Performance Difference: Raid 5 Vs Raid 10

[Kieroshark]

I'm building a computer for gaming, and trying to decide on whether to use Raid 5, with 3 drives, or Raid 10 with 4 drives.

Cost isn't a huge issue for me, and Raid 5 is more than redundant enough for me, so don't care about the extra redundancy. I'm just curious will a 4 drive Raid 10 have much of a performance increase for reading/writing over a 3 drive Raid 5?

 

[wuzy]

With HDD being so cheap these days, for a boot/system drive RAID10 would be much more ideal.

RAID5 is used when minimal capacity sacrifice is needed for redundancy due to cost e.g. a large 8 drive storage/archive array. RAID5 also comes with severe write performance penalty if no write-back cache is used or when used needs either a BBU (from controller card) or a UPS in the case of power failure. Not the most ideal form redundancy for average desktop usage.

 

[goobaah]

I second wruzy with his preference for raid 10 if performance is main concern, especially random writes. But by the time you have purchased 4 drives you have spent about $300 or so depending on what size drives you bought. The same money gets you an SSD which will get your load times noticeably faster than a disk RAID. After your game is loaded the drive performance will be not noticed. If you need space for media pick up a few large and cheap 5400 rpm drives and mirror them. Its just another way to think about solving your problem.

 

[Kieroshark]

Ok thanks both of you for the info and advice.
Concerning the SSDs, that's an interesting idea...

I had a question about that though. I understand the concept of what TRIM is and does, for SSDs, but in practical terms do I have to do anything to activate or use it, or is it completely automatic?

I have Windows 7, and the P7P55D by Asus, if it matters.

I'd probably be looking at this SSD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167023

 

[jdavis1979]

Save yourself some money on the SSD.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/651826-REG/Intel_SSDSA2MH080G2R5_80GB_X25_M_Mainstream_SATA.html