RAID 0

[dalto]

I have a recently acquired MSI P6N Platinum.

I have 2 500GB SATA drives and I was toying with the idea of using RAID 0 for performance.

My question is this. Will this really be faster or is the 430i too slow for this to matter?

Any advice would be welcome.

 

[hennessy1]

There really is no performance increases in home use for raid 0. There is no backup for your data unless you manually do it. I have it implimented but raid 0 is all ive used so I cant tell you how it compares I just dont feel like losing disk space to a back up I have a lot of media I have backed up onto my hdds so I need the most space I can get.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: hennessy1
There really is no performance increases in home use for raid 0. There is no backup for your data unless you manually do it. I have it implimented but raid 0 is all ive used so I cant tell you how it compares I just dont feel like losing disk space to a back up I have a lot of media I have backed up onto my hdds so I need the most space I can get.

Yep. Little benefit for normal users, and definitely not recommended (as far as I'm concerned) if they are your only disks. Single drive + 2 disks in RAID 0, maybe, but even that is pushing it.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Most reviews feature dedicated controllers (usually $300+). I don't have much of an idea about on-board controllers but from what little I remember, RAID-0 and RAID-1 are well supported on on-board devices and everything else (such as RAID-5) is a strict no because it eats up too many CPU cycles and degrades performance? (Forgive me for my very layman explanation)

If you have another boot drive (or another computer for your primary use), you could try experimenting with the two 500GB drives and give it a shot. If it sounds like too much trouble and you don't feel like doing a mini-review yourself, I don't think you would be missing anything.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: dalto
I have a recently acquired MSI P6N Platinum.

I have 2 500GB SATA drives and I was toying with the idea of using RAID 0 for performance.

My question is this. Will this really be faster or is the 430i too slow for this to matter?

Any advice would be welcome.

2x 500 GB is a heck of lot of data to risk or to have to back up.

The 430i RAID 0 performance should be fine, and get you up to 2x the data rate of a single drive with a small stripe size (e.g. 32 K for typical 64k accesses) -- this can make a significant difference if you're manipulating very big files.

 

[dalto]

Thanks everyone.

I have a file server I keep important data such as documents and pictures.

With the exception of game saves and configuration data everything else on the drives is replaceable so this is really just about performance for me.

I appreciate the help and advice.