RAID, worth it?

[theproffessor]

I just got all my components for my new rig, but have not had the time to put the thing together yet. I have been reading some about raid setups and was wondering if it was worth it. I would only be doing this to increase speed(raid 0, correct?), anything that is super important I usually just keep on disks or I will use the HD from my soon to be retired rig for some backups. I was just wondering how much of a performance increase is it?

 

[aristotelus]

Absolutely noticeable even on onboard raid controllers.

 

[theproffessor]

is a seperate raid controller worth picking up then? I have an Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe mobo, and a Seagate 250g sata...

 

[aristotelus]

The cost off a seperat raid controller where you will start to notice a difference compared to onboard raid controllers ar most likely surpassing the price of your complete system. (of course there is a medium priced range that have a difference, but not noticable in home use, in my opinion)

 

[corvetteguy]

Ya stick with on board RAID. The lowest i've seen a seperate controller was $300. For that you could buy 2 more drives, or a rasptor to increase performance.

 

[aristotelus]

I know that size differences dont matter much, disk size will just be limited to the smallest disk size and the drive with the lowest performance.

I can imagine though that there could be issues running raid that way.......It's not the recommended way........and never seen it work that way.......but it seems it should be possible

As for the connection type......yes they must be the same.........current main boards for home usage with onboard raid controllers use the sata connectors.....

Maybe there are exeptions i just dont know about.......

But be it professional usage or home usage..........equal drives, equal connector type is the only way to go if you want a raid configuration in my opinion.

It seems there is a forum on here describing every aspect of raid, maybe you can find some further info there. But really am rather sure it will come to the same conclusion.

 

[corvetteguy]

Since we're talking RAID here.
I have an 80gb SATA HDD and a 200GB ATA HDD on my system listed in my sig.

Would i be able to put an SATA and an ATA into a RAID 0 cofiguration? or do i have to keep it as 2 SATA or 2 ATA?

Ya i think the 2 drives are suppose to be exactly the same or close to work properly, and they should at least be the same connection i'm pretty sure.