Does RAID 0 help or not?

[whoisme555]

So in this forum post, some guy says that there is "easily a 90% increase in HDD transfers" and everybody seems to love it: http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives-storage/458593-how-much-performance-increase-will-i.html

However, Anand says RAID 0 is a huge waste of time with Raptors: http://www.anandtech.com/show/1371

I have a 1 TB F3 Spinpoint and a 1 TB WD Caviar Black, is RAID 0 going to help significantly or will it just give me minor improvements like Anand's benchmarks? I keep seeing mixed reviews on this

 

[gtvr]

Without reading the articles, my opinions:

"I just launched MS word .5 seconds faster" - not helpful.
"I cut my video editing time for 30 seconds to 20 seconds" - maybe helpful
"I can do 30% more design / rendering work for my clients every day" - very helpful.

There is not a universal answer. You have to balance cost, risk of data loss, and what it really does for YOU.

 

[tkrl26]

Anand has a right to their own opinion.

But so do I...
I run two 36 GB raptors in a RAID 0, and love it! At first I tried just one, it was quicker than normal 7200 drives, and wanted to try it in a RAID 0. RAID 0 is alot quicker! On my gaming rig, RAID stability is not something I worry about. All important Data gets saved to my NAS (RAID 1).

On your link, read alot of the comments I have to agree with most of them.

In your case you have to think, do you care about your data? If so, go with independent disks, or a RAID 1. If you do not care, run a RAID 0. But I would never make c:\ larger than 150 GB's. So I would suggest picking up 1 or 2 smaller drives (for c:\), then move the page file over to d:\ (TB drives RAID 0 or 1), this will give you less I/O on c:\ (where all the magic happens ), and your PC will perform better.

Both RAID 0 and 1 will improve Reading, but on a RAID 1 writing will be a tad bit slower. However both config's will be quicker than running independent disks.

Hopefully this helps!

 

[whoisme555]

Without reading the articles, my opinions:

"I just launched MS word .5 seconds faster" - not helpful.
"I cut my video editing time for 30 seconds to 20 seconds" - maybe helpful
"I can do 30% more design / rendering work for my clients every day" - very helpful.

There is not a universal answer. You have to balance cost, risk of data loss, and what it really does for YOU.

Thanks for your response. Well I have an external and plan to back the data up to that so data loss doesn't matter to me much. As for cost, I just recently got a $100 best buy gift card for christmas, which paid for my WDC Black, so cost isn't an issue either since I have both hard drives. Soooo, I guess other than the potential pain to restore data, I might as well go for it, right?

 

[whoisme555]

Anand has a right to their own opinion.

But so do I...
I run two 36 GB raptors in a RAID 0, and love it! At first I tried just one, it was quicker than normal 7200 drives, and wanted to try it in a RAID 0. RAID 0 is alot quicker! On my gaming rig, RAID stability is not something I worry about. All important Data gets saved to my NAS (RAID 1).

On your link, read alot of the comments I have to agree with most of them.

In your case you have to think, do you care about your data? If so, go with independent disks, or a RAID 1. If you do not care, run a RAID 0. But I would never make c:\ larger than 150 GB's. So I would suggest picking up 1 or 2 smaller drives (for c:\), then move the page file over to d:\ (TB drives RAID 0 or 1), this will give you less I/O on c:\ (where all the magic happens ), and your PC will perform better.

Both RAID 0 and 1 will improve Reading, but on a RAID 1 writing will be a tad bit slower. However both config's will be quicker than running independent disks.

Hopefully this helps!

Ah, tkrl back to help me once again!

Bored at work = way too much time to think about random things I can do to my computer

As I said in the above post, my data security won't matter because I plan to have it backed up, I think I'd do RAID 0 if anything. I read about short stroking with RAID, but I feel like partitioning the drives down so much is a huge waste of space, and I plan to get an SSD when the next gen come out, so I want to keep the RAID 0 2x1TB HDDs as the main storage for the future. So it may just be a slight increase in speed with my 2 hard drives in RAID, but the C drive should pick up quite a bit when I grab that SSD

Thanks again for the response

 

[tkrl26]

Yep.. My work is all up to speed, so I like to hang around the questions and try to help out... I find it fun.

The SSD as c:\ would nice, then D:\ in a RAID0 would also be a very nice boost! While your at it, when you build d:\ , you could increase the block size "Allocation Unit Size" 2048 or 4096, this will help force more data to and from the disk... But it really only helps if your gaming, using photoshop, video editing, ect... If you're just using the PC as a normal PC it will not really help... just some food for thought

I would stay away from the new SSD's on the PCI-x (4x) slot, they have some seriously sick speeds, but the drivers aren't there yet. I recently tried one out, my RAID controller conflicted with the OCZ's controller, then it BSOD'ed all the way through the Win7 install... 12hr troubleshooting... returned...

 

[whoisme555]

Yep.. My work is all up to speed, so I like to hang around the questions and try to help out... I find it fun.

The SSD as c:\ would nice, then D:\ in a RAID0 would also be a very nice boost! While your at it, when you build d:\ , you could increase the block size "Allocation Unit Size" 2048 or 4096, this will help force more data to and from the disk... But it really only helps if your gaming, using photoshop, video editing, ect... If you're just using the PC as a normal PC it will not really help... just some food for thought

I would stay away from the new SSD's on the PCI-x (4x) slot, they have some seriously sick speeds, but the drivers aren't there yet. I recently tried one out, my RAID controller conflicted with the OCZ's controller, then it BSOD'ed all the way through the Win7 install... 12hr troubleshooting... returned...

I find it fun to dream of new upgrades that will make my computer a step closer to actually becoming Optimus Prime and saving the world, so I'm right there with you

What is the default block size and what is the effect of increasing it? I formatted my new drive and just set it as the default size, but 4096 was an option.

Yeah, I was looking at that OCZ revo but something happened that dashed all hopes of me getting it. I can't remember exactly what reason it was, maybe it wouldn't work with my mobo (p55a-ud3), but there was a reason I decided to get just a normal SSD. I'm thinking about getting a Crucial C300 after the C400 comes out so I can get it on clearance, but I might just go for the top of the line SSD, but I can't for the life of me decide what size to get. Considering getting a 160-200 GB one so I can put my most commonly used apps and games on it, but that is really expensive :/

 

[tkrl26]

I just double check the block sizes on my work laptop, and they are set to the highest 4096.. When I get home I'll see what those options are, I though they could go higher than that... I tend to just spit words out with out thinking... After I posted it, it didn't sound right.

Block sizes are hard to explain, here are some links to help you out...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_%28data_storage%29
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140365
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t66867.html

 

[whoisme555]

Best answer selected by whoisme555.

 

[whoisme555]

I just double check the block sizes on my work laptop, and they are set to the highest 4096.. When I get home I'll see what those options are, I though they could go higher than that... I tend to just spit words out with out thinking... After I posted it, it didn't sound right.

Block sizes are hard to explain, here are some links to help you out...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_%28data_storage%29
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140365
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t66867.html

Well thanks again for your help. Time to day dream some more