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RAID 0: 2x74gb Raptors (1x8mb & 1x16mb)

Yea, i've seen that review. But the people I talk to, that run Raid 0, tell me you notice the difference. But now that I think about it, I don't think they are using raptors.
 
You can stripe pretty much any two drives together, just know that your array will be limited by the maximum performance of the slowest unit in the array.

There are TWO major differences between your old raptor and the new one, first is the cache size... the other is platter density. The old 74 gig Raptors used a pair platters while the newer models use a single one. This means the older Raptor, in addition to having half the cache (negative on random access performance), it's also going to be slower moving data off of the platter once it finds it

I would be curious if you ran some benchmarks on the older Raptor versus a current generation Seagate, WD or Hitachi 7.2k unit to see how different performance actually is. I have a hunch the older Raptor is not going to hold up nearly as well against current competitors than the newer higher platter density models. Since your array will only run as quickly as the slowest drive in it this could be a significant issue and may actually give you worse performance than simply running the new 74 gig Raptor independently.
 
In this Dutch review you can read on the performance difference when combining the older "GD" raptor with the newer "ADFD":
http://tweakers.net/reviews/621/7

(the figures are pretty self-explanatory)

Furthermore i would guess that an obsolete ICH5 controller used in the flawed Anandtech review bamacre posted, is no longer relevant.
 
So if i don't run RAID, what recommendation do you have for my configuration?

8mb - OS, Applications, Pagefile
16mb - Games

??
 
I don't think games would profit from cache really, you might want to reserve this for the OS disk instead. But 8MB or 16MB really does not have such a big influence on overall performance.
 
Do you have data on another drive / array? RAID 0 is great as far as I'm concerned, but it shouldn't be used as ones primary volume.
 
Right now I have:

1xWD 74gb Raptor 8mb
- OS
- Games
- Applications
- Pagefile

1xSeagate 250gb 8mb
- My Documents
- Movies, PC Restore Files, Game Patches, etc...
 
Platters & cache are no big deal... There's hardly any performance difference between the 8MB & 16MB versions. Run them in RAID 0 if you want.

Disclamer: The RAID 0 advice above assumes that...
A. You are religious about your backups or
B. Don't care if your data is lost to one drive going bad.
 
If it were my system, I'd probably swap out the 8 MB Raptor for the 16 MB, and leave the larger drive for storage. Then you can always sell the 8 MB Raptor, or use it in another system.
 
Originally posted by: travsav
Yea, i've seen that review. But the people I talk to, that run Raid 0, tell me you notice the difference. But now that I think about it, I don't think they are using raptors.

Some people swear by HEAD ON APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD too.
 
No big dealie, in worst case it will be like RAID0 of two older 74GB raptors.

IMO RAID0 gives decent everyday boosts regardless if it was built of 10k or 7.2k rpm drives: it makes Raptors exceptionally fast, and helps 7.2k rpm drives become significantly faster in a crude sense.
 
Originally posted by: postmortemIA
No big dealie, in worst case it will be like RAID0 of two older 74GB raptors.

IMO RAID0 gives decent everyday boosts regardless if it was built of 10k or 7.2k rpm drives.
That is MO also. 😉

 
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