1. Which one is better for gaming?
a) 2 smaller drives in Raid 0 ex. 7200.9 Seagate 120 GB
b) 1 larger drive ex. 7200.10 Seagate 320 GB
c) other alternatives???
2. Does the Seagate 7200.10 really give an advantage over the 7200.9?
3. How should I partition my drives if I want windows to load quickly at startup? How much space should be allocated for Windows?
Two smaller drives in RAID0 will be faster. Unless you are running more than one OS, partition the whole thing for Windows. As far as the difference betweern *.9 and *.10 - beats me.
Personally, I'm using two 74GB raptors in RAID0 and they're scary-fast.
so then whats your backup strategy? Just wondering because I am trying to figure out what to do with my HDD's
Thanks
Kyle
My personal backup strategy?
I run ntbackup (full, including System State) every Sunday to an external drive then ntbackup (differential) every day. If I have to rebuild my system, I install Windows, restore from last Sunday's full backup and apply last night's differential.
I wrote a C# front end to ntbackup which allows me to run it from the windows task scheduler automatically in the middle of the night. At 0200 every morning, the computer comes out of sleep mode, runs its backup, emails me the result, then goes back to sleep.
But it will still work if you run ntbaqckup interactively. Its just that its hard (for me anyway) to have the discipline to do that every day.
1) Remove platters
2) Put paper over platter.
3) Run pencil over the paper while pressed firmly on the platters creating an image of the drive surface.
Note: Your on your own for restoring the image!
lol
I run RAID 0 as well... I have a small script I wrote to compress (WinRar commad line) all my important files (I keep in My Documents) and FTP it to my work PC. This is safe enough for me. I can re-install the OS and applications w/out much of a hassal.
Another easy alternative is to use MS backup and burn the backup to a DVD, or have it move it to a third harddisk.
In any case you have to be prepared to reinstall your applications if a crash occurs. The most important thing is keeping a copy of your important documetns off those drives.
1. Which one is better for gaming?
a) 2 smaller drives in Raid 0 ex. 7200.9 Seagate 120 GB
b) 1 larger drive ex. 7200.10 Seagate 320 GB
c) other alternatives???
2. Does the Seagate 7200.10 really give an advantage over the 7200.9?
3. How should I partition my drives if I want windows to load quickly at startup? How much space should be allocated for Windows?
Thanks in advance for answering.
1) I'd say it depends on what you're considering 'better'. Faster load times? That's about all you're going to get really.
2) Yes,
Quote :
The Barracuda 7200.10 clearly is the fastest 7200 RPM drive currently available.
3) Windows won't really load faster depending on your partitions. Partitions are very personal, so its hard to say. If you have a system partition, it should be at least 20GB. Personally I'd do 30-40GB.
Personally I'm kind of lazy backing up, so I just backup the important pictures and documents to an external 200GB drive. Everything else I can just reinstall... and if I don't remember a program, I probably don't need it.
We were hoping to see some sort of performance increase in the game loading tests, but the RAID array didn't give us that. While the scores put the RAID-0 array slightly slower than the single drive Raptor II, you should also remember that these scores are timed by hand and thus, we're dealing within normal variations in the "benchmark".
This would suggest that there is no observable (material) benefit to RAID 0 arrays for an average gamer. There are other articles available (as well as the remainder of the one referenced above) that suggest that there are no material benefits to an average user, as a whole.
Essentially, RAID 0 provides most notable benefits when transferring large amounts of data, and for that reason could be beneficial to, say, a video editing junkie, as a work drive.
That last qualification was included in the statement because there ARE some material detriments to having a RAID array as your primary drive - specifically, the halved fault tolerance (for a two drive array). I have experienced it first-hand, and I can tell you, it is disappointing to lose a significant amount of data.
Overall, unless you are planning to use your machine in a way that you know would derive benefits from a RAID0 setup, I would suggest that it is just not worth it.
Two smaller drives in RAID0 will be faster. Unless you are running more than one OS, partition the whole thing for Windows. As far as the difference betweern *.9 and *.10 - beats me.
Personally, I'm using two 74GB raptors in RAID0 and they're scary-fast.
Could you please cite a source for this statement? Because there is evidence to the contrary.
Two smaller drives in RAID0 will be faster. Unless you are running more than one OS, partition the whole thing for Windows. As far as the difference betweern *.9 and *.10 - beats me.
Personally, I'm using two 74GB raptors in RAID0 and they're scary-fast.
Could you please cite a source for this statement? Because there is evidence to the contrary.
