RAID question......now two questions :)......ok, one more

[iamme]

I was debating about whether or not to use RAID on my new PC setup.

I have two matching 80GB HD's and I would stripe them.

My question is this: I was ripping DVD's and I would turn the source (ripped onto the HD) into an image file. I assumed that I could gain the most speed and efficiency by having the source and target on seperate drives and seperate channels. If I use RAID to make a single ~160GB drive, will I be making a bottleneck?

Does this make sense?

edit:

Another question: Am I risking failure or data corruption by using an inexpensive PCI RAID card? It was like $20. It's got a CMD-0649 chipset.

Are there any benchmark tests or torture tests I can run to see if my RAID setup will last me?

edit: one more question

if i just use my HD's through the PCI RAID card (no mirroring or striping), will it be slower than if I use my HDs through the motherboard's IDE channels?

 

[eklass]

if you're RIPPING a dvd, you're copying from dvd to hdd... if you're ENCODING .vobs to a divx or something, then it's hdd to hdd... in which case i have to idea which is faster... but for ripping files to a .vob it wouldn't really matter anyway, since the slowdown is the dvd drive, not the hdd

 

[iamme]

Originally posted by: eklass
if you're RIPPING a dvd, you're copying from dvd to hdd... if you're ENCODING .vobs to a divx or something, then it's hdd to hdd... in which case i have to idea which is faster... but for ripping files to a .vob it wouldn't really matter anyway, since the slowdown is the dvd drive, not the hdd

Here's what I was trying to say (poorly, i admit )

1). first, i use DVDXCopy to rip and split the DVD to my HD (into VOBs)
2). then i use IfoEdit and VOBorator to edit out some things
3). then I use IfoEdit to turn those VOBs into an image file <-------this is the step i'm referring to. i assume having the VOBs on one HD and the other HD will be where the image file will be written to, will be faster than having the VOBs and image file being written on the same channel. will either having RAID or not affect this?
4). mount the image file and then burn the DVD

 

[iamme]

Another question: Am I risking failure or data corruption by using an inexpensive PCI RAID card? It was like $20. It's got a CMD-0649 chipset.

Are there any benchmark tests or torture tests I can run to see if my RAID setup will last me?

 

[AtomicDude512]

Originally posted by: iamme
Another question: Am I risking failure or data corruption by using an inexpensive PCI RAID card? It was like $20. It's got a CMD-0649 chipset.

Are there any benchmark tests or torture tests I can run to see if my RAID setup will last me?

I would get a better one from Highpoint.

 

[iamme]

Originally posted by: AtomicDude512

Originally posted by: iamme
Another question: Am I risking failure or data corruption by using an inexpensive PCI RAID card? It was like $20. It's got a CMD-0649 chipset.

Are there any benchmark tests or torture tests I can run to see if my RAID setup will last me?

I would get a better one from Highpoint.

Is data corruption or something similar common w/ these RAID cards? Or is Highpoint just a highly regarded card?

 

[Woodchuck2000]

There's no reason why you would risk corruption with a cheaper card. I've used CMD-0649 chips in the past with complete success.

I'm not entirely sure about causing a bottleneck with striping the drives. It will probably be slower copying files within a single RAID than between two separate disks.

 

[iamme]

ok, one more question

 

[zephyrprime]

If I use RAID to make a single ~160GB drive, will I be making a bottleneck?

yes if they are on the same channel but the bottleneck would only be very small because optical drives are slow. No bottleneck if the DVD is on a separate channel.

Are there any benchmark tests or torture tests I can run to see if my RAID setup will last me?

not really.

if i just use my HD's through the PCI RAID card (no mirroring or striping), will it be slower than if I use my HDs through the motherboard's IDE channels?

Probably but probably not by much. Also a fairly significant chance that it could be faster if your MB disk controller is a poor performer (but there's no way to tell without benchmarking.)