RAID 0 worth it?

[vaporize]

I was thinking of buying WD800JB but then I figured out what RAID 0 is. So now I am thinking:

1. should I buy 2 x WD400JB and put it on RAID 0?
2. Would that give me a good performance boost compared to a single WD800JB?
3. Does HT multitasking work with RAID 0?
4. Doesn't RAID 0 need more CPU utilization?
5. Does data corrupt more often with RAID 0?

thinking of getting 2.6C on ic7. you dont have to answer all the questions. thanks

 

[Murr]

1. I would
2. Yes, two drives in Raid 0 is supposed to be nearly twice as fast as just one of them.
4. If you're running it off you're mobo it uses a small amount of the CPU performance. But make sure you're mobo has a good controller, such as the Asus P4P800 deluxe. Some websites have exact CPU utilization percentages for varying mobos which you should check out. You can also buy you're own seperate controller, but I think its a waste of money for just 2 HD Raid 0.
5. I dunno if data corrupts more often, but Raid 0 is more risky than just using 1 hard drive. If one hard drive messes up, you lose all data. Basically, Raid 0 = twice the performance, twice the risk. I think its worth it.

 

[mechBgon]

Take a Grand Prix car and double its top speed somehow. Will it run a GP course in half the time...? No. Why not? Because doubling the top speed only helps in places where the car is hitting its previous top speed to start with. It won't corner any faster, and a GP course involves quite a bit of cornering.

RAID0 can double the sequential transfer rate, and there are situations where that's a help, such as WinXP boot times and perhaps program loading times (although having enough RAM to cache all your apps is a better idea yet). But it can't make the seek time go any lower than the drives are physically capable of doing individually. They'll "corner" at the same speed they always have.

Noise is a separate issue. Two WD Special Edition drives = two tickets to the banshee lottery If one of them develops the bearing whine, you'll have to break your RAID0 to do an RMA, period. If you do want RAID0 then I suggest tracking down some fluid-bearing 8Mb-cache Maxtors, Seagates, or IBM/Hitachis, instead of the WD's. Just my 2c worth.

 

[boran]

raid 0 is too risky imho,just one of the disks has to screw up and you've lost almost all your data, it's very unsecure, twice the risk as said above, worth it .. not really, imho

 

[beatle]

I ran a pair of 40 gig 60GXPs for a few months before one of them kicked the bucket. I didn't notice much of a difference in everyday performance. I DID notice it when I lost everything on the drives. :|

 

[Lord Evermore]

I have two WD400JB's ordered with Newegg right now. I wanted to go with some of the deals available now for like the 200GB Maxtor at Dell, but the rebate is limited to one, or the Staples 160GB drives but they're out of stock (and probably limited to one on the rebate too anyway). 400GB storage space would have been complete overkill, the drives would fail before I could use that, but the price couldn't be beat, and if I used only my usual 20GB or so, it'd be the fastest partition ever since the entirety of it would use like 2% of the tracks.

But since I couldn't get those, and I'd made up my mind to get started with RAID again, the WD400JB was the best deal for my needs. I'd have even gone with two 20GB drives if they'd had 8MB cache versions. I've only got two 20GB partitions right now, and they're only half full. Two 80GB or 60GB drives would be a better value, but since I would never use the space, the lower overall cost of the 40GB works better for me.

I'm also going to use a Promise Fastrack TX2000. Most ATA RAID controllers are not full hardware processing devices, they're "software controllers". The TX2000 does almost everything onboard rather than through the CPU, so the hit on CPU time shouldn't be as great. Even if it is, my board doesn't have a PATA RAID controller, and I didn't feel like moving to SATA which I do have, because the performance won't be much different but it'd cost more.

HyperThreading won't be affected by using RAID. As far as the OS is concerned, there are two CPUs in use, and one single drive connected to the controller. Neither the logical CPUs nor the OS care about the physical drives.

 

[WebDude]

I run Raid0 with 2 WD800JB. It is noticeably faster than a single drive. Maybe because with the Raid0 I have an effective 16mb cache. Dunno for sure, but it truly is faster in a lot of operations.

 

[T9D]

..

