nvraid 0 vs 1

[darkangelism]

does anybody have any performance numbers of using nvraid using raid 0 vs raid 1...I want to get some raptor drives for my OS and games, i would like the data security of raid 1, but if i am sacrificing significant read speed due to the fact that it is a software raid then ill use raid 0...I could also use a pcie 1X raid card...my 4X slot is blocked by my cpu cooler though.

 

[leesiulung]

Before you read on, this does not answer your question of performance numbers, but rather point out certain information... You have been warned.

I would imagine that RAID 1 has very little speed loss for reads. As it only needs to read the data from one drive of the two in mirror.

On the other hand, writing is to two drives and might take a little co-ordination by the OS if you are using one of them hybrid RAIDS (partial hardware and software solution) that exist frequently on motherboards. This might slow it down a little compared to a single drive, but probably not noticeable.

RAID-0 is a double edged sword, because it can speed up certain types of reads and writes, but also decrease performance. It all depends on how you configure it with respect to cluster size and striping size compared to what your usage pattern. I have a thread here that asks this very question. How to optimize the stripings size, with no responses so far.

Most likely for gaming and OS it won't make a big difference for the amount of work you have to put into it.

I do it anyhow, as large files seems to be processed soooo much faster and the small reads doesn't make much difference. Besides I enjoy mucking around with it...

For your use, I would use the first Raptor drive as OS and gaming drive. Put the OS page file on the second Raptor drive and use a software solution to periodically back up your first drive with critical data. Also if you can store most of your infrequently used data on the second drive you can speed up the reads on the first drive.... This setup could prevent data loss due to Virus, Trojans, accidental deletions and etc that RAID-1 does not prevent.

If money is no objection, then go with a hardware RAID SCSI card with some of those fancy 15,000 rpm drives. YEAH!!!

 

[Madwand]

nVIDIA seems to put out a new chipset every couple of months, so nobody as far as I know has exhaustive performance numbers for all their chipsets.

From what I've seen though, nvRAID's RAID 1 is simplistic in performance terms -- a pair of drives in RAID 1 performs just under what a single drive can do for read/write.

RAID 0 performs about double that, at least for large sequential data requests. A stripe size of 32k would be suggested for optimizing sequential transfer rates for a 2-drive RAID 0 array, where most of the requests are the magic number 64k (or higher). Since that 32k stripe can lead pretty much to 2x single drive sequential performance, for sequential transfers, there's no better stripe size. Other stripe sizes might match, but none can be materially better.

For random access and especially multi-user loads, the striping is generally done differently -- the stripe size is increased so that each request will only run at single drive speed, but taken together, multiple requests can run closer to two-drive speed.

 

[darkangelism]

wow the raid 0 was significantly faster then raid 1...which means that is what ill do...and im going to create an image of my drive and keep all my data on multiple backups on a 2nd data drive and DVD.


As for using 15,000 rpm drives lee...i plan on doing that with SAS later on, once i move to dual quads maybe k8L or 45nm xeons in a year or so, with a hardware sas controller and using raid 10 on sas and raid 5 on sata for data

 

[Dante_Jose_Cuervo]

Any ideas on which RAID controller you're looking at?

 

[ALANMAN]

I can honestly say that Raid 0 rocks. I just set it up yesterday using 2 320 GB WD HDD's here and Nvraid on my Nforce 4 motherboard and it's faster than a single raptor that I used to have. I have all my important stuff backed up twice on other HDD's, so if failure occurs, no worries! I say go for it. 8)

 

[darkangelism]

well for now i was planning on using onboard nvraid unless performance isnt good or the overhead on my system s too high then i would buy a hardware raid controller.

 

[zenmaster]

Very Smart Man :>

RAID 0 Rocks, but with the increased failure risks you need backups.

Heck, everyone needs backups.

For the poster, just remember RAID-0 provides no fault tolerance and about doubles the chance of data failure.

From what I have seen Raptors are some of the most reliable drives but the failure rate for HDDs in general is at about 18% after three years based upon a recent massive study.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Just thinking about what RAID does will give you your answer.

RAID 1 (mirroring) stores a 1 MB file twice, once on each of the two drives. It takes the controller / HD's just as long to write 1 MB on one single drive systems as it does on a RAID 1 system. Kinda like asking the question If Bill can run a mile in 5 minutes and Mary can run a mile in 5 minutes, how long will it take Bill and Mary to run a mile ?

RAID 1 (striping) just gives data security .... if on drive fails, then you still have one left. Kinda like giving Bill and Mary a spool of telephone cable and asking them to run a line to the other side of a field 1 mile away. If one comes up lame or breaks their cable you still have a spare

OTOH, RAID 0 stores a 1 MB file by putting 0.5 MB on each drive. Obviously, the same HD can write 0.5 MB in about half the time that it can writ 1.0 MB so there is a doubling of performance (minus small amount of overhead). Thinking of Bill and Mary again, running hat cable, if they both start in the middle of the field and one runs to north side and other runs to south side, and they both make it, job gets done in half the time. Of course if one breaks their cable again, your phone ain't gonna work.

Of course there's many other types of RAID (5, 10 , 0+1 being the most common of late) all of which are probably not supported by your controller.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAID.html

The most common configuration these days in NAS systems results in both mirroring and striping whereas your array capacity is equal to (n-1) x c where n = the number of drives and c = the capacity of the drive. If drives of different sizes are used c = the capacity of smallest drive.

 

[ALANMAN]

RAID 1 (striping) just gives data security .... if on drive fails, then you still have one left. Kinda like giving Bill and Mary a spool of telephone cable and asking them to run a line to the other side of a field 1 mile away. If one comes up lame or breaks their cable you still have a spare

um...you may want to fix this