I've herad about RAID setups before, but never really looked into them... I thought it was something for servers/networks and not for a home Pc. But after reading around (the guide here was really nice BTW) it sounds like this would be something good for my new gaming system im trying to put together. What's a good setup? RAID 0 sounds like it would be the fastest. I was thinking about getting 4 drives and setting them up as a RAID 0 configuration. Is the improvement worth the setup and investment? Do the drrives have to be identical in size and model?

Thanks!

Yes RAID 0 is usually for a gaming system. Just make sure your motherboard supports 0 which all raid motherboards pretty much do (i've never seen a motherboard that does raid not support 0). Raid 0 is striping data on at least 2 or more drives. No, hard drives don't have to be same model and size but its better to have 2 74GB drives than a 74 and a 32 because with a 74 and 32 in raid 0, you only have 32 gb of space to use because your 32 gb cant hold more than 32 gb so you'll have space leftover on your 74 gb hd. It's better to have 2 74 gigabyte hard drives because both of your drives can use equal space (74gb). That's just an example. For me.. no I wouldn't do RAID 0 or any raid.. For gaming it makes loading times faster that's pretty much it (as far as I heard). If one drive fails in the raid all your data is lost *important*. My single 250 gig 7200 loads as fast as my friends 2 hd 7200 raid 0 setup in games. I would say don't get it, its not worth it..


Uh... Idk why I explained.. as since you read guides you should know what RAID 0 is..

if you only have 4 drives I'd recommend 2 in RAID-0 and 2 in single drive mode... ideally the two in RAID-0 would also have fast access time, so Raptors basically assuming you're using SATA

for the full benefit of RAID you really need multiple arrays for fast disk-disk transfers...

in my main rig, I run

4 drive RAID-10
2 drive RAID-0
4 single drives

and I love it... fantastic for video work

Almost all the time when Iread around about RAID or test rigs, peple use the WD raptor drives.... Itake it these are the best for fast access? Can I go with something less for RAID? I was planning on getting maybe 4 drives off Ebay. I usually have no issues with drives from there.

Raptors have very fast access times, faster than "standard" 7200 RPM SATA drives... this makes the main difference... but the downside is you pay more for the access time and the drives are lower capacity...

I go for the highest performance SATA drives I can find that aren't Raptors, so that way I can get near the performance of Raptors, not pay as much, and not have to compromise capacity.

The Hitachi T7K500 is my favourite drive, and so the 250GB model is the one I use in all my RAID arrays (I have 6 in my main rig). You could take a look at StorageReview.com to compare performance in a wide range of benchmarks, along with other factors like noise, power, etc

I wouldn't buy drives from eBay unless it was an eBay store of an actual retail store.

Thanks. I'm going to do the same nad look for higher prformance SATA drives. Since this system is only for gaming, I don't mind if a drive or two goes out down the road, so I might still chek out the respectable sellers on ebay. As I noted, (knock on wood) I have had realy good deals on drives from there at good prices. In the end should my system be used for something else, I can invest in the drives at that time. Thanks for the info andthat site... Im liking it!

They dont technically have to be the same drive but it can cause some headaches if they arent, so if you were buying new i'm with hardnrg, dont just get anything

Ahhh.. yeah, that is what I meant to say. I plan to get the same size/type/model drives to limit any issues - If I can find a good deal on new in town or online, I'll be going for that instead of ebay, but I like to look around.. you never know.

I'm leaning on getting a couple (3 maybe) drives of this model:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SEAGATE-750GB-ST375033...1QQcmdZViewItem

Hardnrg: You mentioned of having single drives along with RAID setups, what's the benefit? Wouldn't it be better to have them all on a RAID setup?

Thanks!

Will you really need a 1.5Tb or 2.25Tb OS + program drive? because thats all you can really store on it, expendable stuff, personal docs, music, movies etc will have to go on other drives. If you stick to something like 250gig drives then you end up with a fair ammount of space, without un-necesary wastage, maybe get a 750gb for general storage?

If this is going to be a gaming system, I would recommend two smaller drives for RAID, with one or more larger drives in single configuration for storage. RAID 0 has an inherent flaw in that if a single drive fails, the entire array goes with it, so it's not a good idea to use a RAID 0 array for storage. However, if you are planning on buying three or more drives, then you might want to consider RAID 5, where you get both the performance of RAID 0 and the security of RAID 1 (mirroring).

