IDE vs RAID?

[jessedoucet]

OK, I primarily use my PC for gaming and have recently upgraded it to get better performance. I am running a MSI K7N2 mainboard, ATI Radeaon 9000, 7200 rpm 40gb Seagate hdd, and 512 of DDR 2700 ram. The system runs pretty good, but my questions is will it run faster with a Raid card running my hdd?

Honestly, RAID and SCSI are one of my weak points. I have never used them and all I know is that SCSI is expensive and RAID is cheaper. It sounds like both are usually used for networks/servers, which I am not running at home.

Any suggestions?

 

[Javic]

I think you're a little bit confused about the definitions of SCSI and RAID.

<A HREF="http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SCSI.html" target="_new">SCSI : Small Computer System Interface</A>

<A HREF="http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAID.html" target="_new">RAID : Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks</A>

Click the links to see formal definitions of the two. But basically, SCSI is an interface type for attaching peripherials, similar, to IDE. RAID is a way of combining 2 or more hard drives for performance or redundancy purposes and can be configured using either SCSI or IDE.

I would also highly suggest reading HammerBot's <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=61149#61149" target="_new">RAID FAQ V1.3 </A> in this forum for more information about RAID.

Hope this helps.

-Javic

 

[elzt]

Yes, both RAID and SCSI are usually used for servers due to the issues of access speed and security of data. But those issues are often not a major concern for game PCs, so you won't see much improvement by going RAID 0.

 

[LumberJack]

Yeah unless your doing a lot of heavy file management raid won't give you too much of a boost.

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