 

[Jeff7181]

I'd recommend getting a Raptor instead... you WILL notice a difference with that one because it's seek times are so low compared to 7200 RPM drives. Don't know what drive you're using now, but you could use the Raptor as your primary, and use your current one to store data like MP3's and movies etc.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Murr
1. I would
2. Yes, two drives in Raid 0 is supposed to be nearly twice as fast as just one of them.
4. If you're running it off you're mobo it uses a small amount of the CPU performance. But make sure you're mobo has a good controller, such as the Asus P4P800 deluxe. Some websites have exact CPU utilization percentages for varying mobos which you should check out. You can also buy you're own seperate controller, but I think its a waste of money for just 2 HD Raid 0.
5. I dunno if data corrupts more often, but Raid 0 is more risky than just using 1 hard drive. If one hard drive messes up, you lose all data. Basically, Raid 0 = twice the performance, twice the risk. I think its worth it.

I usually make this comment about 2x the performance, 2x the risk; from the bit I did retain from my prop&stat course in college, the risk is actually less than doubled. The performance is also not 2x, but it is higher.

 

[tommie]

im running twin 60gb 8mb wd drives in a raid 0 now,(p4pe ,3.06) but if i were to do it again i would get the maxtor160mb diamond9 sata drive, ive seen the benchies..man it's fast. blows my raid 0 away!! but thats jmo.

tommie j

 

[Sideswipe001]

I'm happy with my RAID configuation.

I've run RAID-0 for 2 years, without a single hiccup. Windows boots a ton faster than it did with a single drive, and my games all load a ton faster.

I don't understand why everyone doesn't use it.

 

[boomerang]

RAID 0 here with two Raptor's. I have a third drive I use to make a backup image everyday using Powerquest Drive Image. Yes, if a drive in the RAID array fails, I WILL lose everything. But I have my backup. Might lose a few emails.

Mucho faster. I notice no real difference in noise level. These drives are quiet.

 

[VTrider]

I just built my first RAID 0 array w/2x120gb WD 8mb cache drives - Let's just say i'm glad I did, OS boots faster, programs load faster, video editing performance is stellar - can't see myself ever going back to 1 drive again also. I have been noticing that WD whine once in a while, If I were to do it again I would consider Seagates just because of that whine could easily drive me nuts over time.

 

[RollWave]

the P4C800 has the same controller as the P4P800 right?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Sideswipe001
I'm happy with my RAID configuation.

I've run RAID-0 for 2 years, without a single hiccup. Windows boots a ton faster than it did with a single drive, and my games all load a ton faster.

I don't understand why everyone doesn't use it.

It's at least twice the cost, often more to get a decent controller that utilizes as little CPU time as possible.

 

[pecel]

I have 2 IBM HD 45 gig 2mb buffer and 1 160 gig WD 8mb buffer.
Which one is faster, 2 IBM on Raid 0 or single drive WD 160gig 8mb buffer?

Thanks.

 

[Rainsford]

Personally I think RAID 0 with consumer level drivers is not a good idea unless you don't care if you lose your data or you back everything up. Consumer level hard drives aren't reliable enough for me to bet on two of them not having one failure at some point. Sure, it gives you some performance improvement, if you get a good controller card. Otherwise it just eats up more CPU time, and I think for most apps, CPU time is in greater demand than hard drive throughput.

Bottom line, if you are doing something where hard drive performance is the primary concern, you back up or don't care about your data, and you're cheap, RAID 0 works. But if one of those things is not true, something like RAID 1 or RAID 5 might be better for you.

 

[mikable]

Hmmmm, the sky is falling again!

I've built over 500 RAID systems and well into the thousands single drive systems over the years. I've only had 4 raid failures, 2 can be scratched off though cause the owners dropped the computers. and 6 single drive failures.

The risk is NOT 2 times higher

The preformance is NOT 2 times higher


ANYONE that doesn't maintain a backup strategy will at some point wish they did. Raid or non-raid, do a backup! keep it up to date!