As you can see in my sig, I have two 74GB Raptors in RAID 0, with two independent internal drives, along with two external drives. I use the four independent drives for storage, and the measly 2x74GB array for the OS, games, and other expendable files. So I still get the performance of RAID 0, with very little of the risk.

I wouldn't bother. I used to run a 3 drive RAID 0 set and while load times were *slightly* better for most things, the only real improvement came from file copying. For gaming load times just having a Raptor nets you far more than anything else short of a good SSD.

SDDs, on the other hand, do benefit greatly from being run in RAID since they aren't hampered by access times.

I remember reading an article that used a hardware RAID card with like 8 or 10 SSDs in RAID0, the card's controller caused a bottleneck

But then again, that setup was probably worth more than just a few thousand bucks...

Back on topic, I'd just get a 1TB Samsung F1, it performs between the old Raptor and the VelociRaptor, which is pretty good!

Saturating the bus is something rarely done in the world of hard drives.

Well it's really the controller that wasn't fast enough to handle the data, the card is PCI-E so bandwidth isn't a problem

But yeah, it will take some time before we get to saturate SATA2 (300MB/s), but by then SATA3 will have doubled the speed to 600MB/s so we'll be good for another few years!

Well, SATA2 speed is aggregate when talking about RAID setups, so until single cards reach that speed I think we'll be safe.

When the prices of SSDs comes down enough I've got half a mind to get 4 smallish drives and build a stupidly fast striped setup.

First and foremost, this system will be used for gaming, but I know once I get it up and running I'll start adding other programs to take advantage of the new speed (my old system is and AMD 3200+). GAming about 80% of the time and maybe some video/MP3 watching and editing. You guys make some good points, and I kind of like the idea about getting a couple smaller drives in RAID for the OS. Newegg has some decent prices (atleast from what Ive seen, I haven't looked around too much) for some smaller sized drives. What do you think of the following:

2 80Gb drives for the OS and programs setup in RAID 0
(the 80 gb are 8mb cache about 34-39 bucks and for about 15 bucks more I can get these 320gb with 16mb cache - sounds better to me)

2 320gb drives for setup in RAID 0 for installing games
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822145213

3 (?) 750gb drives setup in RAID 5 for storage of movies/docs/music/etc. (I'd aadd these later on down the road)

The only thing is, I don't think Ill be installing 320Gb worth of programs along with the OS, so maybe 80 for that wouldn't be soo good... Also, a couple questions just to make sure I understand this correctly:

Two 80Gb drives in RAID 0 would be a total of 160 Gbs, not a total of 80 correct?
Is it easy to dual boot with a RAID setup? Or ar there issues?

Thanks so much on the feedback...!

Like I said before, unless you need the speed for file transfers (or video editing), it's not really worth the minimal increase in speed to run RAID 0 with standard drives.

If you want more speed just grab a 300 GB Velociraptor or two.

That is correct, you would have 160GB available in a RAID 0 system.

As for dual booting, it's no more difficult than using single drives or partitions.

Thanks for the quick replies. I probably am going overboard on the drives a bit, but I know I use alot of space in my current system (149gb, 149gb, 300gb, 250gb) for music, tv shows and such, so if I do completely move into this one, it'll be about the same. I may just go with a couple of the 320's for storage and use the current 149Gb drive I have for the OS/pograms. I guess I'll just try things out and see how it goes.. learn from experience =) I do really appreciate all the advice. I'll update my system thread once everything is up and running!

This is exactly what I did 3 years ago. Back then my games loaded wicked fast. But now with larger cache on hard drives and general overall improvements - my new 640Gb 16mb cache hard drive is just as fast as my raid 0 setup (no noticable difference).

One thing to remember, always buy from reputable seller and find out the warranty. Nothing ticked me off more then buying a 200Gb WD hard drive and saving $10, only to have it fail a year later. Went to warranty/rma it with WC only out that the cheap bastards that sold it to me didn't explain that it was a OEM parts hard drive (meaning WC doesn't/wouldn't warranty it - the seller does, and they were out of business by then).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ij3B3ujQtpY

Tahnks for the video(s).. I checked out some of the others listed as well. I don't know who he is, but he had some interesting clips.

That's Rodney Reynolds man!
Dude knows his thing. Only bad thing about him is that he recommends power supplies like in the 1kW range
He is known for his video reviews, but he just began making some Q&A videos lately. This is his web site.
http://3dgameman.com/