I'll only answer question 3 because all other replys are mostly opinions or benchmarks that never reflect real user environments.
Anyway, no matter what you do, you'll always have a problem with 'What ifs'. So once you've selected your drives a Raid 0 for anyone who is new to Raid would be improve your over all computing than just straight disks. Which brings in my comment about Partitions. You can improve your Windows start up times and gaming(slightly) on just the raid alone. However, with multiple disks, as in business practice, move the pagefile off the logical OS drive to better performance in the striping of data. Not really advice per say, but one more thing you should study while you researching your potential raid setup.
Two smaller drives in RAID0 will be faster. Unless you are running more than one OS, partition the whole thing for Windows. As far as the difference betweern *.9 and *.10 - beats me.
Personally, I'm using two 74GB raptors in RAID0 and they're scary-fast.
Could you please cite a source for this statement? Because there is evidence to the contrary.
Your reply addresses theoretical throughput that, although indeed greatly improved, does not reflect any real life scenarios. And please, not server-level benchmarks (anyways, those are probably more advanced RAID levels than the simple stripe, since serves need to be relatively fault tolerant).
Here's another link for you, sruane. Please educate yourself so that you can support your practical advice with practical applications. Otherwise, it's just bad and uninformed advice.
Two smaller drives in RAID0 will be faster. Unless you are running more than one OS, partition the whole thing for Windows. As far as the difference betweern *.9 and *.10 - beats me.
Personally, I'm using two 74GB raptors in RAID0 and they're scary-fast.
Could you please cite a source for this statement? Because there is evidence to the contrary.
Your reply addresses theoretical throughput that, although indeed greatly improved, does not reflect any real life scenarios. And please, not server-level benchmarks (anyways, those are probably more advanced RAID levels than the simple stripe, since serves need to be relatively fault tolerant).
See BOTH links above - one in my first post, but I suggest you start with the second, directly above, since some argue that the first applies only to Raptors, which does not appear to be the case. (Sorry, I edited my post above before you responded...)
Thanks to all who helped reply. I was just asking because i'm on a limited budget. I wasn't sure if going for 2 smaller, cheaper drives would be better than getting one larger, more expensive one.
Is there any "disadvantage" or "danger" with going RAID 0? like loss of data?
At the moment I'm using only one drive. Would I be more likely to lose data with RAID 0 compared to using only one drive?
Is the smallest 7200.10 drive 250 GB? or less?
By the way...respect for each other guys! Peace! Thanks to ALL of you!
RAID 0 uses 2 drives which share out the data between them, giving you an advantage over a vanilla drive (that is one not on a RAID array) in read and write speeds (should be 1/2 of vanilla). If you lose 1 drive you lose all of the data on both drives as the other drive only contains half of the information contained in the array. Now how big an issue this is depends on how much you worry about drive failure and what kind of data you have on the array and if you do back-ups.
I've only experienced drive failure twice on all of the pc's I've had over the years, and that took a couple years to happen each time - but that doesn't mean your drive couldn't fail. If you are just using the array for running your games, its probably not a big deal if you have a failure. If your OS is there too, that's a bigger deal but you could rebuild, especially if you backup your data onto something else (like another HDD).
RAID 1 uses 2 drives with the same information, so if you lose 1 you still have all of your information. RAID 1 should take twice as long to write as a comparable RAID 0 (the same time as just a vanilla drive) but you do get the RAID 0 read advantage plus data safety with no real penalty to write time but no advantage either.
edit:seems I was misunderstood, so a minor chang for clarity and some tidying - but it's nice people are reading my posts
Thanks to all who helped reply. I was just asking because i'm on a limited budget. I wasn't sure if going for 2 smaller, cheaper drives would be better than getting one larger, more expensive one.
Is there any "disadvantage" or "danger" with going RAID 0? like loss of data?
At the moment I'm using only one drive. Would I be more likely to lose data with RAID 0 compared to using only one drive?
Is the smallest 7200.10 drive 250 GB? or less?
By the way...respect for each other guys! Peace! Thanks to ALL of you!
Do read the article I linked to, they cover your first two questions in detail, with various angles. If you feel that discussion is a little over your head, either scan through the information sruane linked to in "support" of his point, that describe the underlying mechanics (in the non-literal sense), and should give you enough knowledge in order to fully understand the anandtech's and StorageReview's articles.
PS. I would refute Robovski's point that there's great performance degradation in a RAID 1 set-up. IIRC its performance, generally speaking, is very similar to that of a single drive. Advantage: redundancy (i.e. data protection); Disadvantage: double the cost with no capacity increase.
