Deathmineral Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 (edited) Okay so currently I have 3 hard drives, a 1.5TB, 500GB, and 250GB. I keep a lot of stuff on the 500GB and it's becoming pretty slow and it's quite old by now, got it early 2000s and it's IDE. Basically I want to get a different setup going that will allow me more speed, space, and backup ability without much trouble. So I was thinking I would grab a couple of these(1.5TB), set them up in RAID 0, take away the 500GB and 250GB, and have the 1.5TB I have now as backup for important files or files I just would really hate to lose. What do you guys think? Should I go for it? Also would a RAID 0 setup be a bad idea? I've heard it can be troublesome because the failure rate increases, although I'm hoping to compensate for that by investing is some good quality drives. Edited July 9, 2011 by Deathmineral Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatochobit Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 you can buy a 60GB SSd for under 99$ nowadays unless you need 3GB of storage putting 2 HDDs in raid 0 is useless Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickk47 Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 I've had 2x 250gb WD drives in raid for...about 3 years now and I haven't had any failures yet. But then again, these are RE (raid edition) if that helps any. Id say go raid0 but have backup of important files (which you should anyway) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
uneedav8 Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 (edited) I say go for it. Some people like it, some will tell you your a fool.... and will lose all your data. You need to set it up and test it out. You may not even notice a big enough performance difference to even care. I have always set up all my desktops with RAID 0....even back when hd's were 5.25 inches and you were the coolest guy around if you had a 9.6 GB. I currently have 6 drives in a RAID 0 on one system, and 4 SSD's in a RAID 0 in another system. If I am super concerned with data loss, I usually go for a RAID 5 setup. No matter what setup you have, you will lose data if you don't back up your stuff. You should go for 2 forms of backup, one on a USB drive, another could be an online backup. Edited July 9, 2011 by uneedav8 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dihartnell Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 IMO you would be best served to get an SSD for OS drive and a couple of extra 1.5 TB drives and RAID 5 them with your current one for storage/data. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathmineral Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 (edited) I'm kind of getting the impression that maybe I didn't explain my desired setup properly, or maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you guys are saying but anyway to explain it a little more in depth, the desired setup would be the two 1.5TB WD drive in the RAID 0, and then I would have my current 1.5TB Seagate as a backup drive. Like I said though, maybe I'm just misunderstanding, I think you might just be encouraging me to do more backup than just that drive, in which case I sort of do because I keep my most important files backed up on a flash drive but I could never fit everything I want to backup on it so that's a big reason for why I'm wanting to upgrade and get a better backup solution going. Edit: IMO you would be best served to get an SSD for OS drive and a couple of extra 1.5 TB drives and RAID 5 them with your current one for storage/data. Just to cover the SSD angle and why I'm not really considering them, for starters they're terribly expensive, more so than I feel like paying for one anyway. From what I can tell they still have some kinks to be worked out, I'm not too knowledgeable about them but I do see threads once in a while explaining how each generation is better and better in functionality, performance, and dependability, so I kind of figure it's a good idea to wait a while and see they hit a wall or make it near flawless perhaps, just seems like there's a lot of room for improvement yet so down the road it will be cheaper and better. I don't really need my OS to be anymore snappy, the way it is now, I don't feel it makes me unproductive, and I do quite a bit of multitasking as well. About the only thing that does slow me down is this 500GB drive so replacing that is my biggest concern really. Also the places I'd like to see better performance is in my games, and while I know there are programs out there to separate steam games on different drives, I don't really think I need the performance that badly, but I do think I would see an improvement over what I'm doing now if I went with this RAID 0 setup. I'm kind of working off a budget as well, as you may have noticed, I didn't go for the highest priced or best quality drives, but I do want to get some quality drives, something dependable with good performance and I think these fit that fine. Size isn't a big deal, I don't actually need 3TB of space but the difference between the 1TB and the 1.5TB models of the drive I listed is literally only $1 or something. Another Edit: I was also curious about how easy it is to setup RAID, I've heard some of them are more difficult than others but as far as RAID 0 goes, do I need to know anything particular? My plan thus far is pretty much to just search around a bit and maybe look at some tutorials for it on youtube, that usually gets me the general idea but if there is something you think I oughta I figured I should go ahead and ask. Edited July 9, 2011 by Deathmineral Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dihartnell Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 (edited) I used Raid 0 (2x500Gb) on my C2D rig. It was a little quicker than the single drive but not dramatically so and it carries more risk as if either drive have