Raid??
what exactly is raid? is it like using two hard drives (or more) to make data access faster?
how would i go about setting this up... but more importantly is it worth it? would it make a noticeable difference (apart from cost obviously)?
Cheers,
DGauld
Last edited by DGauld; 20-09-2004 at 04:21 PM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
More info than you could want there!
RAID will either give you a speed increase, or an increase in hardware redundancy (or both if you go nuts and implement RAID5). Is it worth it? Depends what you do with your PC and what you consider expensive.
"All our beliefs are being challenged now, and rightfully so, they're stupid." - Bill Hicks
the R in RAID stands for redundant, so only RAID1+ are real RAID - RAID 0 gives a speed increase but far worse data security than without any RAID at all, whereas 1+ give varying speed increases and security increases at the cost of "wasted" space.
my server has 480gb of storage in a RAID1 configuration (mirrored) so if 1 disk fails, i don't lose any data. i'm buying another 320gb of disks to bring that up to 800gb (400 useable).
well, ill probably be building a gaming machine, so would a raid 0 system be of any use? maybe if i raid 0 two of those 10k rpm drives (raptor?) would that increase the speed of my system so there was no bottleneck with the drives?
how would i go about setting up a raid 0 setup?
depends if you can afford it, both financially & data-security-wiseOriginally Posted by DGauld
it would certainly speed up disk operations, yesmaybe if i raid 0 two of those 10k rpm drives (raptor?) would that increase the speed of my system so there was no bottleneck with the drives?
get a raid 0 controller of some sort (most decent motherboards have them built on these days), plug in the drives, go into the raid bios, say "make me a raid 0 array, mofo". when you come to install windows, press f6 to install a scsi driver, and give it a sata/raid driver floppy disk.how would i go about setting up a raid 0 setup?
From all the reviews of RAID setup and gaming I've read it makes bog all difference to game performance. Even the load times are only fractionally faster.
http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/515/2
Game level loading times - Farcry (seconds)
WD Raptor WD740GD 2x RAID 0 39,7
WD Raptor WD740GD Single 40,6
WD Raptor WD360GD Single 41,1
WD Caviar WD1200JB Single 42,6
Better to spend the money on your video card
I have tried raid 1 on my raptors due to them failing on a weekly baisis... My drive index went from 103Mb/s to 48!I'm not shure why it droped so low, however I wont be trying that again! And acsess times went up to 12ms! Perhaps I should try raid 5!
Actualy Maximum PC mag has tested the theroy of raid and gaming.... It turns out that raid takes longer to load a game! This being most obvious in Doom 3.
Last edited by myth; 20-09-2004 at 05:38 PM.
I have three 80GB disks in RAID 5 - gonna add another 80GB in down the line.
RAID 5 gives RAID 0-style read speeds with a hit on write performance (although my RAID controller deals with it quite well.)
If a drive fails... my system doesn't go down.
It's worth noting that RAID isn't a substitute for not having data backups... it's a way of improving performance and reducing system downtime.
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If your living in the UK it might be worth you picking up a copy of October Issue of Custom PC. They have a review of S-ATA RAID cards. And in the middle of the review there's a two page article discussing weather or not RAID is worth it.
Disappointingly they don't have my card in their lineup!
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=130258
It says cache memory isn't upgradeable, but it IS, and infact you MUST add some memory to it for it to work.
Still, that card is a bit much for a home PC, to be fair.
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I try to stay away from add in cards, My buss has enough to do!Perhaps when I go PCi express then maybe... For now 6 SATA drive are enough for me
And most SATA controllers aren't sat on the PCI bus anyway?
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