RAID Array Configurations..

[ImpactDNI]

Alright. Since I've finally gotten a job, this summer I plan to set up a nice RAID array. I have 4x80gb drives here I'd like to throw in a RAID-0. Backup will be done on a separate machine, so don't worry about the "its not safe" factor. I've done RAID in the past, however, not with 4 drives, this puts a little situation before me.

As far as I know, you get better performance when the drives are on their own controllers. My motherboard only has 2 IDE channels. Now, I also need to have a 5th (CD/DVD-RW) on there. So an IDE PCI card comes into play. The question is, how much slower is a PCI IDE card? My options (at least the ones I've thought of) follow.. Can anyone give me any ideas about which would be fastest and why?

1: 4xRAID0 on OnBoard IDE (2 per channel), DVD on PCI card
2: 4xRAID0 on 2-channel PCI RAID card, DVD on OnBoard
3: 4xRAID0 on 4-channel PCI RAID card, DVD on OnBoard

I would assume (3) would be the fastest, however, I worry about the limit on a PCI bus... Would 4xRAID0 hit that limit and cap? How would it compare to having 4xRAID using the onboard (only 2 channel)?

Anyone have experience in this area? If it didn't cost 50$ for a 4-channel PCI RAID card, I'd just try them all =P, and it might come down to that =P

 

[deanx0r]

According to AT, you don't get performance gain with RAID 0, not significant enough to perceive the gain in real world.

 

[IntegraGSR]

If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/sh...spx?i=2101&p=11

 

[imported_Kensai]

# 2 if you're going to do a RAID.

 

[ImpactDNI]

Hmmm, I got a huge boost using my old RAID0 setup with two drives, something like 66% it clocked out to...
Lemme go read that article though...

 

[ImpactDNI]

hmmm, I'm wondering if Windows is partly to blame here... Obviously most of the work is done via the controller itself (not the OS), the OS does run the dirvers for the controller...
I swear I remember a boost.
Anyhow, lets jump into theorethical then. Where is the cap on PCI, and would you hit it with a 4x80gb RAID0?

 

[sharkeeper]

IMO if you NEED more than two drives in RAID you should be thinking HW SATA (at the very least) or SCSI.

Four disks (besides 4n capacity) will give no performance benefit whatsoever over two with this hardware configuration.

 

[ImpactDNI]

On another note, those graphs in the article basically show that ANY hard drive will perform just as well.. Looking at some of the graphs, it shows that Raptor drives (alone), run at just about the same speed as a Barracuda... Which really doesn't make sense, seeing as the seek time is nearly half, and the throughput is 150 over 133/100..

 

[ImpactDNI]

I'll also point out the Tweakers.net article calling BS on Anandtech and Storage Review's articles:
http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/515/1

As well as mention that Anandtech has 2 RAID articles. One claiming RAID0 is basically worthless for desktop use, and the other claiming both that it is worthless, and that its worthwhile. Quotes from the 2nd article:
"Performance gains on the order of 13% are not negligible"
"The real world performance increases are negligible at best"

 

[Hyperlite]

I'm personally very happy with my RAID0 setup, 2 80GB WD SATA's with a 20GB IDE for daily backups. I see huge gains while playing any games, any load times are increased by at least 25%. windows itself also loads very quickly compared to when i was only using one of the drives...btw, i'm on a 32k strip size, but based on the fact that you want 4 drives i assume you'll be doing audio/video editing, or something with large files, in which case i suggest something like a 1meg stripe size.

I agree with you in regards to the review articles, and no one knows what they deem "real world performance gains." well, i define "real world" as everything i do on my system, and just about everything is faster.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: IntegraGSR

If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/sh...spx?i=2101&p=11

 

[Chode Messiah]

what are u going to be using the computer for?

 

[ImpactDNI]

Everything. Its a very "all around" system. Its running Gentoo Linux, I play games, do a lot of coding, web browsing, email, audio editing, video editing, everything.