burner might suite in some cases.