RAID 0 when playing Games

[Rimnet]

Does having a RAID 0 setup help a lot when playing games or not? Would you rather have:

a) 1900+ XP w/ (2) WD800JB (80gb) in RAID 0

or

b) 2100+XP w/ (1) WD1200 (120gb)

 

[pac1085]

If the game is hard drive intensive then it would help...if not it wouldnt really...

Id rather have the 1900+ with raid

 

[MWink]

When I had a RAID 0 setup it seemed to slow games down rather than speed them up. 😕

 

[Goosemaster]

In RAID 0 access times drop a little while the sustained transfer rates obviously increase

 

[MrGrim]

According to HD Tach my WD1200JB's performance is on par with my 2x40 IBM 60GXPs on RAID0.

For what I hear the WD Special Edition HDs do not perform well in RAID configurations. I remember reading a post about somebody e-mailing WD and them shipping him HDs especially tweaked for RAID.

 

[Sunner]

It wont help at all in the vast majority of cases.

I'd take the XP2100 anyday.

In fact I'd never considder RAID0 to begin with, I'd rather spend the money on some kind of backup device, rather than doubling my chances of losing my data without any backup.

 

[Woodchuck2000]

Definitely the faster CPU. Unless you're fanatical about loading times, you'll get more fun out of a fast CPU.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

I ran a RAID 0 on an XP1800 (@145fsb) and running a RAID 0 on a P4 1.6A (@150fsb). Granted I took no measurements, but it's significantly faster to me. The other reason I wanted it is because I was using 2 small (30 gig) drives and wanted it spanned as one 60gb drive.

I'd take the decreased loading times of RAID 0 over 122mhz or whatever in processor speed (shame on me, I can't remember what the steps are 🙁)

 

[vash]

if (fps != smoothness) {
buy_2100xp();
}

if (leveloadtimes != smoothness) {
buy_raid_setup();
}

vash's choice is the better fps.

vash

 

[MichaelD]

Not sure about those WD drives you have in mind, but I've been running RAID 0 for about 18 months w/two Maxtor 40GB drives and love it.

For gaming purposes, it's awesome. Game initially loads faster. Levels load faster. If you have a fast CPU (at least 1GHz) and at least 256mb of memory, RAID 0 can really help you out in the gaming area.

Yes, there is ZERO fault tolerance and if it crashes you are screwed (that's why they call it RAID 0 b/c that's what you're left with if it crashes! 😀) but I don't rely on my main rig for storage/archiving purposes. I burn things like maps/pics onto CDs and/or store them on other HDs for backup purposes.

Benchmarks like HDTACH and SANDRA show my two drive setup to be about 33% faster (higher transfer rates) than a single drive. In my opinion, Zero Rocks!