1x1000GB or 2x500GB?

[Felixmagician]

I'm a novice builder, so bear with me.

Which is better, 2x500GB 16 MB cache hard drives with RAID0
or
1x1000GB 32 MB cache?

How much does the cache/buffer affect on the speed?

 

[evongugg]

You will have less problems with 1x1000GB 32 MB cache.

Refer to these charts for performance:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3-5-hard-drive-charts/Average-Read-Transfer-Performance,658.html

 

[pbrigido]

I would go with the 1 TB drive as well. RAID 0 is nice, but nowhere near double the performance that one would expect.

 

[blackened144]

RAID0 has its advantages, mainly, high throughput. I have 2 RAID0 arrays, 2x400 and 2x500 that I use for HD video. Moving from array to array is uber fast, but I have my OS installed on a single 400gb drive.

 

[Felixmagician]

Why doesnt cache appear to have any affect on the speed (according to that chart)?
Can someone explain or is there a good article that explains this stuff?

 

[SizroSpunkmire]

The 2x500 will get you margineably better load times in games and copying large amounts of data. Downside of course if the the lack of fault tolerance; one drive goes you lose the hole array.

Personally I use 2x500 in a hardware RAID 0 with 3x250GB and 1x200GB partitions. I have no complaints at all.