Raid setup

[merlin73]

Hey up

Finally going to purchase a system but was wondering if it worth going for a raid setup for a gaming system, if so, how easy is it to setup using vista 32 bit ultimate edition. Thinking of getting 2X 250gb spinpoints.

Thanks in advance

[Blitzen]

Very easy.
Post back when you have the parts for some guidance.

[merlin73]

will do, just didnt want to order 2 drives and find out it would be a nightmare.

cheers

[Blitzen]

Your load times in game will see a good improvement using RAID 0

[bfbf]

rember you don't just need to simler HDD's you need a MOBO which surrports RAID 0 or a RAID card

[specofdust]

If by good improvement you mean 2-3 seconds off some games, sure they will.

RAID 0 ain't worth it for games folks. It more than doubles your chances of data loss and really doesn't do much(or anything) for the vast majority of games and windows startup time.

It's good for moving huge sequential files. Wanna move 30GB of files in half the time? Great, get a RAID 0! Wanna have things nice and quick when you're editing multi gigabyte DVD's in video software? RAID 0! Want games and windows to load fast? Buy a WD Raptor.

There simply isn't compelling reason to use a RAID 0 for games or windows.

[arthurleung]

If by good improvement you mean 2-3 seconds off some games, sure they will.

RAID 0 ain't worth it for games folks. It more than doubles your chances of data loss and really doesn't do much(or anything) for the vast majority of games and windows startup time.

It's good for moving huge sequential files. Wanna move 30GB of files in half the time? Great, get a RAID 0! Wanna have things nice and quick when you're editing multi gigabyte DVD's in video software? RAID 0! Want games and windows to load fast? Buy a WD Raptor.

There simply isn't compelling reason to use a RAID 0 for games or windows.

I did some test myself, moving 30GB from Disk0 to Disk1 is faster than moving 30GB from Partition 1 to Partition2 (RAID0). "So Wanna move 30GB of files in half the time" is complete rubbish in basic 2xHDD environment.

If you want fast game loading, use windows software raid and make small 5G partitions (10G RAID0) for paging and another 20G partitions (40G RAID0) for gaming, then use the other space for storage without RAID.

RAID0 will only be faster for moving sequential files ONLY if you have another RAID0 on another pair of disks.

[specofdust]

No offence intended, but you needed to move files from an array that can go at maybe 150MB/s to a disk that can write at only 60MB/s before knowing that it wouldn't speed things up? It is kinda obvious. Apoligies if my post seemed misleading, but I just felt it was implicit that you'd need to be have a drive capable of writing the same speed as the drives you're reading from. I guess perhaps I assumed more than I should have.

RAID 0 speeds up sequential transfers. That's the point I was trying to make. It doesn't do anything else. It doesn't lower access times, and those are whats important for games and windows loading times.

[bfbf]

RAID 0 ain't worth it for games folks. It more than doubles your chances of data loss and really doesn't do much.

It won't do too much in games but clicking icons e.g word will open a lot quicker, Moving files will be faster, load times will be quicker ect

Although I do not agree with doubling the chance of DATA lost as in most cases when a modern HDD fails it is because of a PSU blowing. So the chances are that if your sytem blows without RAID the HDD goes and with RAID 2 HDDs go. Still incresses DATA loss but not by a factor of 2 IMO

[specofdust]

Actually I said by more than a factor of two. Two drives is twice the risk of drives dying as one drive, and the fact that theres RAID operations being carried out adds another weak link to the chain. Since if the controller goes belly up you're almost certainly in hot water.

I see no reason why it would make something like word open faster. Yes, moving files will* go faster - but load times will generally not be apreciably faster. Not unless you're sitting there with a stopwatch. Game loading times and opening(the vast majority of) things in windows is speeded up by having a drive that can very quickly find files. A game loading doesn't load 4 600MB files. It loads hundreds or thousands of files, many of which will only be a few kilobytes. Read speed is irrelevent when it comes to files like that, what you need is a low seek time.

*arthurleung might object to my use of "will" so feel free to substitute "can" in its place

[arthurleung]

but I just felt it was implicit that you'd need to be have a drive capable of writing the same speed as the drives you're reading from.

The OP is planning for 2x250G so it is unlikely that he will have another 2x HDD in RAID0 for the "doubled speed transfer".

Although I do not agree with doubling the chance of DATA lost as in most cases when a modern HDD fails it is because of a PSU blowing.

In the past 3 years I've only had premature harddrive deaths (i.e. DOA or dying within a month since open). I've had a PSU blown but that had no effect on any of my component at all (seems to be the case with mid to high-end psu anyway)

Consider most people run RAID0 on NEW disks, it is very likely one of the drive fails within the first 3 month of usage