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HD and RAID Recommendations/Help Please

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - HD and RAID Recommendations/Help Please

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Docroc   02-27-2006 at 07:40:25 PM

Building a new system that will be used some for gaming, a little more for video editing and mostly mundane stuff. Current system uses a 80GB drive with external back-up and haven't used 50% of the drive yet (though not much video stuff yet).

Drive speed is nice but not willing to pay tons for it. Have seen a lot of people use RAID 0 for OS but RAID 0 makes me nervous given a recent HD failure with no warning on my wife's computer. I like RAID 1 for its back-up and little faster read speed (though longer write speed), though have seen threads warning about viruses wiping that security away and still needing routine back-ups.

So my questions are:
1. Any RAID set-up recommendations, and what do you recommend putting on each drive.
2. HD recommendations...I know Raptors are fast but are a little noisier and more $ per GB. Saw a recent review that SATA 2 drives are not horribly behind Raptors and have been eyeing the Seagate 160GB or 300GB SATA 2 drive (about same price as Raptor 74)....but open to any ideas. HD decision is my last one before building my system. Thanks in advance to all that respond.

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Covered_in_bees   02-27-2006 at 08:11:36 PM
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Firstly, regarding the HDD recommendation, I have 4 'raptors' in my system, and I don't notice the noise at all. For performance, there's nothing that can beat them except SCSI (which are very noisy, but I think SCSI is not being considered here). However, they are considerably more expensive, and the newer drives are certainly improving performance-wise. At the end of the day, I guess it depends on how much you're willing to pay for that small performance increase.

Regarding RAID, there generally are improvements in read/write times with RAID 0 (although I remember reading a review somewhere where there wasn't a noticeable increase in load times for certain games - not sure why that was though). However, you also have double the risk of data loss due to HDD failure.

If you are planning to go with a RAID 0 array, then I would not use that array to store data that you do not want to risk losing. There are many discussions on RAID 0 on these forums :)

I used to run RAID 0 before, and I used that array to install winxp and programs (including games). However, I used to keep all my program installation files on a separate HDD (and also a backup on an external drive). Also, I relocated My Documents, My Music, etc. onto another drive.

Hope this helps.

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Mobius   02-27-2006 at 08:26:51 PM
- 0 +

Get the new, large capacity Raptor drive. It beats a RAID array, without all the stupid risks, costs and hassles associated with a RAID0+1 array.

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Docroc   02-27-2006 at 11:43:57 PM
- 0 +

Thanks for the input...I got some figuring to do :)

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