To RAID or not to RAID. That is the question.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

In article <c5f0vb02p19@enews3.newsguy.com>,
antispam@snuff.com says...
> I'm in the progress of upgrading my PC. Having previously had a PC with two
> ATA100 interfaces and two ATA66 interfaces, I know need to upgrade my
> harddrives as I can no longer plug my 3 hard disks and 3 CD/DVD drives in
> together. I'm going to use the 3 hard disks for another project.
>
> I use my PC for all sorts of things - from playing the latest games to web
> development to video editing and 3D rendering.
>
> My new motherboard has 2 SATA interfaces and 2 ATA100 interfaces. The SATA
> interfaces can be configured for RAID.
>
> Originally I was going to get a 36GB 10,000 rpm SATA drive (as a bootdisk
> and general data storage) and a 200GB 7,200rpm SATA drive(applications,
> games, digital video storage and processing). And possibly later get a
> another 200GB+ IDE drive so I could store shedloads of digital video on the
> PC.
>
> My question is (and performance is what I'm most after), would my original
> SATA drive setup be best or would it be better to go for two 200GB 7,200 rpm
> drives in a RAID 0 configuration. I do like storage space. 2 10,000rpm
> drives are out of the question - not enough storage capacity.
>

RAID0 - twice the chance of data loss for marginal
performance gain. Modern hard drives can easily keep up
with video editing requirements (even my 5400rpm 160Gb
WD can manage a sustained 12MB/s when capturing).

Use the 36Gb (or 72Gb) drive as your
boot/system/application drive. Set the 200Gb aside for
digital video work. Don't store apps/software on the
200Gb drive.

It's better to keep all of your apps/software on the
primary disk to make it easier to create snapshot images
of your PC setup using a drive imageing program (like
Ghost). If you're doing video, that's something that
will save you a good bit of grief when something else
that you install hoses half a dozen codecs.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Jootec from Mars" <antispam@snuff.com> wrote in message news:c5f0vb02p19@enews3.newsguy.com...
> I'm in the progress of upgrading my PC. Having previously had a PC with two
> ATA100 interfaces and two ATA66 interfaces, I know need to upgrade my
> harddrives as I can no longer plug my 3 hard disks and 3 CD/DVD drives in
> together. I'm going to use the 3 hard disks for another project.
>
> I use my PC for all sorts of things - from playing the latest games to web
> development to video editing and 3D rendering.
>
> My new motherboard has 2 SATA interfaces and 2 ATA100 interfaces. The SATA
> interfaces can be configured for RAID.
>
> Originally I was going to get a 36GB 10,000 rpm SATA drive (as a bootdisk
> and general data storage) and a 200GB 7,200rpm SATA drive(applications,
> games, digital video storage and processing). And possibly later get a
> another 200GB+ IDE drive so I could store shedloads of digital video on the
> PC.

> My question is (and performance is what I'm most after), would
> my original SATA drive setup be best or would it be better to go
> for two 200GB 7,200 rpm drives in a RAID 0 configuration.

The short story is that you dont normally need RAID0 at all
with modern hard drives. You are likely to be quite disappointed
with the purported improvement in speed if you can even pick
it at all with a proper double blind trial without being allowed
to use a benchmark. And you'd have to have rocks in your
head to be taking the risk with that data using RAID0 when
you cant even detect any improvement in performance.

> I do like storage space. 2 10,000rpm drives are
> out of the question - not enough storage capacity.

