Raid 0 with a WD and a Seagate HDD?

[khrystiano]

Hi, I have a Western Digital hdd and recently I adquired a Seagate, both with 500gbs storage.

I just wanted to know if you recommend me to set raid 0 with this disks.

WD HDD Model: WD5000AAKS-00H2B0
Seagate Model: Seagate ST3500830SCE

Would yo recommend me to set it? Will it increase the performance?

greetings!

 

[Cerb]

Can you? Yes.

Will it increase sequential performance? Yes.

Will it increase random performance? Maybe, but it could also reduce it, with mismatched drives.

I wouldn't do it.

 

[khrystiano]

So just because can reduce the random performance you wouldn't do it? So its a big thing to have in count?

 

[Elixer]

You using hardware or software RAID?
If one drive has different characteristics, then, it could be a big problem for the controller., which is why this is frowned upon.

I would think a SSD would be a better bet, and will get you the speed you need.

 

[tweakboy]

Don't do it,, Seagate sucks when Maxtor bought them... now maxtor makes the seagate POS drives it is. gl

 

[smitbret]

I really can't see much benefit to this. RAID 0 is good for speed when you are using large data files that can easily be striped across both drives in large chunks. It still doesn't excel at random access and that's what the majority of your OS and Program Files will need. You may get some speed boost when loading large programs or get better load times between levels of games but for everything else it may actually be slower.

 

[Cerb]

So just because can reduce the random performance you wouldn't do it? So its a big thing to have in count?

No, I wouldn't do it because a new 1-2TB drive is cheap, RAID is fragile, RAID 0 especially, and it might not result in better performance. Meanwhile, unless they are brand new short-stroked 500GB drives, a new 1-2TB drive will be faster for all but copying big movies, ISOs, etc.. If they are old enough, the new drive might be faster even for that.