Best Setup for 1 Raptor and 2 Black Caviars

[timbiotic]

I am a gamer and multi-media user.

I have:

1 x 150gb Raptor
2x 640gb Black Caviar

All western digital. I already installed the os to the Raptor thinking it was the fastest drive. I then ran the basic HD Tune speed test and the results surprised me.

Avg Read for the Caviars in Raid 0 was 178mb/s while the Raptor was around 110. My brother said I should put the OS on the raptor anyways and the games on the RAID 0 drives, as this should be the best performance for games. I am thinking I should have just got 3 caviars and had 1 large RAID 0 array, and I basically have wasted the money on the raptor.

Suggestions?

 

[timbiotic]

I have done some more reading and am thinking about going with my original plan of OS on the Raptor for faster boot / access time for windows. And Games/Media on the RAID 0 for faster load times. Please feel free to disagree and convince me otherwise. I am going with Windows7 so I will probably be loading again when the RC comes out in April

 

[MRFS]

Occam's Razor: the simplest solution is always the best solution.


If the OS is installed on a RAID array, you'll need to invoke "F6"
when restoring drive image files, because the appropriate device
driver is needed to over-write C:

And, don't you know, you may misplace your device driver media.


Configure C: at 30-50GB on a VelociRaptor ("VR"), and format the rest
as a data partition. Write your drive image files to your RAID 0 (for speed)
and then copy them back to the data partition on the VR.

(If you write your drive image files directly to the data partition
on the primary HDD, the READ/WRITE armature will "thrash"
back and forth between C: and that data partition --> B-A-D.)

A smaller C: partition will also result in "short strokes" --
less overall movement of the READ/WRITE armature
on that key partition. Occasional DEFRAGS of C:
should also "bunch" files at the outermost cylinders,
further reducing access times.


Also, restore environments like the one on Symantec's GHOST CD
may not see every partition, particularly if a custom device driver
is needed for the controller to which some HDDs are connected.

With copies of your drive image files on the VR, the restore environment
will work AOK without needing to invoke the "F6" option.


MRFS

 

[MRFS]

Another factor that is frequently overlooked is that
modern HDDs operate faster at the outermost tracks,
and slower at the innermost tracks.

To maintain constant or near constant recording density,
more data bits must be written on each revolution of
an outermost track, and less data bits must be written
on each revolution of an innermost track.

The amount of data transmitted per revolution
is directly proportional to the circumference,
which equals PI times the diameter of any given track.

Outermost tracks have the longest circumferences (more data);
innermost tracks have the shortest circumferences (less data).

You can observe this phenomenon graphically
with routine runs of HD Tune.


MRFS

 

[timbiotic]

What do you mean by drive image? I am not planning on having a recovery partition if that what you mean. And I was able to install the OS on the RAID just fine with Windows 7. Just do the repair first, load the RAID drivers from USB KEY, and then install. No issues with f6.

If I understand you correct you are saying:

C:\ 30-50gb for recovery files
D:\Windows OS on Data Partition

Or are you saying the os will be on the 30-50gb partition and everything else on the data partitions?

I thought that the partitioning thing was in days of old, does it actually improve performance? I was going to use the whole raptor for Windows/basic apps. Games and Media would be on the RAID 0 Drives