RAID 0 Performance & Other Questions

[cbuchach]

I am seriously considering putting together a RAID 0 array on my new system, but have a few questions. From those that are running RAID 0, is performance noticably better on the system? I have seen synthetic benchmarks which show a pretty dramatic increase in throughput, but real world benchmarks didn't demonstrate a significant gain. I am of the mindset that the HD is the biggest bottleneck in the system and helping to alleviate it is important. So, since I will be getting a RAID capable board anyway, is it worth it to shell out $140 for an extra HD? Is system and program loading noticable faster? Is write speed improved a great deal?

I also have a quick question about drive management with RAID 0. From what I understand the RAID controller makes the two drives function as one. Does this hold true in partitioning scenarios, i.e. using Partition Magic to split up a big 60 GB drive into a multiboot 3 partition drive?

I have also heard that some of the processing needed by onboard RAID controllers is performed by the CPU, giving some overhead. Is this overhead significant? I am assuming not with 1 GHz processors, but I heard the number 30% thrown around somewhere.

Thanks for the input!

 

[JustStarting]

I have a Raid0 setup and yes- it is much faster than conventional setups. Loading time for anything on my system is much quicker. You are correct in that the drives are configured to look as one. I set mine up as one hdd- 60GB. I was going to partition but installed another 30GB hdd on IDE#1 to back up my files instead. You can partition the Raid as much as you want, but keep in mind that if one hdd craps out, you lose everything on all partitions- hence my setup on IDE#1. Check out highpoint-tech.com for info on Raid performance. I smoked their Raid 0 setup out of the box- their hdd score on Sandra was 29K, and my setup scored 36K. They benchmark an ATA100 single Hdd that scores around 20K, so there is a performance gain in all of this. As for the CPU loading they have some info on that also. I seem to recall that CPU load incresed by 25% also, but you are gaining nearly a 50% hdd performance. This seems like a fair trade off to me, especially being able to overclock my cpu by 27%- (Duron 700@ 950). With todays Hdd prices- GO FOR IT!!!

 

[AdamK47]

Being the first one in a Counter-Strike map makes it all worth it. LOL!

 

[~zonker~]

Raid rocks on the KT7A-Raid...

now that I have my system all tweaked, I'm just amazed...

with two IBM 30GB drives in RAID0 I'm getting like 44,000 in Sandra. The difference is quite noticeable, to say the least. My Duron 700is at 980

Do it, you should be quite pleased... once the confusion about the whole mes is done with ...