RAID with SATA

[alimoalem]

i just read this article by searching the articles of AnandTech under the Storage Section but it's dated back to June 18th, 2001. they used IDE drives in the tests.

now i have a few questions.

1. would the results from the article listed above still be valid even though it was written 4.5 years ago?

2. if i were to make a RAID setup with SATA drives instead of IDE (in RAID0 or RAID5), would i similar performance increases seen with the IDE drives?

3. do you know anywhere else that has RAID 0 vs. RAID 5 vs. single drive comparisons?

thank you for any and all help

 

[Cerb]

1. Yes. RAID 5 performance varies quite a bit by controller, though.
2. Yes. Actually, SATA tends to do slightly better (not significantly, though).
3. No.

What exactly are you looking at doing? Also, try to avoid software RAID 5. It really can be a PITA, both for Windows and Linux.

 

[alimoalem]

PITA? could you clarify on that please

it's not for me exactly. my friend wants to RAID (i'm not sure why) and i'm telling him for his situation it probably won't have any significant benefit.

so SATA drives in RAID will HAVE a greater performance increase? or you're saying SATA drives already perform well?

thanks for the reply Cerb

 

[Cerb]

Windows: sometimes the array will lose a drive and rebuild, slowing things down. This is not just with older WDs. AFAIK, you can't boot from it. It is very slow. Sometimes the whole array goes out, requiring manual recovery.

Linux: had one case of file corruption (spanned many GB of files, though), very slow, locks drive access during activity (so many scripts run very slow, like Slimserver). Got an Adapatec 2400A in there (PATA RAID 5), and it's been working smooth and fast.

Software RAID 5 is just not very good.

RAID 1 and RAID 0 should work fine, though, and you already know why RAID 0 is a bad idea for data.

SATA: with small bursts, SATA performs better than PATA. It's not a lot, but it is something consistently repeated. Check reviews here and at StprageReview, FI. It's generally 5% or under, I believe.

 

[LED]

To add to Cerbs bytes...PITA=Pain In The A$$

 

[alimoalem]

o lol makes sense now