New to RAID0

[makotech222]

Hi im completely new to RAID and the whole system all together. I have built my own system with a gigabyte x38 DS4 board, which has a built in RAID controller. Currently i have a 750gb SAMSUNG F1 Harddrive. I ordered a seagate 160gb to aid in storing big files. I was thinking about setting up the two as a RAID-0 for extra HD performance. Can anyone tell me, first of all, how to set up the RAID 0, and how big fo a difference do you think i would get?

 

[chookman]

If you set these 2 up in RAID, first of all you would loose 590gb of space on the 750gb drive.

2nd why would you get a smaller drive to help with storing files it doesnt make sense.

 

[makotech222]

wow are you serious? i would lose that much? well, how much performance would i get if i bought another 750gb drive?

 

[kawininjazx]

Dont waste your time with raid0, there is little performance gain and no redundancy. Get a wd 640gb as your main drive and use the 750 as backup

 

[makotech222]

I plan on reformatting, so can i put the OS and a few programs on the 160, then all my other stuff on the 750? i never really understand why thats faster or anything like that could someone explain?

 

[rforce]

The odds are that the 750GB drive is faster than the 160GB drive. However, that aside, splitting your OS from your data is not necessarily a bad move, in that if you need to reinstall the OS, you need not worry about the data drive.

My main concern here is that you don't mention a backup solution for the data stored on the 750GB drive. Assuming that the volume of data could grow to the capacity of the drive, you'll want to consider an external drive that can hold it all.

A possible idea is for you to have two 750GB drives setup as a mirror (RAID 1) with your OS and data stored on it. Then have an externel eSATA or USB2 drive for a backup.

Good luck,
Luke

 

[malveaux]

Heya,

You know, your board supports 0/1/5/10 RAID, so you could go for RAID5 with your 750, by getting two more 750 gig drives (avoid that 160 if you want storage). The 750's x 3 together in RAID5 will give you performance of RAID0, but give you parity as well for security against data loss. All together the three drives will give you 1.5 TB storage capacity in RAID5, as you will maintain 2/3rds of the capacity and 1/3 of it goes to parity (so out of 2.25TB from 3x750's, you get 1.5TB storage and 750gigs goes to parity across the drives). Very nice way to get performance and parity with 3 drives, instead of going with RAID0+1 (striped and mirror) which only gives you storage capacity of 2 of the 4 drives, but mirrored, for really high security.

Just a thought. That's the route I'd check out perhaps.

Very best,