I was looking into raptor drives and maybe even raptor raid setups for a computer I wanted to build, but a raptor raid was way out of my price range. I was wondering how a sata raid with say 7200 rpm drives would compare to a single raptor drive? I found allot of posts relating to raptor raids vs single raptor but I havnt seen this subject discussed, any input?

Raptors are fast because of their low latency and high spin speed (combined with SATA transfer rates)

RAID is faster because it can combine transfer and read/write speeds across multiple drives. There is no single drive faster than any RAID array (within reason)

That's a bit dumb, Opteron was developed for servers but is often advantagous for desktops (in fact that's the basis of the success of PowerPC), RAID is much faster for transfers and is a luxury that's not too expensive for desktop users. SCSI maybe is a little too much of a luxury for desktop performance due to either small drive size or massive (relative) cost.

But to say RAID is exclusively for servers, is really stupid, have you seen how many boards from the last 5 years have come with a RAID controller? That should answer your point.

As suggested, it might help to know more about your applications. My initial thoughts on RAID for the desktop are that RAID-0 is a high-risk proposition (adding a point of failure) for questionable benefit. RAID-1, however, provides solid data backup. Writes may be a little slower, but with enough RAM in your system, you won't see the difference. If a drive fails, your data is safe. Tell us more about what you need to accomplish with your system, and perhaps we can be more helpful.

Well Im into gaming and as I get older and more into it Id just like a fast computer you know? From what I understand a raptor and a raid array do make a difference, if only a slight one still a difference. I havn't built anything or ordered anything Im just doing my research as of now. So far im planning either an athlon x2 3800-4400 or an opteron, but Id also like to wait and see what the new sockets amd and intel are releasing have to offer, being only a few weeks away. From my limited understanding a raid array will allow the computer to read from 2 drives instead of just one, theoretically cutting down on how fast it takes the drive to access information. Now I said it that way because I know its not perfect and each drive still does have to search for the data so It could also in theory take just as long as a non raid setup. But The real question Im asking is like say in loading a game, which is faster in loading the game, the raptor or the raid array. Now for this my better judgement would say the raptor just because the one continious drive is faster than a standard 7200rpm drive and could find and load the data quick. But if a raid array is close to that same speed, a raid array would be WAY cheaper. I mean I could set up 2 80gb sata drives on raid for around $100 easy. And on the other side of the spectrum is a 36gb raptor for $100. I already have some large drives that i could transfer to the new build (2x250gb) that I could use for storage, im just looking for a fast disk system for the OS, games, and the paging file.

I actully found supreme laws post very, very informative to what Im looking for. The idea of the system drive, the 2nd and 3rd drive for a raid array of programs and the swap file (easily restored even if one drive fails, its easy to re-install apps) and then a large drive for data and backups.

sure, but it was a very, very, very long post... but i agree with all he said.
The point is, i work at as a system administrator and we dont use raid arrays here. Mainly because they are complicated to setup, but also if a machine fails, we cant take the disk out and put on another machine and just turn it on and run. If we had raid, we would have to put 2 disks in another board which is exactly the same as the original, or else it wont work. Also, if one disk fails, you lose your entire data. Unless you use some raid1 or 0+1, even 5, which will need more disks. Raid 1 increases read speeds and add security, but as you said you're looking for pure speed, that genereally leads to thinking of RAID 0, which i dont recommend at all.

Like i said, if you put 2 disks with no raid, install OS/games/apps and your files and the page file to another one will give more safety, more speed than a single disk, without the risks of RAID0. You can even backup your files to both disks, so if one disk fails you dont lose your important data. Also, if something goes wrong you can boot from a recovery disk, mount your disk to another computer, etc, etc.

Like someone said that just because consumer motherboards are shipping with raid controllers it means that raid is not restricted to server environments, but i think it is... putting a raid chip adds value to the board, but that does not mean it's really necessary or useful. Raid is kinda like SLI.. it does not double your fps, but if you have the money, go for it.

I know this seems silly but backup and recovery are not even really an issue to me. I have 2 computers that I use. One I use for internet browsing, e-mail all that junk and that one I do care about the recovery. So I have 2 drives and one just holds the backups. But for my gaming comp, lets say one drive fails on the raid array, if I follow supreme laws diagram I replace the drive and then all I have to do is re-install whatever games were on that drive. Doesnt seem like that big of a hassle for me, even if it is limited performance increase.

Do you consider more than $2 per GB reasonable?

That's like charging $1500 for the new 750gb drives.

Alright I think my decision is made after seeing the raptor vs raid article, seems like the average raid setup is about on par with the raptor drives, but much cheaper. Thanks for the input everyone, I get where some of you are coming from with pushing away from raid but I mean its also an expereince... I can afford it, its not too expensive, it will be cool to try and if I do get screwed up I can buy a brand new single drive for $50 lesson learned. Sounds like a small risk to me for something that will be cool to try.

See, we not talking about price per gig. We are talking about fact, the way you stating

is wrong. I am just making a correction not aruging about price per gig or priceerformance.

Onboard Nvidia raid controller.

I have a 10000RPM 74GB Raptor as a system drive and two 7200RPM 320GB WD's in a RAID 1. I suggest you set up your system this way, Raptor as the system drive and use the big 7200RPM drives for the storage array.

