Raid/devices good, bad, or ugly ?

[Tregrad]

Is raid a good thing or is it bad, I have 5 devices ( floopy, rom, burner, 250 Zip, HD) and I want another hard drive and I dont have the room for it. Should i get another Mobo with raid configuration or what else is there to do?

[Yuanji]

uhh well it seems that you have just run out of open slots. raid isn't a bad thing if you use it for the proper uses such as compiling drives, data security. kinda stupid if you RAID0 for gaming performance. you seem to just need to buy a PCI controller card. that will allow you to install more drives.

[colecifer]

A while ago they did some tests and found that raid didn't really improve performance any. Raid0 really doesn't help in games because they don't access the harddrive to often. Raid isn't really all its cracked up to be in my opinoin. Raid 0 has an increased risk of failure and doesn't give you that much of a gain. Raid 1 doesn't help all that much because if one drive gets a virus or something like that the second drive gets that as well. Raid 5 will give you the speed increase and redunacy, but it is expensive and still i don't think its worth it.

Raid is just highly overrated in my opinoin especially for the home user. It might make a big difference with servers i don't know. I should mention i don't have any experience with raid, all my opinoins are based on things i've read.

[mjkovis]

Originally Posted by Tregrad Is raid a good thing or is it bad, I have 5 devices ( floopy, rom, burner, 250 Zip, HD) and I want another hard drive and I dont have the room for it. Should i get another Mobo with raid configuration or what else is there to do?

The link below will provide you with all the information that you need about RAID. RAID will NOT help you free up more slots so that you can add another hard drive. Each hard drive in RAID needs its own slot.
http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/296/

Originally Posted by Yuanji kinda stupid if you RAID0 for gaming performance.

Exactly. You wont see any improvements really...

Originally Posted by Yuanji you seem to just need to buy a PCI controller card. that will allow you to install more drives

If you go an buy a PCI controller card you will spend just about as much as you would if you bought a new motherboard that had more slots available.

AK

[glc]

I'd burn all your Zip discs to CD, then ditch the Zip drive. Lowest cost solution. If you want to keep the Zip, put it in an external housing.

[Yuanji]

Originally Posted by Acid-Klutch If you go an buy a PCI controller card you will spend just about as much as you would if you bought a new motherboard that had more slots available. AK

i see ATA and SATA controller cards availible on newegg for around 20-40 dollars. i doubt that this costs the same as a motherboard. getting an external drive is pretty helpful though if you want portablility.

[mjkovis]

Originally Posted by Yuanji i see ATA and SATA controller cards availible on newegg for around 20-40 dollars. i doubt that this costs the same as a motherboard. getting an external drive is pretty helpful though if you want portablility.

Yes you can get cheaper controller cards, but they are really a 'pain in the rear' to use. A lot of them will work and then all of the sudden you cant access your hard drives. Uninstall and reinstall drivers again and again. The more expensive controller cards for RAID work much better. I have heard a lot of complaints about the controller cards that cost around $20-40 US. That is what I was trying to type... Should have posted that before.

AK

[Tregrad]

cool, thanks (once again) for the help fellas.
I used to use the zip for my business files to transfer them back and forth but I am setting up a vpn now so I might not need it and putting it in an external housing might be a good enough solution. I think thats what im gonna do, now to the task of re-organizing my box

[glc]

Get yourself a USB flash memory key for transferring your files back and forth. That's the way to do it these days. Iomega would be out of business now if they hadn't gotten into the network attached storage business.

[Tregrad]

Oh yeah! those are the things you just stick into the USB port and it has the mem chip right on it. I forgot all about those things. two questions, how big are they? and do they make a cord that you can use like a male to female USB so i dont have to bend over pull my pc out and plug it in everytime I want to use it? that would be sweet.

[glc]

They are tiny - about the size of a Bic cigarette lighter. Mine came with a 4 foot extension cord, but you can buy extensions anywhere if you need them. Most newer computers and cases have front USB ports for easy direct plugin, and there are accessory bays available to put in the case for front ports if you don't have any.

You can get them up to 4 gigs now if you want to spend the big bucks. 256mb is about $25, 512mb is about $40, 1 gig is about $75. Newegg has about 100 of them listed.

[Tregrad]

Problem solved then,

Thanks again

[Redfallon]

Back to the original question about RAID. . .

Originally Posted by Yuanji uhh well it seems that you have just run out of open slots. raid isn't a bad thing if you use it for the proper uses such as compiling drives, data security. kinda stupid if you RAID0 for gaming performance. you seem to just need to buy a PCI controller card. that will allow you to install more drives.

I'd have to disagree with this. I've used identical systems, the only difference being one setup in RAID and one setup as standard SATA HDD's, the RAID computers were overall much snappier. I used both machines with standard 7200 RPM drives, RAID/non-RAID as well as 10,000k RPM raptor HDD's. The difference from 7200-10k was amazing, but was only improved further with stripping the drives. I'm not talking about benchmarks, or "numbers" or statistics, I'm talking about real-world feel. As far as gaming goes, I host lanparties frequently and the RAID machines are *always* a step ahead. Granted, it's not for everyone, but for a high-end custom machine that doesn't *need* data redundancy or backup, or for someone who has/implements a good backup plan, I'd say go for it any day of the week.