Two 250GB Raid 0 or One 500GB?

[andlcs]

Hello,

Which one of the following drives is better for gaming, video editing, internet, office, matlab?

2 Hitachi T7K250 250GB/8MB SATA 3Gb/s at RAID 0 ($160)
or
1 WD Caviar SE16 500GB SATA 3Gb/s ($150, another option is Seagate 500GB/16MB 7200.10 SATA 3Gb/s for $130)

Thanks.

 

[ch33zw1z]

go with the 500's, then l8r you can add another for backups. Go with the Seagate for $130.

 

[Noubourne]

7200.10s are great drives.

I own 2.

Raid 0 is a waste. Gaming is mostly framerates, Raid 0 only affects load times. Unless you consider waiting a few seconds for a game to load to be the "gaming", it's not worth it IMO, since the improvement is often less than 10%, and the cost is 200%, and the part it improves isn't even gaming.

 

[andlcs]

Thank you for the reply.

Is Seagate 7200.10 500GB/16MB a quiet drive? Because I have a sata barracuda 7200.7 and I think it is very noisy when seeking.

 

[AndeeG]

from what I've heard, the WD's are a bit quieter but not hugely so.

 

[Modelworks]

I'm using two seagate 250GB 7200.10 SATA in Raid 0 and its working great.

You mentioned video editing and I can tell you that the above works very well with both premiere and after effects. No dropped frames and I can stream video as fast as my processor can handle it.

Its also quiet , I can't really tell the drives are on.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: andlcs
Thank you for the reply.

Is Seagate 7200.10 500GB/16MB a quiet drive? Because I have a sata barracuda 7200.7 and I think it is very noisy when seeking.

500 GB WD SE16, AAKS model, is probably the most quiet drive on the market now. should also be faster than seagates (which tend to be slow)

 

[Lonyo]

500GB will be cheaper and more reliable.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

500gb. RAID 0 isn't for everyone, and if you have to ask, well... 🙂 At any rate, I would definitely recommend the single drive. You can add another later for more storage, and you don't have to worry about getting a good RAID controller.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: AnandTech review
The results speak for themselves with the RAID 0 setups offering extremely minor performance improvements in actual game load testing.

we could not tell any differences during actual game play with a RAID 0 setup when compared to the singel drive setup.

Without a benchmark, these differences are impossible to witness during actual game play.

We see about 2% difference in this game on the initial load screen and throughout testing we could not tell the difference between RAID 0 and a single drive. Once again, a slight difference but nothing near the differences in our synthetic tests.

We see a 2%~3% difference between our RAID 0 and single drive configurations in this benchmark with no noticeable advantage being noticed during gameplay.

All of those results sound very impressive but in the balance of our application and game tests we only noticed a 2%~3% performance difference between RAID 0 and single drive configurations. Unless you extract files, copy or move them on the same drive, and encode all day long then the benefits of RAID 0 on the typical consumer desktop is not worth the price of admission.

RAID 0 can provide some impressive performance results in synthetic benchmarks and certain applications that are write speed starved as we have shown. In fact, with the new test bed the test results where RAID 0 shines are even more impressive now. However, we still do not think RAID 0 is worth the trouble or cost for the average desktop user or gamer, especially with the software RAID capabilities included on most motherboards. If you must run RAID on the desktop, then we highly recommend the use of RAID 1, 5, or 10 (0+1) in order to protect your data and probably a hardware controller if you can afford one.

At this time we still do not recommend RAID 0 for most desktop users due to the lack of widespread performance improvements and potential data integrity concerns with it.

Enough said?

 

[Cattlegod]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
500GB will be cheaper and more reliable.

exactly

if you have two drives, your chances of failure increase.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: ch33zw1z
go with the 500's, then l8r you can add another for backups. Go with the Seagate for $130.

