ide or raid 0

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I have recently bought an IBM Deskstar 60 GIG HD. My motherboard supports both ide ata 100 and Raid 0 (jumper selection). Would like to know if I had just this one HD installed, on which setting (IDE or raid 0) would it run faster ? Pro's Con's ?
Thanks
 

machow

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Dec 31, 2007
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Well... I don't think you can run any RAID configuration without TWO hdds am I right here...

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Actualy you can but it would make no sense to do it since there is no advantage to it. The RAID channel is if you wanted to have 2 HDDs in a RAID0 stripe and has a hardware or firmware RAID implementation on the motherboard. I think you can use the RAID channels as a regular controler if you need to, you just don't load the RAID managment software.

Mike
 
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>>Actualy you can but it would make no sense to do it since there is no advantage to it. The RAID channel is if you wanted to have 2 HDDs in a RAID0 stripe and has a hardware or firmware RAID implementation on the motherboard.<<

Please tell me one RAID configuration that requires less than 2 disks.

>>I think you can use the RAID channels as a regular controler if you need to, you just don't load the RAID managment software.<<

If that is what you mean, it wouldn't be RAID would it?


***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***
 
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good point there are no raid configurations for less than one disk, however i have seen benchmarks with a single drive attached to a raid controller outperforming the same drive on a normal ata controller. granted this doesn't qualify as "raid" but it is interesting non the less.
 
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RAID 0 works as follows. If you have two hard drives, it "stripes" them so as they appear as a single hard drive. However, the data is stored across both. For example, when you write a file, it writes the first bit to one drive, the second bit to the second drive, the third bit to the first drive, and so on.

The advantage is that when you're reading, both drives work nearly simultaneously. Therefore, the data transfer rate is twice that for a single drive. Exactly twice if you use SCSI, slightly less than twice if you use IDE drives, since the IDE synchronization is not as precise.

If you have more than two drives, the theoretical data transfer rate is the number of drives times the rate for a single drive. However, IDE have significantly more trouble synchronizing more than two drives.

The disadvantage to RAID 0 is that if only one of your drives fails, you lose all data. Also, the drives are better be of the same size. If one is 30GB and the other one is 40GB, then only 30GB of the second one will be used, and the extra 10GB will be thrown out.

If you wanted a 60GB storage, it might have been better to buy two 30GB drives and set them in a RAID 0 configuration. Only slightly more expensive, the same total storage, about the same access speed, and twice the data transfer rate.

If you already have a 60GB drive, it's up to you to decide if you want to buy another one just to double the data transfer rate. After all, you might do just fine with what you have, depending on what you use your computer for. But you probably see already that a RAID 0 configuration with a single drive doesn't make sense.

Leo