 

[chocoruacal]

Originally posted by: vaporize
I was thinking of buying WD800JB but then I figured out what RAID 0 is. So now I am thinking:

1. should I buy 2 x WD400JB and put it on RAID 0?
2. Would that give me a good performance boost compared to a single WD800JB?
3. Does HT multitasking work with RAID 0?
4. Doesn't RAID 0 need more CPU utilization?
5. Does data corrupt more often with RAID 0?

thinking of getting 2.6C on ic7. you dont have to answer all the questions. thanks

Let me sum it all up like this.....If you have to ask, you don't need RAID You haven't listed what you think you need it for...but I'm guessing you've fallen prey to the wannabe big ballers on net forums like this. RAID 0 will provide you with higher read/write speeds on the array. Nice, huh? But keep in mind that all your other drives are limited to normal speeds I have run RAID 0, and the only real advantage for me, was increased speed when moving around 5-10gig video files. There was zero peformance increase in games/programs. If you're looking for something like that...I'd say a 15K RPM SCSI drive is in order

 

[grant2]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
It's at least twice the cost, often more to get a decent controller that utilizes as little CPU time as possible.

If disk access is what's slowing down your system, CPU use is likely non-issue.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Well, that upgrade was way easier than I expected. I didn't think WinXP would like being moved to different drives on a different controller. But it worked perfectly. Installed the TX2000 and the hard drives, configured the array before booting into Windows using the original boot drive. Installed drivers (important to do that before trying to swap). Benchmarked, scored twice as high (40k to 42k; didn't record details) in Sandra as my Barracuda ATA IV (tried with dynamic disk and basic disk, no statistical difference). Didn't get quite so good a leap in HDTach, but that isn't a worry to me since HDTach has all sorts of issues. Burst throughput was off the graph (HDTach still won't show me more than 80MBps), sustained sequential read averaged 45MBps. I can't remember what my 'cuda scored before, but I seem to recall it being in the 30s.

After testing, ran Ghost, which didn't like the TX2000 when setting up the copy in Windows and letting it reboot with its "virtual partition" to run PC-DOS. I finally just made a boot floppy (copied to bootable CD) using MSDOS from a Win98SE disk. Despite loading no drivers of any kind, MSDOS was able to read the RAID array perfectly well. Maybe PCDOS just doesn't have the functions built in that allow it to read an external controller. Ghost copied the old drive to the array. Unplugged the old drive, booted to the RAID array with absolutely no complaints from XP. All closed up and running now. Getting Ghost to run was the hardest part of the process, and the longest.

The system definitely feels snappier, and boots pretty well faster. I'm using a 32k stripe size, just chose that after using a disk usage tool and seeing what file sizes were common. I'm quite happy with this upgrade, not TOO expensive (total of 230 bucks) and it helps make the system seem more responsive and less like I have to wait for it. Maybe one day software makers and driver writers and hardware makers will learn to coordinate and make use of all the system power so that the user can stop getting the feeling like he's waiting for the system to work when in fact there's just always one item making all the other parts idle.

 

[Supernaut]

I have 2 raptors in RAID 0 on an Asus A7n8x deluxe, unfortunately, the nforce2 drivers from Asus are old and do not work well with the Sil Image controler , I can tell u though read speeds are quite speedy.

In the past, I have had 2 40 gig 60GXPs in RAID 0 on a Abit KG&, running for a year now, sold it 2 family. I would say I noticed a 30% increase in all read and write operations at the very least. I was always the first to load up in multiplayer games! Do yourself a favor and RAID ur hard drives.

In terms of corruption, I have had 0 problems with RAID. There is alot of data checking going on there so I dont think you have to worry about bad sectors, just the fear of a hard drive dying. When using two hard drives as one, the chances of one dying is not twice as with a single drive, I think its actually the maximum chance of dying from either of the hard drives right?

Anyway who cares, GO FOT IT.
RAID is AWESOME

 

[Alphazero]

I have two WD 40GB's on my A7V (modded BIOS). Of course, I don't really have much important data, so I'm content with the risks for the noticeably increased performance.

 

[kenshorin]

Originally posted by: mikable
Hmmmm, the sky is falling again!

ANYONE that doesn't maintain a backup strategy will at some point wish they did. Raid or non-raid, do a backup! keep it up to date!

THANK YOU FOR SAYING WHAT NEEDED TO BE SAID! I was reading through all the posts about it having less stability, loss of data, and I kept thinking this same thing. "If a HD crashes there'll be a loss of data"... well DURH! Thats not just limited to RAID... I'm not just being patronizing either, because back when I first started being a computer junkie I had a disk die on me, unRAIDed, and guess what? I lost data. Well boy did I learn. I have used RAID since then, and backed up, and not had problems, but I have backups.