Can a computer with two hard drives read from both at once

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xmitr

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If I have for instance the OS on one drive and programs/data on another will the computer read from both drives concurrently or from only one at a time?
Another way of asking this is would there be any advantage to having everything on a RAID 0 setup or on two drives as above?
 
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1. yes sir. OS on one drive and programs and games on the other is not only possibly it is widely utilized. my linux mint system has one drive (SSD) for the OS, and a hard drive for the rest. I find it is faster in this configuration. one device failure only looses part of the data. PC's can read and write to many drives simultaneously.

2. yes the advantage of raid 0 is speed. if the drives are close in performance they will work together and will increase throughput. the Downside, and its a big one for some of us, if one device fails all data is lost. RAID-0 is a misnomer, it should be called AID-0 there is no built in redundancy, the R in RAID, if you go this route backup often, and oftener.
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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Can read from more than one drive simultaneously mate.
Always found a separate drive for os & then another seoerate one in particular for games to be the best way.

Now ssd's are very affordable as OS drives it makes even more sense to run this way.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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2 drives, absolutely.
My main PC has 5, my house server has 6.
Each drive has its own use.

RAID 0? Unless you have specific need, do not bother.
 
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R_1

R_1

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your answers
1. yes sir. OS on one drive and programs and games on the other is not only possibly it is widely utilized. my linux mint system has one drive (SSD) for the OS, and a hard drive for the rest. I find it is faster in this configuration. one device failure only looses part of the data. PC's can read and write to many drives simultaneously.

2. yes the advantage of raid 0 is speed. if the drives are close in performance they will work together and will increase throughput. the Downside, and its a big one for some of us, if one device fails all data is lost. RAID-0 is a misnomer, it should be called AID-0 there is no built in redundancy, the R in RAID, if you go this route backup often, and oftener.
 
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xmitr

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OK, then the computer can read/write to both drives simultaneously. So since a RAID array reads and writes twice as fast as a single drive, having everything on a RAID should run programs like gaming approximately as fast as two separate drives one for OS and one for the game?
 
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R_1

R_1

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you will not get twice the performance, but there will be a significant increase in read write times. data will be split and half stored on each drive.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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No.
You will not, for instance, get 2x the FPS.
You might see faster level load times.

Unless you're doing this with SSD's. In which case you would probably see zero difference.

But a regular SSD is faster than 2x HDD in RAID 0.
 
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