Should I go RAID or seriously upgrade?

[Bilvader]

I have one of those WD1000JB special edition 100GB HD from Western digital with 8mb cache, but I am running out of space. Would love an increase in speed but don't want to pay the price for SCSI or SATA right now (though I will be watching size increases in SATA closely .

Saw some excellent HD comparisons on Toms Hardware and am really interested in the WD2500JB w/ 8 mb cache. It's not far behind the WD Raptor SATA. Now I can't decide between RAID or new 250 drive. Not as concerned about cost.

Thanks for any input.

billjdo

 

[DaveSimmons]

If you go RAID0, what is your backup strategy?

If you have 2 distinct non-RAID drives it's easy to use partitions and Ghost or Drive Image to back up the OS, and windows explorer or CD-Rs to back up anything else you care about.

 

[Bilvader]

it may be shortsighted but I just do occasional incremental backups and don't worry about harddrive failure or OS loss.

Assuming data safety is irrelevant, does anyone have an opinion regarding my initial question as to whether it would be better to RAID two smaller WD1000JB's or one faster WD2500JB? With regards to performance/price ratio.

thanks
bilvader

 

[beatle]

I would not raid, even if you regularly back up. In day to day applications, I hardly noticed a difference in performance when one of my 60GXP deathstars in Raid 0 bit the dust. Seek times will be just as slow as they were. Overall HD performance will be better with a higher capacity single drive than 2 slower drives in raid 0.

 

[VTrider]

My main system has been enjoying this nice, new RAID 0 array (2x120g WD SE 8mb cache) I built a while back; While i'm not regretting it and I enjoy it's performance almost every day....I probably would be just as happy if I kept them separate. I mean HDs these days are just so friggin' fast, esp. that WD2500JB your talking about.

I work a lot w/Premeire and DVD stuff so that's when I really appreciate that RAID 0. To tell you the truth though, I wouldn't be suprised if i didn't notice a difference either way?

-VTrider

 

[randomlinh]

when you do anything w/ heavy file transfers.. you'll notice.... you never really specified what you'd be doing... just want general overall speed? I don't think it'll help. if you want it for something specific, then go for it.