Optimal Raid Configuration

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GoliGuy

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So I was wondering what would be the best possible configuration for raid.
Could I get 2 250gb ssd and raid 0 those, then somehow back those up on a 500gb hdd for security since I know it is not reliable. Then could I get a 1tb hdd and somehow connect them all?
I hope you can understand what I am saying. Thanks.
 
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For very specialized uses, RAID 0 + SSD may be beneficial.
Production quality 3D rendering, transferring LARGE individual files back and forth, or a high frequency web server where an extra 1% performance would = extra $$, and the relevant hot swap backup is involved.

For flight sims and...
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JackNaylorPE

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RAID 0 has never made sense or produced and advantage on the desktop .... outside of some very specialized apps like video editing. I experimented for 3 months with the following setup.:

2 x 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro in RAID 0
2 x 2 TB Seagate SSHD in RAID 1

After 3 months I broke both arrays and now i use the 2nd SSD as an alt boot drive and game storage .... the 1st 2 TB SSHD is used for data storage as a SoHo server and the 2nd is mirrored to that one via backup software, no RAID. I was disappointed with the RAID 0 and called Samsung who advised that they do not recommend RAID 0

Here's an old post from THG .... from many years ago.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID_0#RAID_0

RAID 0 is useful for setups such as large read-only NFS servers where mounting many disks is time-consuming or impossible and redundancy is irrelevant.

RAID 0 is also used in some gaming systems where performance is desired and data integrity is not very important. However, real-world tests with games have shown that RAID-0 performance gains are minimal, although some desktop applications will benefit.[1][2]

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2101
"We were hoping to see some sort of performance increase in the game loading tests, but the RAID array didn't give us that. While the scores put the RAID-0 array slightly slower than the single drive Raptor II, you should also remember that these scores are timed by hand and thus, we're dealing within normal variations in the "benchmark".

Our Unreal Tournament 2004 test uses the full version of the game and leaves all settings on defaults. After launching the game, we select Instant Action from the menu, choose Assault mode and select the Robot Factory level. The stop watch timer is started right after the Play button is clicked, and stopped when the loading screen disappears. The test is repeated three times with the final score reported being an average of the three. In order to avoid the effects of caching, we reboot between runs. All times are reported in seconds; lower scores, obviously, being better. In Unreal Tournament, we're left with exactly no performance improvement, thanks to RAID-0

If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.

Bottom line: RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."

http://www.techwarelabs.com/articles/hardware/raid-and-gaming/index_6.shtml
".....we did not see an increase in FPS through its use. Load times for levels and games was significantly reduced utilizing the Raid controller and array. As we stated we do not expect that the majority of gamers are willing to purchase greater than 4 drives and a controller for this kind of setup. While onboard Raid is an option available to many users you should be aware that using onboard Raid will mean the consumption of CPU time for this task and thus a reduction in performance that may actually lead to worse FPS. An add-on controller will always be the best option until they integrate discreet Raid controllers with their own memory into consumer level motherboards."

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1001325
"However, many have tried to justify/overlook those shortcomings by simply saying "It's faster." Anyone who does this is wrong, wasting their money, and buying into hype. Nothing more."

http://jeff-sue.suite101.com/how-raid-storage-improves-performance-a101975
"The real-world performance benefits possible in a single-user PC situation is not a given for most people, because the benefits rely on multiple independent, simultaneous requests. One person running most desktop applications may not see a big payback in performance because they are not written to do asynchronous I/O to disks. Understanding this can help avoid disappointment."

http://www.scs-myung.com/v2/index. [...] om_content
"What about performance? This, we suspect, is the primary reason why so many users doggedly pursue the RAID 0 "holy grail." This inevitably leads to dissapointment by those that notice little or no performance gain.....As stated above, first person shooters rarely benefit from RAID 0.__ Frame rates will almost certainly not improve, as they are determined by your video card and processor above all else. In fact, theoretically your FPS frame rate may decrease, since many low-cost RAID controllers (anything made by Highpoint at the tiem of this writing, and most cards from Promise) implement RAID in software, so the process of splitting and combining data across your drives is done by your CPU, which could better be utilized by your game. That said, the CPU overhead of RAID0 is minimal on high-performance processors."

Even the HD manufacturers limit RAID's advantages to very specific applications and non of them involves gaming:

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/raid/http://westerndigital.com/en/products/raid/

 
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GoliGuy

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Perhaps in 10 years it will be standard. But most certainly not today.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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For very specialized uses, RAID 0 + SSD may be beneficial.
Production quality 3D rendering, transferring LARGE individual files back and forth, or a high frequency web server where an extra 1% performance would = extra $$, and the relevant hot swap backup is involved.

For flight sims and VMs?...that IS a pretty standard PC. Yes, it is a far better PC than mom's email box. But I doubt you'll see any performance benefit for your stated use.
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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If it's not doing Hollywood level animation, video editing, medical imaging, climate modeling and well into 5 digits in cost, I'd still consider it pretty much a standard workstation / gaming PC. "Average" and "standard" are two different things. A Porsche might not be a "average sports car", but it certainly is a "standard" street legal vehicle......it's not NASCAR.

I'm typing from a box w/ 4.6 Ghz OC, 2400 RAM, (2) 256 GB SSDs, (2) 2 TB SSHDs, (2) 780's OC'd 26%, w/ CPU, MoBo, GFX Cards water cooled by (2) pumps, 5 x 140mm worth of Radiator and (15) fans, (3) fan controllers and 144 Hz monitors. During the day it serves as my home office server and CAD workstation, in the evenings it serves as the house's media sever, as well as my son's (he's a pilot) flight simulator (w/ A10-Thrustmaster Flight Stick, Throttles and head mouse) and one of our 3 gaming boxes. While it has more and perhaps faster hardware than the average PC .... at least for a few more months :) .... it's still "just a PC".

 
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