RAID?

[Liam]

Anyone care to enlighten me a little about this subject? Tried looking on Google, but not much is helping me understand it.

How does it work, and what's the main purpose?

[JRoc]

This may enlighten you.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

[congo]

Wow! That link answered a question I had.

RAID 0 looks fast.
So I am considering RAIDing my 160 and 80gb drives together as an experiment, but I think I better purchase a ................ nevermind...... I have a better idea.

I should buy a new disk of at least 160gb and "RAID 0" my 160gb and the new one, retaining my 80gb as a seperate drive for backup.

What do you think?

[legoalex2000]

it's good for killing spiders and roaches!

as far as computer terms, i'm still a little blank on the matter. i thought RAID was a type of hard drive, but guess not..

so much for my A+ comp repair class...

ramos

[wealthysoup]

Wow! That link answered a question I had.

RAID 0 looks fast.
So I am considering RAIDing my 160 and 80gb drives together as an experiment, but I think I better purchase a ................ nevermind...... I have a better idea.

I should buy a new disk of at least 160gb and "RAID 0" my 160gb and the new one, retaining my 80gb as a seperate drive for backup.

What do you think?

Buy a new 160 gb one because wikipedia says "RAID 0 can be created with disks of differing sizes, but the storage space added to the array by each disk is limited to the size of the smallest disk

[congo]

Can you have 2 disks in RAID 0 and then another IDE drive separate and not in the array? (and still get the speed benefit of the RAID 0 array?)

[ozzy72]

Can you have 2 disks in RAID 0 and then another IDE drive separate and not in the array? (and still get the speed benefit of the RAID 0 array?)

Yes, that's exactly what I've got. 2 80GB SATA drives in RAID and 1 40GB on the IDE channel. The 2 SATA RAID drives show up as a single logical 160GB partition C: , and the IDE is another partition D:.

RAID0 is fast. 91mb/s read speed in RAID compared to a single similar SATA drive at 49mb/s. I will never not have a RAID setup again.

IMAGE REMOVED AS IT WAS LINKED FROM ANOTHER SITE AND THAT IS STILL BANNED HERE!

[congo]

I would like to know if it's worth buying 2 new SATA drives, or just one more ATA drive ?

Is there a lot of difference once the array is set up between 2 x ATA's and 2 x SATA's ?

[NicksFXHouse]

I would like to know if it's worth buying 2 new SATA drives, or just one more ATA drive ?

Is there a lot of difference once the array is set up between 2 x ATA's and 2 x SATA's ?

Simple... 2 RAID-0 SATA drives with a good RAID controller will provide better performance than 2 ATA drives.

Promise controllers are hit and miss when it comes to HIGH performance and they respond to differently to various HDD manufactures... however... Promise is typically safer when overclocking at very high FSB because Promise controllers tend to run higher latency on the bus. That can be changed using a PCI register editor, something discovered many years ago when I was reviewing motherboard builds.

I use the VIA RAID controller instead of the Promise system on my motherboard simply because it provides a higher performance curve than the Promise system and I do not run excessive FSB in my overclocks.

Marketing has convinced the general public that ATA drives are rated between 100-130MB/s. That is false. The BURST speed is rated at 100-130 MB/s but their throughput is measured in megaBITS, not BYTES per second. That means you will max out at between 35-50 MEGABYTES depending on the IDE controller. SATA drives are rated at a BURST of 150MB/s, meaning they will max out at around 50-70 MEGABYTES depending on the SATA controller. RAID-0 combines the true speed of all the drives in the RAID configuration, therefore on RAID-0, 2 ATA drives rated for UDMA6 will run between 60-80MB/s and 2 SATA drives will run between 100 and 130 MB/s depending on the RAID controller being used. The Burst will increase with the number of drives in the RAID-0 array.

It is best to MATCH the drives (manufacture and rating) and if you are looking for maximum performance, never mix ATA and SATA drives in a RAID-0 configuration.

