RAID vs WD 8 mb cache drives.

[Nova101]

Setting up a pair of 60 GB Maxtors in a RAID (including the cost of a RAID card or a few extra for a RAID mobo) is about the same price as one of those Western Digital 8 mb cache drives.

The WD drives has the reliablitity advantage of not running a RAID (please I do not mean this to be a RAID stability thread!) but should be pretty speedy.

Anyone know how one of those WD drives compares speedwise to a RAID?

Thanks.

 

[CQuinn]

As I understand it, RAID gives its primary benefit in terms of STR read speeds, but takes a hit in
terms of access time and write speeds.

The 8MB WDs give an advantage in burst transfers, and have improved performance in STR reads -
but probably not as high as the Maxtors together would be. In either case the drives should provide
enough performance to handle 90% of the tasks put on them without problems.

I don't run RAID, but unless you are looking for a specific task (like video capture),
IMO the differences are too close to tell subjectively.