Raptor v Barracuda / Matrix Raid?

[Dertman]

Upgrading my main PC and am having a hard time deciding on a hard drive setup. I use this machine as both my business PC (stability) and game PC (speed). Money is always somewhat of an issue, but not a very big factor. Here are the four main options that I see:

1) Raptor 150 for my games and 2 x 7200.10 750's in RAID 1 for my OS and business data;

2) 2 x 7200.10 750's in a Matrix RAID with 250GB to games in RAID 0 and 500GB in RAID 1 for my OS and Data;

3) 2 x 7200.10 750's in RAID 1 for everything;

4) Raptor 150 for my games and 7200.10 750 for my OS and business data w/o any RAID.

Clearly there is a price/capacity issue, but I mostly look for bang for the buck. I don't want to spend $200 more for a 2% gain. I want the best blend of performance and stability.

The other two questions I have are:

1) Is RAID 1 worth it? If an OS hard drive fails will it corrupt the other hard drive or is it simply just unplug the bad and the good boots up fine?

2) Presuming I go with #1, #2 or #4 - is it worth putting the OS on the Raptor (single drive) or the RAID 0 partition? How great a benefit will I see on the OS side to warrant having to do an OS reinstall if the drive fails?

Thanks.

 

[sc10000]

Just went the the same process with the same drives yesterday...

Currently I have raid 0 for OS + a single drive for backup. Not safe, but fairly quick. Always concerned about losing something or everything. Planning a new box for Vista & decided to go for a combination of speed & security.

2 x Raptor 150, Raid 1, for OS & apps

4 x 7200.10, Raid 5, for backup & archiving

Imo, Raptor 150s aren't large enough for storage; raid 0 is ok only for speed, and only if you're willing/expecting/don't care to lose everything. If you can't swing the bucks for something like the above setup, then go with your option 3 for capacity & security; it will still be faster than a single drive & you can sleep at night not worrying about losing anything. Not as fast or secure as Raid 1 + 5, but a lot cheaper.