Raid 0

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K

KKiller

Banned
May 4, 2002
177
0
0
okay.. i have put up 3 posts on raid 0, and i haven't gotten any of the answers I've wanted.

Does raid 0 with 2 60 gig (2mb cache) WD drives speed up your computer?

I'd really like a review/personal benchmarks for objective decision.
 
MichaelD

MichaelD

Lifer
Jan 16, 2001
31,528
3
76
Originally posted by: Adul
not really by much, not worth the risk of loosing date with is much greater with raid 0
Click to expand...

Not wanting to piss anyone off, but I'm going to answer this thread. :)

"Speed up your computer"...that is too ambiguous; please be more specific.

The whole "your chances of losing data is much higher with RAID 0 than a single drive" arguement has been batted back and forth too many times to count.

I can tell you this; "something" goes wrong w/a RAID 0 setup much more often than w/ a single HD setup. I know, I've been there.

HOWEVER..(and this is where the fur flies) BENCHMARKS (pick one: SANDRA/Winbench99/HDTach) all clearly show that a RAID 0 setup has about a 33% transfer rate increase over a single HD setup using the same drive.

I have been running a RAID 0 setup, on two different mobos for about 18 months now. I can tell you this, from personal experience:

1. If you are a gamer, you want RAID 0; the initial, first screen of the game loads in about 1/2 the time compared to a single drive
2. Levels also load a lot faster
3. If you work extensively w/Photoshop or other image editing/video editing program, you want RAID 0; those 250mb image files that used to take 10 seconds to come up now take about 5 or 6 seconds.


Is a few seconds worth the risk of having to wipe and reload? That's a personal judgement call. To me, it is. A few other things:

1. RAID 0 is a part of the disc subsystem (no duh) that transfers from HD to memory/vice versa. If you have 128mb of memory don't bother as the fast transfers will be more than offset by the system having to use the swapfile on the HD

2. to me, it has been worth it (even through a total loss) due to the increased speeds.

3. If you run RAID 0, you NEED to have backups of any data you can't live without. It's not optional, b/c as I found out the hard way, the only things you really need are drivers, Service Packs, Hotfixes and your emails, address books and personal files burned to a CD; all those "lost saved games from MaxPayne" you can live without.

I would not run software, IDE RAID 0 (i.e. off a motherboard like mine) on a mission-critical server, or my backup rig. My secondary rig, which is also where I backup files to is as plain-jane as it gets; no overclock, no RAID, no fancy hacked drivers..all stock. But on my GAMING box, or ripping/decoding rig, it would be just fine.

Others, I'm sure, will try to shoot holes in my arguement with too much logic (bite me :p) but I can say I like R0...it's been OK to me.
 
C

CotswoldCS

Senior member
Sep 14, 2000
384
0
0
RAID 0 is faster than no RAID.
But it only offers increased disk performance. It won't let you download files quicker from the internet.
You need to have backups.
I'd recommend it if your data is not critical or you don't mind spending a few hours restoring your system when it all goes wrong. I have had RAID 0 working fine for 18 months....it's just this month when things have gone wrong!!! Despite this my next system will be RAID 0


 
R

rlc

Senior member
Jun 16, 2001
249
0
0
the type of raid controller also makes a difference as well, so far i have only used those onboard raid controller from promise and highpoint. there is a better permance gain on the raid-0 than single hdd, if you have a good backup setup, i would go for the raid-0 setup.
 
Markfw

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,281
16,121
136
I have to DITTO MichaelD on EVERY point. I also have two RAID0 systems, (I sort of argue the software on the motherboard thing, but whatever). I have also answered at least two other posts with the same information, but haven't said it as well as he did.

USE IT AND BACK IT UP, OR DON'T USE IT, YOUR CHOICE, BUT IT IS FASTER.
 
T

|TOAST|

Senior member
Dec 21, 1999
616
0
0
I love my RAID 0 setup (2x60GB Maxtor D740X on Promise TX2 - only those two drives as master on the card) and it makes it seem much faster especially when caching or dealing with large files or uncompressing large files... etc. Basically, what MichaelD said here is gospel, but I just want to give another vote for it since its an inexpensive upgrade especially if you need more HDD space... just buy the card (with the identical HDD) and back up important things often or send them to a drive that is not in the RAID configuration... that's what I do. Works great and for the performance increase (when dealing with larger files) its worth it. I agree IDE RAID is not for anything more than performance on a personal desktop but it certainly has come a long over the last several years.
 
mastertech01

mastertech01

Moderator Emeritus Elite Member
Nov 13, 1999
11,875
282
126
I run SCSI raid 0 and love it. Been using it for a long time with various interfaces. I format my system often playing around with different OS and new hardware. I backup very often for that reason alone. If you do go with IDE raid, make sure you use some dependable drives. Buying crap drives like the famous GXP IBM is just asking for lost data, even with single drives.

Certainly if you dont utilize the full potential of your complete system, you wont notice a major difference in usage with a Raid0 setup. Internet surfing is definitely no measure of performance, and many peeps here have just that, 1000-3000 dollar websurfers.. :) If you just want to see your system boot up 20 seconds faster, get a faster processor and ram.

 
P

PuppettMaster001

Golden Member
May 11, 2002
1,651
4
91
Another vote for the use of RAID 0, running 2 Seagate Barracuda 60GB in RAID 0. You definitly see a difference when using large files in winrar,winzip, photoshop, etc.
 
K

kly1222

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,102
0
0
And I thought my single 36lp was fast....heheh....nothing compared to mastertech's 4 in raid 0 :)

If you have the money, I say go with a modern scsi hdd setup. Raid 0 will only improve your tranfer rate speeds, not your access times. How often are you working with large files? For most users, the answer is no. Most of the time you are accessing files here and there across your hard drive. That's when a 15k rpm scsi drive shines. Isn't that right, mastertech? ;)
 
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