To Raid or Not the Raid? That is the question...

[parikh26]

I building a new comp in the next couple of weeks (to replace a outdated pain in the a** 233 mmx) and want some advice. I can't figure out whether or not to go with a raid motherboard. I want a amd 760 board w/ ddr support, so I think I'm limited to the GA7DXR, Epox 8k7a+, or KG7. What are the advantages of RAID? There are three setups (from what I've read): Raid 0, 1, and 0+1. What's the difference between these?

I don't have $$ for an all out system. I'm looking to spend 1300 for athlon 1.33, crucial 2 X 256 MB pc2100 registered ram (I'd like a mobo with 4 ddr, please recommend), geforce 2 gts, and 40 gb hd, sb live value, 12x burner, dvd, etc.

Are there advantages to going with 2 X 20 gb hd's in RAID setup? I don't want to mirror, b/c from what I understand, the read time is 2x faster, but the write is the same. And since the data is duplicated, I only effectively have a 20 gb hd instead of 40.

Someone please explain the raid advantages/disadvantages etc

 

[frankroh]

There are 3 common RAID configurations:

RAID 0 (striping) - theoretically provides twice the thoroughput read/write. Would do this for performance reasons only. In reality, your system performance will increase 10%, 20% if you are actually doing very large file transfers (video/voice editing, CAD, etc.)

RAID 1 (mirroring) - For data resiliency and hardware failure recovery. Protects your data in case one HD fails. If data is bad/corrupt to begin with, it will still crash your system/data storage. Same write speed as non-RAID but theoretical double read speed.

RAID 5 - RAID based on mathematical algorithms. Provides the best performance and can be used in conjuction with RAID 0 and RAID 1. Cards are expensive. Sun RAID 5 cards can go for thousands of dollars.

If you are planning on doing RAID 0 config on IDE HDs for performance gain, I would advise against it. You're better off just getting a SCSI card and HD. If you want data redundancy, IDE RAID 1 is an inexpensive solution. RAID is the ultimate, but of course it would be complete overkill for anything below a Compaq Proliant servers.

 

[ericboo]

If you don't have any formal backup and can stand the extra microseconds taken away from your life for a mirror setup, IDE mirroring is an inexpensive and useful tool. I found out the hard way.

If a drive dies or goes down, you just pop in a new one, boot into Windows and it automatically rebuilds. What more could you want?

 

[MadAd]

raid cards are cheap (esp if you get a super track and mod it yourself, oops did i say that?) so dont let that limit you to a mobo - you can always add it on

you are correct about mirrors, 2x 20 = 20gb space parallel drives ... Raid 0 is a stripe (serial) so 2x 20Gb = 40Gb

raid 0 wont speed everything up, but you wont go any slower for having it if your doing multiple small file one-off operations. However the benefit will be seen in large file (and some small burst cache dump) operations, of upto 2x the speed - i think i saw a review saying its not quite 2x, but close in optimum test conditions - actual usage may vary.

So its not a speed all, but what it does speed up youll be very thankful for, and besides a small amount of CPU usage, theres no downsides if it cant be used

 

[boran]

hmm I also have a lil' raid question
my dad has raid and wants to use 2 HD's (a maxtor and fuijutsi) in raid 1 (for data security so when one crashes the other one still has the data)
but one is 4 gb and the other is 4.1 GB ... is it possible to use this then as raid 1 combo ... (i know it is recommended to run identical drives in raid but this is HIS comp so say whatever u want )

 

[MadAd]

raid will suffer pretty much any drives, its an old system, just given new life by cheap ide devices now. Its recommended to have identical, the chances of the oldest blowing up, and crashing the lot is a factor, but its not a requirement. In your case 4.1 + 4.0 in raid 1 should equal a mirrored 4Gb storage unit - if it was 4.5/4, or even 5/4, youd still only have a max array of 4 in r1 - but ive not played with an array in that mode so am unsure of specific settings.

 

[Tripleshot]

boran
He will lose the .1 gig on the larger drive if he sets up the two 4s in raid 1. IE: .1 is not part of the raid.

 

[Tripleshot]

frankroh
I couldn't disagree with you more. This is a consumer,not a corporate IT department asking for advice on raid. IDE raid 0 with 7200 rpm and ATA100 is faster and cheaper and just as reliable as 15000rpm SCCI raid.

I use both models,highpoint 370 raid 0 on my Abit systems and promise on my Asus sytems. They rock. Every test bench that has ever reviewed them say they are a great way to boost performance from your PC.

Leave SCCI and its high price tag for the network gurus at the corporate level. They can afford it. And you would never get an arguement from me about the benifits of SCCI. It's just not a practical factor in light of cheaper, faster IDE HDDs and Promise controllers or on board raid like highpoint on Abit mobos.

 

[HellDesk]

Although I'm a simple consumer too, I installed win2K Pro on a SCSI U160 Quantum Atlas 10K II, and keep my Programs & data on a RAID-0-setup (2-drives setup). If you already own a decent SCSI-controller, by all means go for SCSI, if not, go for RAID-0 (but don't take the "Inexpensive Drives&quot to literally, or your performance will suffer badly.

With today's RAID-controllers (built-in or PCI), setup couldn't be easier.

 

[Mikendi]

Hmmm . . . for true multitasking you cannot beat a SCSI setup. While I admit that IDE RAID 0 is a viable cost effective performance upgrade it still isn't a great multitasking bus. At least with SCSI your CPU is able to do what you paid for it to do. 10k SCSI drives with 4.3 - 5 ms. seek times offers more bullet proof performance that IDE RAID. SCSI is becoming affordable too. You won't get the gigastorage that you will with IDE, but how much storage are you looking at?

 

[frankroh]

Elite:

You are right in saing RAID 0 will have greater performance than a single HD. I am also at fault for assuming Parikh will use his rig for homely tasks.

Suppose Parikh IS using his rig for personal computing. It is of my opinion that average home PC will not benefit greatly from a IDE RAID 0 storage. Typical home applications do not take advantage of the wider bandwidth as most of the transactions will be multiple simultaneous requests for small sizes of information. In an IDE RAID, this can mitigate any performance gained by the wider pipe (especially in IDE RAIDs which tend to have smaller stripe sizes.) There still will be performance gains of course, but I'm predicting it won't be as much as one would expect when seeing how fast a Word doc will open.

If Parikh is using his rig to host servers, do graphical work or do tasks that maxes out HD-memory bandwidth, by all means (especially if he alreayd has the RAID mobo and IDE HD or two.) If not, SCSI solution may suit his performance needs better now and in the future.

Money is an issue as you've mentioned, Elite. SCSI RAID cards and HDs go for thrice the price of IDE counterparts.

Need to pull out the good ol' what-other-toys-can-I-get-instead calculator.