Game Development School next year and i need input :)

[ThomasBelgium]

Hi all

So like the title suggests, i'm atending game development school in a couple of months and because i would like to have a fast running system that handles the OS and 3D Development software.

I already have a "good" setup but the hard drives are to slow, here are my specs.

P6T V2 Deluxe
i7 920
6x2 gb RAM @ 1666 mhz
2x 5770 ati not in SLI mode yet but i will when i chance togheter with hard drives.
crossair watercooler (good for basic overclocking @ 3.2 - 3.4 ghz)
2x 1.5GB Samsung hard drives (non RAID)


And there is the problem, the hard drives are just to slow and i feel they bottle neck me too much.
I am considering 2 options for RAID setup with a total of 6 hard drives (samsung 1.5TB), RAID 5 and RAID 10.

This is what i think but the forums are contradicting eachother.
RAID 5 - With 6 drives i tought (and still think) that i will get simular performance like 5 drives in RAID 0 + 1 drive as backup.

RAID 10 - 3 drives perform like raid 0 & 3 drives like RAID 1.

I would opt in for raid 5 as it has more performance (5 drives) and has 3TB more storage but maybe i have it wrong, please correct me if so.

(and no, i don't want to buy SSD because i need huge storage and they are just to expensive)


Hope i get the answer i need and thanks in advance you huys, cheers

 

[MadAdmiral]

To start, some clarifications:

You don't use the SSD for storage. You would just load the OS and apps onto it and use standard drives for the actual data. Considering that SSDs like to have at least 20% free space, an 80 GB drive would surely be big enough, if not bigger than what you need.

Recommendations:

You really should give us how much you're looking to spend. I can think of a cheap change right off the bat that would be a good idea: pick up a 500 GB platter drive (like the Seagate 7200.12 500 GB or Samsung Spinpoint F3 500 GB) for $55. Use that smaller drive for the OS and apps, and maybe frequently accessed data. Use the other drives in RAID 5 (three drives) to ensure a speed boost and data backup.

 

[ThomasBelgium]

Thanks for the quick reply,

And i have tought about using a SSD for my OS but for example , i have shader, 3d models and textures that are several MB in size so i would need SSD for storage aswell, thats why i choses hdd with raid insted of SSD's.