To RAID or not to RAID that is the Q?

[vödka]

I am building a new computer, and I was looking at a WesterDigital HD (74gig 10,000 RPM) and wanted to know if it is worth getting two and setting them up on a 0/RAID...? How much faster could it be?

HD LINK >>>>>

Thanks for any help!

[potassium19]

I have done it, still have it, but if it wasn't for a bench mark I'd never know it. To be on the fair side I don't run any super heavy duty programs that may benefit from it.

I can not personally tell the the difference between one millionth of a second and two millionths of a second, but have been told when running a rat brain biomass cpu it does count.

[spyder003]

Agreed, from everything I've seen it provides maybe a 1 or 2 second decrease in loading times, in a gaming environment anyway. It may be worthwhile if you do a lot of audio/video work, but if not it's not worth the instability risk IMO.

[Vladiator16]

Originally Posted by spyder003 Agreed, from everything I've seen it provides maybe a 1 or 2 second decrease in loading times, in a gaming environment anyway. It may be worthwhile if you do a lot of audio/video work, but if not it's not worth the instability risk IMO.

I agree as well, the Raptor HDD is an excellent choice as your system HDD, but it's not worth the trouble configuring another one in RAID 0. Save some money and buy a storage HDD drive. That would depend on your storage requirements though.

[vödka]

Thanks, I think I will just get one of them and run it as my system HD and get a second 300gig 7,200 for storage... The computer I am building will be used mostly for design (photoshop, Illustrator, flash ect.) and gaming. End result I don't think I will really need to set up a RAID.

[mrmister1]

You may see Windows load a little faster, with the Raptor as the system drive. But other than that, there is almost no reason for it, especially in RAID.

[mshirley001]

I must say im surprised to see the negative responses to this. I have 2 Maxtor 120 gig drives in a striped raid config and it is twice as fast as in a single drive config (per benchmark)... I have no instability at all.

*Edit*
They are SATA drives though if that makes any difference

[spyder003]

Originally Posted by mshirley001 I must say im surprised to see the negative responses to this. I have 2 Maxtor 120 gig drives in a striped raid config and it is twice as fast as in a single drive config (per benchmark)... I have no instability at all. *Edit* They are SATA drives though if that makes any difference

Per benchmark... is there really any real world difference?

[Force Flow]

Originally Posted by spyder003 Per benchmark... is there really any real world difference?

There is no noticable real-world difference unless, mentioned above already, you do a lot of video capturing and editing. Even then, SATA is fine, but the real limiting factor is the disk rotational speed. Instead of the normal 7200rpm, media professionals sometimes opt for 10,000rpm raptor drives.

[carlmccut]

I have raid systems and have never had any problems. On the system in my sig the raid setup has worked fine. Also you are right when doing heavy video work it does improve access times. I have heard several people talk about unstability why?

[Tin]

my raid 0 is alive and kickin well. it helped out enormously with the load times in HL2 and UT2004. also...you say youre doing photoshop and illustrator work....so raid may be for you then...since alot of adobe files such as photoshop and illustrator are somewhat large to begin with.

[Force Flow]

Originally Posted by carlmccut I have heard several people talk about unstability why?

It's not instability as much as it is HDD failure. When one of the drives fails in the array, you lose the data on both drives. In effect, your chances of data loss due to mechanical failure are doubled.