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Single RAID 0 or Multipule RAID 0??

Tags:
  • Hard Drives
  • Western Digital
  • Performance
  • Configuration
  • NAS / RAID
  • Storage
Last response: in Storage
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April 16, 2007 7:33:59 PM

Hello, I have 2 questions about my RAID configuration:

1st
I currently have 4 WD 120GB SATA drives split into 2 RAID 0 configs of 240GB respectively. (This allows me to have a C: and a D: drive)

Do I get better performance having 2 drives on RAID 0 twice (making 2 logical drives at 240GB each), or 4 drives on a single RAID 0 partitioned into 2 logical drives at 240GB each??

2nd
I have a C: and a D: drive as stated above. I install my OS and other applications on the C: while I install all my games on the D:.

My question is; is there a performance gain running 2 drives (one for the OS and one for games) or should they both be on the same drive??

More about : single raid multipule raid

April 16, 2007 8:50:43 PM

having one large 4 hdd raid 0 array will offer the best performance, regardless of how you partition it... whether its 1 large partition, or 100 smaller partitions... the only reason you would partition it then is for organizational purposes (and to reduce possible fragmentation), the pagefile will benefit being on the C:\ partition of the 4 hdd array then too, because that will be at the beginning of the array, the pagefile also benefits from increased I/O performance, so, another reason to keep a single 4 hdd array

this suggestion wont be a very efficient use of space, but it is certainly an option for strictly performance reasons... what you could do though, is leave a large part of the 4 hdd raid 0 array unformatted (preferrably the second half, which would be the slower half of the array), that way you get the most performance from it, and dont have to worry about a half terabyte of data loss incase (when) one hdd happens to go south

speaking of which, as im sure you know always have 'at least' one backup storage drive, for anything you wouldnt want to lose (preferrably a backup, and then a backup of a backup, anything more is nice, but not entirely necessary then, so two backups is preferrable, but having at least one is essential)
April 17, 2007 1:06:00 AM

He is asking about performance using 4 hard discs in what configuration would be best...
IE>
System 1 with boot drive RAID0 using 2 hard drives and a scratch/swap disk using 2 hard drives RAID0
would be better/worse than...
System 2 with RAID0 using 4 hard drives for system and swap file
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April 17, 2007 1:10:02 AM

That would be a good test to perform?!? :idea: :idea: :idea:

I would suspect both perform excellent, but lean towards having the pair of RAID0's, enabling simultaneous read/writes to/from OS&Game dir's along with the swap file and data saves both outperforming a single drive.
It would certainly be a benefit when working with large data/video files.
April 17, 2007 1:51:57 AM

i know. thats where my reply was directed though too... i believed it would offer more performance to have a single large array, over 2 smaller lesser performing arrays. even though the reads and writes may be seperated by having 2 individual arrays, that would only provide real benefit if the reads and/or writes were both occuring simultaneously... or if a particular application could make use of the seperated hdds that way. the pagefile, for instance, benefits most by being placed on the fastest section of the fastest drive (array) available. as far as partitioning, i mentioned that he could do 2 logical partitions on one large raid array, but i didnt emphasize any performance improvement from it, as there really wouldnt be. it would primarily be for organizing data, nothing else.
April 17, 2007 2:10:24 AM

Completely depends on what you're doing.

Do you have an application that is the single major disk I/O operation going on? i.e. Playback of an uncompressed .avi, or capturing HD video. In this case, a 4-drive RAID 0 would work best (assuming, of course, your RAID controller is not interface limited, like on a 32-bit PCI slot).

Or are you working with an application that does 2 major I/O operations simultaneously? i.e. DVD Authoring (reading MPEG/AC3 from one volume, writing VOB to second volume) or video editing (reading video streams from one volume, writing composited/edited stream to second volume). In this case, much better performance is realized with 2x 2-drive RAID 0s.
April 17, 2007 12:57:01 PM

Thanks for the discussion everyone. Currently I'm using my computer for gaming, webdesign, music..

I don't do any video editing persay. I do some, but not enough to worry about performance.

As for having a backup, I currently have a file server, external HD, and NAS so Backup isn't a problem... I've been bitten in the past by the "I didn't backup anything" bug and have learned my lesson..

So, to close this out, I believe I will go with 4 HD on a RAID 0.

Thanks,
ToneberryKing
!