A single drive can be on a RAID controller as a 0+1 however, you will not see the performance RAID provides unless you have 2 (1+1) or more drives in a RAID configuration. The more HDD of equal speed and performance you add to a RAID-0 setup, the faster the performance. 4 SATA drives in RAID-0 will smoke 2 drives in RAID-0. Each time you add a HDD you increase performance of the RAID array. The RATED access speed of the drives, their RPM and their CPU utilization will have a direct bearing on the speed of the REAL WORLD speed of the RAID array.

I have found onboard NIVIDA RAID controllers to be very good.

SCSI drives are the only HDD's that are TRUE MB/s rated. RAID is a economic way of making a slow SCSI system. The fastest RAID systems out there use 5 SCSI drives on a SCSI RAID controller, very expensive (1200-3000 dollars and more) and MINDBOGGLING FAST. With that type of system, Windows boot times can be as low as 10 seconds.



EDIT: PS

What you must ALWAYS remember about RAID-0 is it not data safe. ALWAYS have another HDD (ATA or SATA) in the system for DATA BACKUP and STORAGE because you can loose an entire install on RAID-0 in less than 2 seconds should you loose a drive or overclocking blows the RAID array apart. There is recovery software available for RAID-0 damage but it is payware and does not always work.

I use RAID-0 in both SATA and SCSI for all my systems but I also learned years ago to make sure I had a backup of all my critical data available for restore. In all my years of RAID use I have only lost my array twice, once was my fault in overclocking and another when I had a defective HDD. In both instances I was able to restore because I had a 250GB HDD, separate from the RAID array in each system which stores my data and is used as a repository for automatic daily scheduled backups.

Dont be afraid of RAID-0 but be aware you should change your data storage and backup habits should you decide to run RAID-0 as your boot system.

[congo]

I guess that answers my question Nick N. Thankyou.

You are hereby unoffically appointed as chief hardware editorialist !  

[NicksFXHouse]

[quote]I guess that answers my question Nick N. Thankyou.

You are hereby unoffically appointed as chief hardware editorialist !

[congo]

... thanks but I'm retired

Drats!

Well, are you married then?    ;D    

[NicksFXHouse]

I only use ATA IDE drives or single SATA drives for data storage. My boot and video editing drives are either SATA RAID-0 or SCSI RAID-0. I started working with RAID in the late 90's and never looked back. Once you see your systems disk performance on RAID-0 you wont go back to single IDE or SATA drives... I'll bet the bank on that!

LOL!!!

After a full install of the OS, drivers and all software, set the page file size to a static 2048-2048 (or greater) and defragment several times (offline and online defrag to include the page and system files) using PerfectDisk 7.0 and clean/compact the registry with good software such as Registry Mechanic 5.0.

Do not use any WinXP reg-hacks for disk performance and do NOT set the system cache to LARGE. Leave it optimized for PROGRAMS as you can whack a RAID-0 system to bits with reg-hacks combined with overclocking and a large system cache. All those silly Windows Reg-hacks and tweaks are not necessary with RAID-0 performance.

I usually set up WindowsXP to place MY DOCUMENTS, FAVORITES, and all other storage folders on a seperate ATA or SATA data storage HDD and not the RAID-0 array. That way my everyday data is never exposed to the only downfall to using RAID-0, which is data loss if the array goes bye-bye.

[NicksFXHouse]

[quote]


Drats!

Well, are you married then?

[congo]

I am soooo tempted to just order a couple of SATA drives right now......... look what you guys have done!

Evil Congo: "Go on! Order the drives, you deserve it!"

Angel Congo: "You need other things around the house, a new car, Christmas is coming up, save your money!"

Evil Congo: "ORDER THE DRIVES NOW! Don't listen to him! He's a Wuss!"

Angel Congo: "Choke #$% Splutter *#$ GASP!#$"