And most data storage doesnt need speed anyway.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c5f4ol$10erh$1@ID-69072.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Jootec from Mars" <antispam@snuff.com> wrote in message
news:c5f0vb02p19@enews3.newsguy.com...
> > I'm in the progress of upgrading my PC. Having previously had a PC with
two
> > ATA100 interfaces and two ATA66 interfaces, I know need to upgrade my
> > harddrives as I can no longer plug my 3 hard disks and 3 CD/DVD drives
in
> > together. I'm going to use the 3 hard disks for another project.
> >
> > I use my PC for all sorts of things - from playing the latest games to
web
> > development to video editing and 3D rendering.
> >
> > My new motherboard has 2 SATA interfaces and 2 ATA100 interfaces. The
SATA
> > interfaces can be configured for RAID.
> >
> > Originally I was going to get a 36GB 10,000 rpm SATA drive (as a
bootdisk
> > and general data storage) and a 200GB 7,200rpm SATA drive(applications,
> > games, digital video storage and processing). And possibly later get a
> > another 200GB+ IDE drive so I could store shedloads of digital video on
the
> > PC.
>
> > My question is (and performance is what I'm most after), would
> > my original SATA drive setup be best or would it be better to go
> > for two 200GB 7,200 rpm drives in a RAID 0 configuration.
>
> The short story is that you dont normally need RAID0 at all
> with modern hard drives. You are likely to be quite disappointed
> with the purported improvement in speed if you can even pick
> it at all with a proper double blind trial without being allowed
> to use a benchmark. And you'd have to have rocks in your
> head to be taking the risk with that data using RAID0 when
> you cant even detect any improvement in performance.
>
> > I do like storage space. 2 10,000rpm drives are
> > out of the question - not enough storage capacity.
>
> And most data storage doesnt need speed anyway.

Well, while ignoring all the above nonsense, the issue is whether two 7200
RPM(200GB) RAID 0 will provide significantly better performance than a
single 10K RPM Raptor. That answer is: no major improvement.

Why not get the 74GB Raptor as they're a little faster than the older 36GB
version?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Ron Reaugh" <ron-reaugh@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:H_Hec.13423$K_.427328@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> "Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:c5f4ol$10erh$1@ID-69072.news.uni-berlin.de...
> >
> > "Jootec from Mars" <antispam@snuff.com> wrote in message news:c5f0vb02p19@enews3.newsguy.com...
> > > I'm in the progress of upgrading my PC. Having previously had a PC with
> two
> > > ATA100 interfaces and two ATA66 interfaces, I know need to upgrade my
> > > harddrives as I can no longer plug my 3 hard disks and 3 CD/DVD drives
> in
> > > together. I'm going to use the 3 hard disks for another project.
> > >
> > > I use my PC for all sorts of things - from playing the latest games to
> web
> > > development to video editing and 3D rendering.
> > >
> > > My new motherboard has 2 SATA interfaces and 2 ATA100 interfaces. The
> SATA
> > > interfaces can be configured for RAID.
> > >
> > > Originally I was going to get a 36GB 10,000 rpm SATA drive (as a
> bootdisk
> > > and general data storage) and a 200GB 7,200rpm SATA drive(applications,
> > > games, digital video storage and processing). And possibly later get a
> > > another 200GB+ IDE drive so I could store shedloads of digital video on
> the
> > > PC.
> >
> > > My question is (and performance is what I'm most after), would
> > > my original SATA drive setup be best or would it be better to go
> > > for two 200GB 7,200 rpm drives in a RAID 0 configuration.
> >
> > The short story is that you dont normally need RAID0 at all
> > with modern hard drives. You are likely to be quite disappointed
> > with the purported improvement in speed if you can even pick
> > it at all with a proper double blind trial without being allowed
> > to use a benchmark. And you'd have to have rocks in your
> > head to be taking the risk with that data using RAID0 when
> > you cant even detect any improvement in performance.
> >
> > > I do like storage space. 2 10,000rpm drives are
> > > out of the question - not enough storage capacity.
> >
> > And most data storage doesnt need speed anyway.
>
> Well, while ignoring all the above nonsense,

So you decided to add some of your own. Good show, Ron.

> the issue is whether two 7200 RPM (200GB) RAID 0 will provide
> significantly better performance than a single 10K RPM Raptor.

> That answer is: no major improvement.