Sounds like he's one of two things:

1. Seagate Shareholder
2. Major Seagate Fanboy*

I say this because the Western Digital RE2 is the better and faster performer. If you don't believe me, check storagereview.com. Also, Western Digital currently has the better warranty program Than Seagate (Samsung's is good too)


I was going to say that it was cheaper, but newegg recently jacked the price up from $117 to $147 in two months.




*No other manufacturer of Hard Discs has fan boys like Seagate Does. Buy beware of potentially Biased Opinons. Sorry Guys....


Disclaimer: My PC is filled with mixed brands of drives- Hitachi, Samsung, and Western Digital. I also own older Seagate and Maxtor HDD's.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Cattlegod

Originally posted by: Lonyo
500GB will be cheaper and more reliable.

exactly

if you have two drives, your chances of failure increase.

Agreed. Many benchmarks have proven that RAID 0 does very little to help non-server environments.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Roguestar

Originally posted by: AnandTech review
The results speak for themselves with the RAID 0 setups offering extremely minor performance improvements in actual game load testing.

we could not tell any differences during actual game play with a RAID 0 setup when compared to the singel drive setup.

Without a benchmark, these differences are impossible to witness during actual game play.

We see about 2% difference in this game on the initial load screen and throughout testing we could not tell the difference between RAID 0 and a single drive. Once again, a slight difference but nothing near the differences in our synthetic tests.

We see a 2%~3% difference between our RAID 0 and single drive configurations in this benchmark with no noticeable advantage being noticed during gameplay.

All of those results sound very impressive but in the balance of our application and game tests we only noticed a 2%~3% performance difference between RAID 0 and single drive configurations. Unless you extract files, copy or move them on the same drive, and encode all day long then the benefits of RAID 0 on the typical consumer desktop is not worth the price of admission.

RAID 0 can provide some impressive performance results in synthetic benchmarks and certain applications that are write speed starved as we have shown. In fact, with the new test bed the test results where RAID 0 shines are even more impressive now. However, we still do not think RAID 0 is worth the trouble or cost for the average desktop user or gamer, especially with the software RAID capabilities included on most motherboards. If you must run RAID on the desktop, then we highly recommend the use of RAID 1, 5, or 10 (0+1) in order to protect your data and probably a hardware controller if you can afford one.

At this time we still do not recommend RAID 0 for most desktop users due to the lack of widespread performance improvements and potential data integrity concerns with it.

Enough said?

Maximum PC came to the same conclusion about a year before anandtech did that benchmark. The jury has unanimously agreed RAID 0 is not a wise choice. The smarter alternative is to do what I have done:
Take three drives-

1. first drive is for your OS only (and related: IE, Windows Media Player, DOT NET, SUN Java, video codecs, etc). The Page File/Swap File is also on this drive.
2. The second drive holds your programs, games, and installed applications. You can edit the windows registry so that programs automatically point to that drive when the installer is run. Or it can be done manualy when you install a program. No swap file/page file on the programs drive.
3. The third drive is for all your archived downloads: programs, photographs, MP3, Movies, saved spreadsheets, documents, playlists, etc I also have this drive funtioning as a page file/swap file.
   
   Optional: If you have the cash use a two drive mirrored RAID array for the third volume. However I substituted this in my home with a firewire drive, a second networked PC (poor mans RAID 1), and a regular backup schedule.

This provides a better user experience since the OS and it's programs get dedicated disc access and do not have to compete for I/Os and bandwith. Also do not mix and match startup programs on the OS and programs drive, this I found can lead to diminished performance at boot. Media Files take up lots of room so they get their own drive and do not share the OS or Programs volume. Also you can edit the windows registry so that by default my documents is redirected to this third volume.

And if you really want to boost performance, purchase a high quality HARDWARE SATA/SAS controller with a dedicated I/O processor. LSI, Intel, Adaptec, and High Point all make very nice units. Metaphorically, what onboard video is to nVIDIA, Onboard SATA is to a dedicated Host Bus Adapter: Night and Day.