an issue then youve lost it all. Replacing the old IDE drive with any single modern Sata2 or Sata3 drive should be quicker and less risky overall. A faster drive wont improve gaming at all other than maybe the levels will load a little quicker. Edited July 9, 2011 by dihartnell Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathmineral Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 I used Raid 0 (2x500Gb) on my C2D rig. It was a little quicker than the single drive but not dramatically so and it carries more risk as if either drive have an issue then youve lost it all. Replacing the old IDE drive with any single modern Sata2 or Sata3 drive should be quicker and less risky overall. A faster drive wont improve gaming at all other than maybe the levels will load a little quicker. That's kind of what I'm looking for in terms of performance, performance is really taking a back seat in this upgrade, my main goal is too just replace two older drives and get something that I think I can count on, which when I say it like that the RAID 0 does sound a little counter productive in that goal but the thing with the RAID 0 is that it's mainly just something that I want to dip my hands in a bit, I've never tried it before but it's intriguing so I want to give it a shot but also the performance would be a nice thing as well I think. I think I'm going to see a nice improvement in performance regardless of whether I raid or not though because I'm just so used to using low end budget drives and really old drives, but I think with the raid I will really like seeing the difference even more. As for gaming, I know the hard drive isn't really going to improve my games or the way they perform, seeing the loading times improve would be nice though, even if it's only a little bit. Heck even if it doesn't help loading times, I won't really mind, I'm not really an impatient person, I'm the kind of person that can play Duke Nukem Forever and wonder "What's everyone talking about with the loading times? Doesn't seem that bad to me." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dihartnell Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 (edited) That's kind of what I'm looking for in terms of performance, performance is really taking a back seat in this upgrade, my main goal is too just replace two older drives and get something that I think I can count on, which when I say it like that the RAID 0 does sound a little counter productive in that goal but the thing with the RAID 0 is that it's mainly just something that I want to dip my hands in a bit, I've never tried it before but it's intriguing so I want to give it a shot but also the performance would be a nice thing as well I think. I think I'm going to see a nice improvement in performance regardless of whether I raid or not though because I'm just so used to using low end budget drives and really old drives, but I think with the raid I will really like seeing the difference even more. As for gaming, I know the hard drive isn't really going to improve my games or the way they perform, seeing the loading times improve would be nice though, even if it's only a little bit. Heck even if it doesn't help loading times, I won't really mind, I'm not really an impatient person, I'm the kind of person that can play Duke Nukem Forever and wonder "What's everyone talking about with the loading times? Doesn't seem that bad to me." You'll definitely see a good improvement by usng more modern drives (raid or no). Just get two similar/same drives. As you say, dont count on Raid 0. I never had any issues with mine over the three years I had them, but Raid 0 has no redundancy in them. I only stored OS and programs and kept my data on a Raid 5 set. Brandnames I trust are Western Digital caviar Blacks and Samsung Spinpoint F3. Edited July 9, 2011 by dihartnell Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted July 9, 2011 Posted July 9, 2011 RAID 0 of hard drives is essentially useless for storage/OS use. The only real reason to have a high-bandwidth HDD array is for temp/swap/scratch or for video rendering. If you just want more space and speed just grab a single newer HDD. If you care about a failed hard drive taking out your data go with a software RAID 1. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted July 10, 2011 Posted July 10, 2011 I used Raid 0 (2x500Gb) on my C2D rig. It was a little quicker than the single drive but not dramatically so and it carries more risk as if either drive have an issue then youve lost it all. Replacing the old IDE drive with any single modern Sata2 or Sata3 drive should be quicker and less risky overall. A faster drive wont improve gaming at all other than maybe the levels will load a little quicker. Exact same system and experience I had. Raid 0 isn't really useful for a personal computer Replace that 500GB with this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148701&cm_re=barracude_500gb-_-22-148-701-_-Product Enjoy life! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathmineral Posted July 10, 2011 Posted July 10, 2011 Exact same system and experience I had. Raid 0 isn't really useful for a personal computer Replace that 500GB with this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148701&cm_re=barracude_500gb-_-22-148-701-_-Product Enjoy life! That doesn't really fit what I'm looking to do here, I really like my original plan best as far as the physical stuff goes. The RAID isn't that important to me, it's just something I want to try. Simply replacing my 500GB with a 500GB isn't going to work out too well if that new 500GB fails right away and I lose all my stuff. I saw some people mentioning RAID 5, I read a quick description of it but don't really think I get what it is or the appeal of it, maybe someone could fill me in on that? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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