Raid question

Feep

Senior member
Aug 30, 2004
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for raid 0, is there a need to have to of the exact same drive. I know that if they are 2 different sizes, the total aray will be the smaller dirve x 2. But does it matter if they are the same brand/ model.

In my case I have 2 160GB, both are 8MB buffer and 7200 rpm

thanks.
 

imported_michaelpatrick33

Platinum Member
Jun 19, 2004
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Raid 0 has been shown over and over and over and over to be pretty much useless on the desktop. It excels in the server environment. Don't bother using RAID 0 for its liabilities outweigh the potential benefit.
 

Crusty

Lifer
Sep 30, 2001
12,684
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Originally posted by: michaelpatrick33
Raid 0 has been shown over and over and over and over to be pretty much useless on the desktop. It excels in the server environment. Don't bother using RAID 0 for its liabilities outweigh the potential benefit.

Don't jump to conclusions just yet! He could be using the RAID setup for something like Video/Photo editing where it would help a lot.

What are you are goign to be doing with your computer?
 

Feep

Senior member
Aug 30, 2004
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lets assume for the purposes of this question that I have already made the determination that raid 0 will be beneficial for the tasks I will be performing.
 

TerryMathews

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,464
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Originally posted by: Feep
for raid 0, is there a need to have to of the exact same drive. I know that if they are 2 different sizes, the total aray will be the smaller dirve x 2. But does it matter if they are the same brand/ model.

In my case I have 2 160GB, both are 8MB buffer and 7200 rpm

thanks.

The RAID is going to be (effectively) twice the speed of the slower drive.

There's no major reason to get matching drives. Differences in platter arrangement (Ex: 4 40GB platters vs 2 80GB) may cause some funny performance differences on certain parts of the drive, but you can run into the same problem with matched drives if they're not aggressively defragged.
 

carpenter

Platinum Member
May 31, 2003
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They don't have to be the same, but as with a lot of computer issues, matching drives can keep you form having compatibility issues. I'm running the raid 0 on one box more as an experiment to see if there is any diff in performance and as mp33 stated, there is'nt much. Load times are a little faster due to faster read speed. Photo/video editing is faster, but for games and everything else, I can't notice a diff. My box with a single hd is faster because the whole system is faster( cpu, ram, mobo, vid card) I think it's been said enough times now that a good vid card is usually the choke point of a gaming rig if that's what you're after. Put a great vid card in a so so comp and it will perform the same or better than a super fast setup with a so so vid card.