uneedav8 Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Just picked up a pair of 300GB Velociraptors for a RAID 0. I was contemplating on 2 SSD either by OCZ or GSKILLS but it seems kind of a hit and miss with those right now. I was able to get these raptors for 199 each. I have some time to return them if I want too. It seemed like a good deal for that price. I need some more convincing of what will give me all around read and write disk performance. Should I RAID the raptors or return them and buy some SSD's for a RAID?? I need your opinions....Thanks. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 i don't think the veloci raptors are worth it, get two Samsung 1TB F1's or maybe two Caviar blacks. They about on par with the Velocis and you get a much larger drive for the money spent. (and I beat your deal when I got my Veloci for $200 maybe a week or two after they came out ) But I didn't know that they weren't that beneficial anymore since 7200rpm hd's have gotten so good. not sure if these are blacks but here's a caviar 640gb for 60 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Striped RAID is more than overrated for desktop systems. Very few people are able to take advantage of RAID 0...especially gamers. Games show little to no improvement with RAID 0 even with SSDs. A single good SSD would be cheaper and perform better. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Striped RAID is more than overrated for desktop systems. Very few people are able to take advantage of RAID 0...especially gamers. Games show little to no improvement with RAID 0 even with SSDs. A single good SSD would be cheaper and perform better. Not to change the thread, but can you expand that thought about little to no gain in games? I admittedly don't use raid much at all and a friend of mine says its a great feature for gaming if for nothing else it lowers load times. He also says you get faster read and write times. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verran Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Not to change the thread, but can you expand that thought about little to no gain in games? I admittedly don't use raid much at all and a friend of mine says its a great feature for gaming if for nothing else it lowers load times. He also says you get faster read and write times. The problem is that RAID-0 speeds up certain things to almost double the speed of a single drive, but other things it just can't help. For example, if you move a 20GB directory from one RAID-0 drive to another RAID-0 drive, the speeds are going to be awesome. But that's sustained transfer, and most regular users don't do much of that. For most gamers, seek-times are of much more concern because they affect smaller data transfers, and unfortunately RAID-0 doesn't really do anything for seek-times. As for your friend who says it's much faster, I can only guess but my guess would be that it's a bit of placebo effect. When you spend the money on the drives, you're going to WANT to see a difference. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 The problem is that RAID-0 speeds up certain things to almost double the speed of a single drive, but other things it just can't help. For example, if you move a 20GB directory from one RAID-0 drive to another RAID-0 drive, the speeds are going to be awesome. But that's sustained transfer, and most regular users don't do much of that. For most gamers, seek-times are of much more concern because they affect smaller data transfers, and unfortunately RAID-0 doesn't really do anything for seek-times. As for your friend who says it's much faster, I can only guess but my guess would be that it's a bit of placebo effect. When you spend the money on the drives, you're going to WANT to see a difference. Thanks Verran, that was a good explanation. The look on my friends face when I read this to him was priceless. He still THINKS his old 36 GB Raptors are "awesome" though. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
uneedav8 Posted February 4, 2009 Posted February 4, 2009 (edited) I guess that is the ways things go with computer hardware........RAID is only faster in certain situations, that quad core is only faster when your multi-tasking, your only going to take advantage of your GTX280 SLI when you play at resolutions about 1900x1200....etc. These decisions are tough Edited February 4, 2009 by uneedav8 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted February 4, 2009 Posted February 4, 2009 The problem is that RAID-0 speeds up certain things to almost double the speed of a single drive, but other things it just can't help. For example, if you move a 20GB directory from one RAID-0 drive to another RAID-0 drive, the speeds are going to be awesome. But that's sustained transfer, and most regular users don't do much of that. For most gamers, seek-times are of much more concern because they affect smaller data transfers, and unfortunately RAID-0 doesn't really do anything for seek-times. As for your friend who says it's much faster, I can only guess but my guess would be that it's a bit of placebo effect. When you spend the money on the drives, you're going to WANT to see a difference. Exactly. Random access times are pretty much the sole descriptor for game loading times (aside from CPU speed). Sustained transfer rates mean little to nothing as long as they aren't abysmally slow. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
uneedav8 Posted February 4, 2009 Posted February 4, 2009 Maybe I should have left out the RAID 0 part......that tends to make the topic wander. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwillman Posted February 9, 2009 Posted February 9, 2009 I have two Velociraptor drives running RAID 0 and I find it helps alot. Its true that seek times are not improved but file transfers to ram are much faster and that helps when changing zones or anytime data is transferred from the hard drives to ram. I am not all that impressed with SSDs yet. two velocirators raided are faster then any SSD. I do think SSDs are the future. I just don't think the future has gotten here yet. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ir_cow Posted February 9, 2009 Posted February 9, 2009 raid-o makes a whole world of difference in game loading, not to go against what everyone else is saying but it help a lot during COD2 days. now i use raid-o for editing which also is really nice. also on a side note segate .11 and .12s are faster than Velociraptor and about half the price. sorry P but you didn't read up very well. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwillman Posted February 9, 2009 Posted February 9, 2009 Seagates also have a much higher fail rate then WDs. I agree that RAID 0 does help with game play, because it loads from HD to RAM faster but I am not a fan of Seagate. Also the fast Seagates are scsi drives not SATA which often requires extra hardware. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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