Raid Question

[toronado97]

I will freely admit that the one thing I know nothing about regarding computers is RAID setups. I had, until recently, two hard drives in my computer, one running windows and general OS type things (firefox, AVG, application type programs) and another HD for my games. I found that switching all my games onto a seperate hard drive really helped to speed up performance in game (talking WoW, DAoC, now playing WaR as well), highly load intensive gaming applications. This worked really well for me until my system drive blew up and now I'm back to one drive.

So on to my question: I will be upgrading my computer in the near future and have been eyeing the WD640 AAKS drive. I simply don't have the budget for a velociraptor, I'm trying to keep this as frugal as possible. My current drive is an old 250 GB ATA drive, not even SATA, so I'm trying to phase it out. My options would be to either get 2 WD640's and RAID 0 them ( really don't know jack about how to do it, is it hard? I am technically savvy, just not experienced with this type of thing), or get a single WD640 (obviously more budget oriented) and use it either by itself, or in conjunction with the older ATA 250 GB. I would like to go all SATA with this next upgrade, so wondering if the performance would be acceptable on a single WD640, or if I should try the raid setup, or just run 2 WD's in a standard configuration.

Any help would be appreciated, and if RAID is the way to go if anyone has a link to a guide or something to give me some pointers, that would be great!

 

[mooseracing]

Go RAID 10 with a high dollar controller and never look back

Go RAID 0 if you aren't worried about losing your data or if you backup often.

To get a good performing RAID setup is goign to cost as much as a V- Raptor. Decent controller card = $100-200 used, add you hard drives and you are over budget.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't think that you need raid. Add the 640GB HD as your primary drive, and stick your games on the 250GB.

 

[ultimahwhat]

i am similarly curious about a RAID 0 setup. will my motherboard's (ga-ma78gm-s2h) built-in raid capabilities not cut it? thinking about getting two samsung spinpoint f1 320 gb drives. would i have fewer headaches by just using these two drives independently as suggested above (OS for 1, games for the other)?

 

[scruffypup]

I gleamed a few things from your post,... it sounds like a bit older system and that you want to save money.

Answer: single SATA drive 640WD or similar (there are a few that will do the same - the 640 WD is just very popular,... rightfully so?!?)

Reasoning,...
If you have a motherboard that has SATA and EIDE (ATA) then use that for "read" only types of things,... music, saved video, saved images, saving important files, you will be fine there and still making use of old stuff, saves space on new drive.

If your motherboard doesn't have a raid controller you will have to buy a separate one and that leads to more expense.

If it does or you want the expense,... you will risk data loss in raid 0 which is most likely setup that you would go with, raid 0 slightly decreases access time (response time), but increases data transfer (good for large files, video editing, etc), but again remember as well that you pay 2x as much for drives for same space as 1 drive (+raid controller if needed), and if it is important data, slightly increases data loss potential.

Raid is overrated for performance in my opinion,... it is good for data protection in a mirroring setup.

 

[toronado97]

Thanks for all the information!

@Scruffy: My specs are in the sig; the system isn't really that old, just in need of some updating. I think I have a schizo mobo, looking at either an Asus or Gigabyte P45 board to replace it, and with the uber cheap prices on CPU's I'll probably go ahead and grab an E8400 or something along those lines.

Is running on the ATA 133 HD going to slow me down considerably if I were to use it say for gaming only and use the new WD640 for the OS and storage? Or should I run the ATA drive as the OS drive like I am now, and use the 640 for gaming/storage? Or would it be better to simply use the 640 for everything, kick the ATA out entirely, and wait until I can grab a second drive down the road?

 

[scruffypup]

Sorry I missed the specs!!! LOL

I personally would use the new SATA drive for everything basically but still use the old ATA drive for backing up critical files and stuff. That way you have a backup system in place just in case and can save some space if needed on the primary drive by moving over say songs, images and such. The performance should be just as good or better than trying to place OS on one and games on the other.

The performance is not going to matter as much as if you were to get a newer graphics card

 

[toronado97]

I actually have an 8800 GT, just forgot to update my sig lol. I usually get solid framerates, just a lot of stutter type lag associated with loading in MMO's, and since that's my primary gaming medium I'm trying to alleviate that as it's becoming quite aggravating.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: scruffypup

Raid is overrated for performance in my opinion,... it is good for data protection in a mirroring setup.

It's only overrated if you cheap out! Onboard motherboard raid is hardly a contestant for significant performance gains the enthusiast seeks.