RAID and Gaming

[racolvin]

Just as a learning experience to share with the rest of the class ...

I recently put together a new rig, because I like to play a few games but mostly just because I wanted a new rig anyways .. just don't tell my wife that

I assembled my rig with a RAID 5 array, both because I liked the data protection aspect (nobody likes to do a full reload of all their stuff if they can help it), but also because the _read_ speed of a RAID 5 is great for loading data as you change zones in your favorite game. Actual gameplay isn't any faster of course but the shorter the tranfer from zone to zone makes the game flow flaster so you don't lose your groove waiting for the next zone to load

That being said, please keep something in mind: the biggest benefit for that sort of thing is for games you play on your PC SOLO - Doom 3, HL2, FarCry, SplinterCell, etc. If you play online games like Halo, EQ2, WoW, Quake, Unreal, etc, the RAID array will help you a little, but the biggest wait is for the servers and the connection to deliver data to you, so the RAID doesn't help much.

Thought I'd share a little, since I was a bit shocked that my EQ2 zoning time wasn't nearly as fast as I'd hoped it would be when I put the RAID 5 array in. That's when I realized that I'm waiting on the EQ2 servers for data, so I can't go any faster than they'll let me

R

 

[Rike]

Yup, price-for-performance, RAID for gaming doesn't make sense.

 

[racolvin]

Originally posted by: Rike
Yup, price-for-performance, RAID for gaming doesn't make sense.

Depends on the price you paid I guess. I have a bit of buyer's remorse at the moment simple because of my own stupidity - I didn't think about the online component of the slow load times. When I play Doom 3, I changes levels lighting fast, so I like that part, but I play online games more often.

But ultimately I have a speedy rig, my data is protected by the RAID, and some things I do are much faster because of the RAID, so I won't say its a total loss .. just probably more than I should have paid had I been thinking further ahead

R

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: Rike
Yup, price-for-performance, RAID for gaming doesn't make sense.

pfffff raid 0 is faster for gaming specialy if u have 2 raptor drives on raid on scsi on raid

 

[sharkeeper]

pfffff raid 0 is faster for gaming specialy if u have 2 raptor drives on raid on scsi on raid

Can I get that supersized?

Cheers!

 

[Hajime]

Originally posted by: w00t

Originally posted by: Rike
Yup, price-for-performance, RAID for gaming doesn't make sense.

pfffff raid 0 is faster for gaming specialy if u have 2 raptor drives on raid on scsi on raid

-sigh- I thought AT debunked that myth.

RAID-0 will win you all the benchmarks in the world, but it won't give you much performance at all in actual gameplay.

RAID-1 will give nearly equivalent benefits, and toss in an extra bonus of data protection - 90% or more of all data use in games is reading, and data reading happens to be RAID-1's strong point.

Single-user PC's simply can't make proper use of RAID-0.

 

[w00t]

ok lol your are telling me a 10,000rpm drive on raid 0 is not going to make loading times faster and scsi drives on raid 0 is not going to help do you know what raid 0 array is?Rofl

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: Hajime

Originally posted by: w00t

Originally posted by: Rike
Yup, price-for-performance, RAID for gaming doesn't make sense.

pfffff raid 0 is faster for gaming specialy if u have 2 raptor drives on raid on scsi on raid

-sigh- I thought AT debunked that myth.

RAID-0 will win you all the benchmarks in the world, but it won't give you much performance at all in actual gameplay.

RAID-1 will give nearly equivalent benefits, and toss in an extra bonus of data protection - 90% or more of all data use in games is reading, and data reading happens to be RAID-1's strong point.

Single-user PC's simply can't make proper use of RAID-0.

Thank You!
The evidence.
wOOt, read, then post.

 

[Hajime]

Originally posted by: w00t
ok lol your are telling me a 10,000rpm drive on raid 0 is not going to make loading times faster and scsi drives on raid 0 is not going to help do you know what raid 0 array is?Rofl

Do YOU know what a RAID-0 array does and how it works?

RAID-0 does make loading times faster, however, a RAID-1 actually performs better on pure reading tasks for the majority of desktop usage from what I have seen from benchmark indications.

I've implemented RAID solutions from RAID-0 to RAID-10 for clients, and I'm intimately familiar with some aspects of RAID.

The halved MTBF and significantly increased change of data loss from a RAID-0 is NOT beneficial to desktop users, and desktop users don't exactly do the things that benefit from RAID-0. I've seen a handful, i.e. photoshop users that handle extremely high res pictures, but there are only a handful on these boards.

RAID-1 on the other hand gives exactly the kind of benefit that your home user - or even gamer - would want. Significantly improved read times - with a highly tuned RAID-1 array and high-perf 7200rpm 8mb cache drives, I can nearly match a Raptor from 0-20gb, and completely blow it away with reads after that (It gets a bigger advantage on the Raptor the closer it gets to the edge of the disk). And let's not even talk about the fun feature of "backing up", which significantly benefits your standard PC user - gamer or non. It does have a performance hit when it comes to -writes-, but what do you do the majority of the time - read or write?