You can't argue against something non-linear on a forum. Whether something is 'reasonable' or not is non-linear. Anyway, I don't think it really matters or not, multiple HDDs are much better for the money.

It's obvious your statement is wrong, and you just trying to deny it. Most people here know that Raptor outperformance most RAID setup hard drives. Believe it or not, it's a fact and you can't deny that. There's a reason for the cost...

i noticed that when there's a discussion about a particular piece of hardware, usually the owners of that particular hardware never admit there's something better than those parts

if this was an hypothetical situation with infinite cash, obviously going for a raptor (better yet, a raptor raid) would be the obvious choice, but unfortunately we dont live in an hypothetical world... so, paying more than 250 dollars for 150GB of storage for example, is, at least for me, insane. With that money you can afford 5 times that storage space... you can buy 3 drives and put them in a raid array, and still you would have 2 times the space, with the same performance level, with data security as a bonus. So, at least for me, from my point of views, going for a raptor is not worth

Thats what I do. I have 4 hard drives in my computer (soon to be 6). Once I upgrade my PC, I plan to have:

1 74GB Raptor (paid half price) for OS and regular applications
1 74GB Raptor (paid half price again for games
4x 250GB SATA in RAID5 for video storage and what not.

That way I can be playing games and streaming video off my PC to my Xbox to watch on TV.

Of course at the moment I only have 1 250GB SATA drive, 2 160GB SATA drives, and a 250GB IDE drive. I'm thinking of buying 3 more SATA 250GB drives to have a nice 750GB RAID5 array (you loose one drive to parity for redundancy). I might just start off with a smaller array though till I can pick up the new drives. Leaves me a 250GB IDE drive though that I don't know what to do with. Maybe I can get a IDE -> SATA adapter if they make them. Think they do.

It has its use, but not at all viable as a primary disk solution.

Sure its cheaper and faster but its 2GB for christ sake. What are you gonna do with that besides use it for your swap file. Plus then on top of that he still has to buy hard drives to actually put stuff on. Hmm.....500GB or 2GB......yeah I'm gonna go with 500GB Alex.

Thats like saying lets use the same type of memory they use in L1 cache for system memory. Its way faster but you'll only have 2MB. Oh goody.

Cache? I don't think so, somehow. What's the cache on those new Itanium chips, 24mb?? Something like that - and that's uber expensive server chip. Installing anything useful to cache won't happen for absolutely ages. They've been doing 512kb caches since Pentium Pro, and we're just getting to 2mb caches 10 years later.

So you're talking about replacing RAM with cache?

Great, you can run an EIGHT YEAR OLD operating system on a chip that costs more than most people's houses. And a 15 year old one on a system that isn't out yet.

I don't think there's much argument to say 512k cache isn't about average these days, if you take into consideration what chips are available and what people use. If anything it's less, what with all the 256k Celerons and Semprons that are about, as well as Athlon XPs and P4s.

I'm about to take a leaf out of the 9-inch book of getting people to listen to you, but simpletons seem to communicate well between each other.

SOLID STATE DRIVES ARE NOT VIABLE IN ANY FORM. YET.

Anything that requires me to absolutely don't you DARE unplug that computer lest I lose a sh!tload of data is not something I count as viable.

(Are you not the guy who reccommended an Emachines PC over a home build?)

I've already explained to you why solid state drives aren't viable (btw, dictionary.com it as you clearly don't understand what it means) so I won't bother explaining again.

I don't use Raptors. I just said they are more reliable than a SSD. Which they are.

Proprietary parts are (at least where I'm coming from) those custom to a certain manufacturer that are not useable in any other system - I.E. custom shaped motherboards and PSUs, non-expandable boards due to lack of AGP/PCI-e (which you would definitely find on 99.9% of retail boards) etc...

Again, dictionary.com. It's a real boon for both the stupid and the curious.

Finally to round this all off, I uselessly quote from another thread:

Followed up by...

Could we stop wasting people's time/energy with this pointless argument, I doubt you're going to admit I'm right and I'm sure as hell not going to admit you are, so if we could leave it here it'd be great.

I just built a PC a month ago with 2 WD Raptor 10,000 RPM 150 GB drives and placed them in a RAID 0 configuration using an onboard Nvidia Controller on an ASUS A8N32 SLI motherboard.

I also have a WD 400 KD hard drive. I use the 400 GB drive for storage & backups, and the RAID 0 array (300 GB total) for Windows & games.

For the nay-sayers (read: RAID non-conformists), after using RAID for over a month now, I can wholeheartedly agree that RAID offers advantages in speed and latency over a single drive. If you play games, RAID is highly recommended! If you play Battlefield 2, you know what I mean when I say that load times are not a deal breaker, but are damn annoying when you want to get into a game. Don't mind waiting 60+ seconds for the game to load? You're more patient than I am.

Frankly, I can't think of a reason NOT to have RAID if you are a gamer. As long as you back up critical data, you are 100% safe if hardware crashes. You see, other components can fail too...which is another reason to back up your data. I had lightning strike my computer, so I learned that lesson...but I digress.

If you want to see actual numbers, read Maximum PC. Every month it seems, they do benchmarks on all kinds of hard drives both with and without RAID, using HD Tach and other benchmarks.

I will echo the sentiment that cost is NOT the factor for hardcore gamers like myself. We have to have the best, cost be damned. If there was room in my PC to do a SCSI RAID 0, trust me, I'd do it!