What setup would you do with this hardware?

[garritynet]

Instead of doing something and then asking after the fact, I am going to lay out what my resources are and let you all advise me.

I have:

9650se 4x raid card. PCIe 4x and 4x SATA connections. (purchased for $160)
Rocket 620 SATA controller. (a gift)
2x OCZ Vertex 30gig SSD
2x WD6400AAKS HDDS
1 WD Black 1Tb drive ***comming soon***
M4A78 Plus MB
PHII 940
8gigs DDR2 800 ram
ATI 5770
About $80

*I had the 5 400gig drives I purchased on the FS forum but they were a little too loud for my taste. I sold three for $10, gave two away and then gave refunds on the three I sold just because I felt bad about taking money from some people at work and not others.*

And finally a copy of Windows 7 64bit

The only games I am currently playing are Dragon Age Origins and Fallout 3.I also have a lot of videos stored that I would like to be able to stream around the house. That said, I want everything to be as fast as possible.

How should I setup this system? Should I use raid?

 

[100Core]

No dont use RAID even though you have a nice RAID card, and a set of SSD's....

if you actually need a suggestion, see below

 

[garritynet]

I don't really need ideas, just insight or suggestions or critique.

When I "see below" it is clear to me that you are using RAID 0 for both your 2x vertex drives and your 2x 1tb drives. But you told me not to use RAID?

I just want some insight from others. I have several different ideas and I will likely try them all but none the less I want to hear from you guys. Even if its just to tell me how stupid I am being or whatever. Although if your gonna call me stupid, I would appreciate it if you could be nice about it Quite a few of the members of this forum have vastly superior life experience and know-how compared to me when it comes to these things.

At this moment I am planning to use the two Vertex drives as just regular drives with my OS and programs installed, and 4x WD6400AAKS drives on the 9650se storage in RAID 0 for fast access to my video files and for additional programs that either do not fit on my SSDs or benefit little from them. I will use a 1tb HDD as a backup drive. When I get to needing more than 1tb for back-up, maybe 6 months(ish) I will get a 2tb drive which I am sure will cost less than they do now.

I also may try to just run two RAID 0s on the 9650se, with one having the two Vertex drives and another having the two WDs and still have a 1tb backup drive on the MB. That would be the cheapest way.

Anything horribly wrong with either of these two ideas?

 

[100Core]

ok sorry- I just wasnt sure if you were actually asking, or just bragging about your hardware. I apologize for the assumption (was being sarcastic about not RAIDing btw)

With 2x Vertex's, and RAID 0, you have an unbelievable boot drive. 60 gigs is plenty for your OS and apps, and your performance will be amazing (I could not be more happy with mine)

Your RAID card (the 9650) is quite nice, and 2 of the ports should definately be used for the Vertex's (the Rocket would limit bandwidth pretty sure)

with the other two 9650 ports, you should set up a second RAID (0 or 5) with 2 of the 640gb for some nice performance storage

If you run into trouble putting all 4 drives on the one card (havent tried this myself, but Ive heard about issues), you could put the two 640's on the rocket instead, assuming your motherboard has another slot available. Otherwise, you wont be needing the rocket (unless you have 2x more 640's at your disposal, your first post listed 2, the second listed 4)

And lastly, the 1tb could be used as a backup for your storage (not really neccesary for your vertex's, and especially neccessary if you use R0 for your 2x 640's)

Hope this helps, I feel like I can speak from experience a bit on this one, cus its what I have for my current system. I think 2x vertex's as a boot drive is the best $200 you can spend right now, the boost in performance (real world) is more substancial than the processor/ram/mobo revamp I did recently... like way more substantial

 

[garritynet]

Thanks 100Core. I appreciate it. I go with 2x Vertex and 2x WDs first and post results. If I like it I will just stick with as I am starting to get tired of installing W7, no matter how fast it is.

I have one PCIe2.0 4x slot and one regular PCIe 1x slot. I may just save the Rocket for now and use it for a future project.