RAID-5 would be best, however, it's hard - if not impossible - to find a RAID-5 controller that is cheap, fast, and that I have sufficient control of to tune.

 

[racolvin]

Originally posted by: Hajime


RAID-5 would be best, however, it's hard - if not impossible - to find a RAID-5 controller that is cheap, fast, and that I have sufficient control of to tune.

Which is exactly what I implemented. RAID-5 on an LSI Logic SATA 150-4, using 3 WD 250GB drives ( the usual 7200 rpm, 8Mb cache). Of course the LSI Logic card is operating in standard 32bit PCI slot but there's no helping that

My intent in starting this thread wasn't to reignite the RAID 0/RAID 1 debate at all. Rather I wanted to convey the necessity of thinking about what games you play before making the decision - something I did not do. I got caught up in the whole uber-geek cool of having that much storage space in my box on the RAID 5 array, that my data would be protected just like my servers at work, etc. When it actually came down to playing my game, it loaded smokin' fast but when it started having to talk to the EQ2 servers out in the world, it all slowed back down again to the same speeds I had on my prior rig that only had a single drive. My stupidity and I admit it, no question.

Now for things where it _does_ read off the RAID 5 array, its still tons faster than a single disk IMHO. Is it enough to justify what I spent on the array? In retrospect, I'm afraid not but its too late to do anything about it now I'll take my faster loads where I can, enjoy my feeling of security of having the RAID 5 setup, and chalk it up to experience

R

 

[Hajime]

Racolvin: My exact point.

I've recently ran into a treasure trove of 10k Seagate Cheetah drives, and am looking for a somewhat cheap controller to run them off of.

If I can't find a decent RAID-5 controller, hello RAID-10 .

Now if you want real performance, RAID-10 has proved to be a pleasant surprise if you've got a halfway decent controller. Combined that with SCSI TCQ, and it nullifies the one major weakness of RAID-10 that I've found.

 

[Rike]

RAID 5 is pretty cool. I wish I could have one. But those of us with limited cash on hand should just pray we can scrape together enough for a Raptor and forget RAID exists.

 

[racolvin]

Originally posted by: Hajime
Racolvin: My exact point.

I've recently ran into a treasure trove of 10k Seagate Cheetah drives, and am looking for a somewhat cheap controller to run them off of.

If I can't find a decent RAID-5 controller, hello RAID-10 .

Now if you want real performance, RAID-10 has proved to be a pleasant surprise if you've got a halfway decent controller. Combined that with SCSI TCQ, and it nullifies the one major weakness of RAID-10 that I've found.

You'd have to define what you mean by "somewhat cheap" controller The LSI Logic for me was a nice buy really. They have it in a 6-port version as well. It has 64meg of RAM onboard,etc and the setup for it was nice an simple. Works like a charm and it didn't seem all that expensive for what I got.

R

 

[racolvin]

Originally posted by: Rike
RAID 5 is pretty cool. I wish I could have one. But those of us with limited cash on hand should just pray we can scrape together enough for a Raptor and forget RAID exists.

Oh I splurged big time, no doubt about it. I wince a little bit since it didn't turn out like I really envisioned it but I'll use it for a few years no doubt When its gaming days are over, it'll still be a good home server to use

R

 

[Hajime]

Racolvin, when your controller card costs more then any hard drive that you use, that's a good indicator that the controller is -not- somewhat cheap.

 

[racolvin]

Originally posted by: Hajime
Racolvin, when your controller card costs more then any hard drive that you use, that's a good indicator that the controller is -not- somewhat cheap.

LOL! Ok, you got me there .. it was under $250 tho, so for a hardware RAID controller, that seemed good to me, compared to other cards I've purchased for servers in the past

R

 

[NeonFlak]

Load times with raid are totally dependent on strip and cluster size. With my raid 0 setup I am always first or second in a map/zone when playing online. The raid debate will go on forever. I've been using raid 0 for years now. I've never had a drive failure or lost data because of hardware.

 

[KeyKeeper]

I am curious about the stripe and cluster. I am currently running two WD sata 7200rpm 80g drives in a 0 array. My cluster is 32 and so is my stripe. I have got no better than 74 mbps from sandra 2004 standard. I was under the impression that it would perform better than that. I know that it is really overkill for what I do, but had the spare cash. I would like to know what stripe and cluster would be better for performance. I am using a SOYO KT880 dragon 2 mobo with two onboard raid controllers. The VIA seems to perform far faster than the ALI. Does anyone have any experience with this motherboard. I have had a few problems with it.