Clueless. Anyone using that big a storage is using large files and doing
large sequential accesses. RAID 0 will improve significantly on those
and that is where it is noted.
Small files will not improve much or not at all but then, who'll notice.

>
> Why not get the 74GB Raptor as they're a little faster than the older 36GB
> version?

Ignore any advice from people who arent even capable of doing
the simplest tasks such as setting up their newsclient properly.

>
>

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Previously Jootec from Mars <antispam@snuff.com> wrote:
> I'm in the progress of upgrading my PC. Having previously had a PC with two
> ATA100 interfaces and two ATA66 interfaces, I know need to upgrade my
> harddrives as I can no longer plug my 3 hard disks and 3 CD/DVD drives in
> together. I'm going to use the 3 hard disks for another project.

> I use my PC for all sorts of things - from playing the latest games to web
> development to video editing and 3D rendering.

> My new motherboard has 2 SATA interfaces and 2 ATA100 interfaces. The SATA
> interfaces can be configured for RAID.

> Originally I was going to get a 36GB 10,000 rpm SATA drive (as a bootdisk
> and general data storage) and a 200GB 7,200rpm SATA drive(applications,
> games, digital video storage and processing). And possibly later get a
> another 200GB+ IDE drive so I could store shedloads of digital video on the
> PC.

> My question is (and performance is what I'm most after), would my original
> SATA drive setup be best or would it be better to go for two 200GB 7,200 rpm
> drives in a RAID 0 configuration. I do like storage space. 2 10,000rpm
> drives are out of the question - not enough storage capacity.

My present opinion is that having single dirves is bad enough.
With RAID-0 you get the root of the individual failure probabilities
as combined failure probability. E.g. when you have 1% failure rate per
year for one drive, RAID-0 gets 10% per year!

Personally I have even marginally important stuff on RAID-5 by now.

Arno
--
For email address: lastname AT tik DOT ee DOT ethz DOT ch
GnuPG: ID:1E25338F FP:0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Some rabid one eyed bigot entirely appropriately named
Rita Ä Bigotowitz <ritaberk20O4@aol.com> wrote in
message news:107rati5bjiv5c4@corp.supernews.com...
just the puerile anal obsessed fantasys thats all it can ever manage.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Jootec from Mars" <antispam@snuff.com> wrote in
news:c5f0vb02p19@enews3.newsguy.com:
> My question is (and performance is what I'm most after), would my
> original SATA drive setup be best or would it be better to go for two
> 200GB 7,200 rpm drives in a RAID 0 configuration. I do like storage
> space. 2 10,000rpm drives are out of the question - not enough storage
> capacity.


RAID 0 Pros:
- bigger max volume size by combining drives. Means you don't have to
manage disk space between separate volumes if you just make one big volume
- better performance for SOME situations / applications

Cons:
- higher chance of failure
- failure will affect more data
- more complex setup and management of drives, depending on the volume
type, especially if it involves boot volumes

Unless you can be very specific about the benefit you're going to get from
Raid 0, I'd stay away from it. That is, maybe you need a volume bigger
than the single biggest drive you have. Or, maybe you've tested a specific
application that you run a lot, and it's much better on Raid 0.

Otherwise, I'd stay away from it. It's much easier to manage individual
drives and volumes. It's easier to replace them as required if there are
problems, or re-arrange them as required depending on your needs, or move
them between machines should the need arise. All in all, dealing with
individial drives is just easier and more flexible. And, you CAN get
performance benefits running single drives, by splitting out your tasks to
different physical drives. I.E. OS, Apps, Swap, and any application
specific disk IO can be sent to separate drives. Now this must be done by
you, the user, in your config of your apps and system, to get the best
benefit, where as with Raid 0 it's just going to automatically split up the
i/o between the drives and you hope for the best.

If you're the person who wants a minimum of issues and maximum of uptime,
stick with individal drives or go on to raid 1 / raid 5. If you have some
specific application that really will benefit from the speed or volume size
of raid 0, you can try it but be aware of the risks and potential issues.