2x80Gb RAID0 or 1x320Gb?

[dave87]

Lo guys,

Looking at building a new PC, highlights of which will be:

Intel C2D E4500
2gb DDR2 PC6400
Gigabyte P35-DQ6
8800GTS 320mb
Scythe Ninja Plus
Seasonic S12 500w

And was wondering, which would be better - 2x80gb RAID 0 or 1x320gb?

Its purely going to be a gaming machine, not a work one (got laptops and my older desktop to run those). Also got a media server, so it doesn't need to store anything.

So, thoughts?

(poll options may have been influenced by a recent watching of Austin Powers)

[Clunk]

Single raptor if you can stand the noise.

I'm running a monster raid 5 setup and it makes absolutely bugger all difference to anything I do in vista or XP.

[Tetras]

I vote single disk cos two reasons,
1: If your gaming machine is laggy cos of your hard drive, j00 have memory issues.
2: Loading the map first in BF2/2142 is over-rated cos there is nobody else in the game to shoot at

[charleski]

Single disk, no contest.
RAID0 optimises sustained read/writes, and is most suitable for applications managing large amounts of data. It also increases your chance of suffering a hard disk failure. Typical home/workstation (including game) use is very different and mostly determined by access time, which RAID0 does not improve.
When I built my box last year I configured the drives as RAID0, and it was a mistake.

[iranu]

I'm in a similar situation. I was going to go back to raid 0 with two 160gb 8mb cache hard drives and buy a 320gb disk and enclosure for backup, then thought mmmn maybe I should use the 320gb 16mb cache disk in the machine and use the older drives for backup.

[s_kinton]

2: Loading the map first in BF2/2142 is over-rated cos there is nobody else in the game to shoot at

True, but it gives you the pick of the vehicles, planes and tanks etc, so you can go on a rampage as soon as the opposition first spawn

I'd just grab a jet and by the time I'd flown over you can just drop a bomb on people as they spawn.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Swings and roundabouts really.

As has already been said - RAID0 for sustained read/writes.

Systems will feel nippier with the above but obviously you need to backup data in case of failure.

Guy with RAID5 - why ?

[Zak33]

one large disk,,,,then partition it with as per this thread
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...ight=partition

[Howard]

As above really, I don't trust RAID 0 because there's no fault tolerance whatsoever, so I'd just go for a big, fast single disk, it's all you need unless you're running a massive file server

[Zak33]

and then partition it

First partition is fastest.... make it about 1/5 the size of the drive

[Agent]

RAID0 isn't geared towards gaming. It will make such a small difference I wouldn't bother (and im using RAID0 at the moment)

If you're doing big transfers / heavy I/O on the disk, then its work considering.

[rysz]

I would go for a single disk just simply due to the fact that there is less to go wrong / generate heat etc in the system - sell a kidney and get a couple of SSD HDD's if you really want speed!

[charleski]

I just spent 3 hours recovering from a single sector error on my stupid RAID0 array. Luckily there are ways of doing this without a complete reinstall from backup, but you need to have the right tools in place and you need to know what you're doing.

I think we need to make a sticky saying DO NOT USE RAID0 UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. It is in no way worth the hassle.

[Agent]

I think we need to make a sticky saying DO NOT USE RAID0 UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. It is in no way worth the hassle.

I disagree entirely.
RAID0 has its place, but its not on the average users desktop. A single sector error on a HD shouldn't kill the array, even on RAID0. While im not disputing what you say, I suspect there may be a deeper reasoning if the entire array went tits up.

Quite honestly, id struggle without RAID0. Then again, both my of disks could die tomorrow and it wouldn't make a difference due to nightly automated backups.
So I'd have to reinstall the OS, but i'd have to do that on a single disk anyway

[MadduckUK]

just gone raid0 tonight here (2x320GB WD's, last experience of it was with 2x4GB drives) wow its a shot in the arm, butery smoothness, will try some hardcore loading in a bit (silent hunter 3 with GW mod FTW)

[charleski]

RAID0 has its place, but its not on the average users desktop. A single sector error on a HD shouldn't kill the array, even on RAID0.

No, it doesn't, but recovering the array needs tools and knowledge. A lot depends on where the sector error occurs, obviously.

WHERE do you see RAID0 as having a place? This is the obvious question.

If you're an A/V pro who needs fast throughput, then do you think that the savings on not setting up a proper RAID5 array are really worth having to spend hours hoping you can resurrect the drive containing a project that needs to be submitted tomorrow? (And, even if you do resurrect it, you have to hope that there's not going to be a big glitch sitting in the middle of your show-reel).

I can't see ANY situation in which RAID0 makes sense. The potential hassles dwarf any possible gains, in both a home and professional environment. Resurrecting backups takes time, and it assumes that you have proper backups, which is certainly not the general case for home users. Pro users who backup every day are basically gambling that the disks won't fail right after a costly 10-hour editing session.

If you really need striped disk access, get the disks and go with RAID5, otherwise forget it.