Quick RAID Q

[drugfreeboy]

My motherboard supports sata 150, but no RAID 0, does that mean i need a raid card? does anyone know of any good ones.?
Also can someone provide me with a link to a step by step guide for raid 0?

 

[486]

Well, the best way is get a sticker and write: "super fast RAID", then stick it onto PC case.

What I mean is that if you do not know how to make a RAID 0, then you defenetely do not need one.

The only reason for RAID 0 is for video editors as a secondary device.

 

[RichPLS]

Technically, there is no Redundancy in RAID 0, so it really shoud be AID 0

 

[mpjesse]

What I mean is that if you do not know how to make a RAID 0, then you defenetely do not need one.

The only reason for RAID 0 is for video editors as a secondary device.

I heavily disagree with that. Most hard core gamers I know run RAID 0 w/ Raptors. Load time in games is nearly cut in half with RAID 0 and Raptors. And it doesn't cost much. I personally use RAID 0 and I love it. Windows loads in no time... unRARing crap is twice as fast, loading levels in all my games is quicker, etc.

RAID 0 can be used for anyone and everyone.

As for him not know how to make a RAID table- who cares? Is everyone supposed to be born knowing how to make a RAID array? Maybe the dude wants to learn. I never knew until I tried it. It's easy as hell.

/me hugs his RAID drives.

-mpjesse

 

[mpjesse]

Yes, you would need a RAID controller if your mobo doesn't support it. But I wouldn't recommend getting a RAID card for one simple reason- the PCI bottleneck. The whole purpose of RAID 0 is speed. Currently, there's only one PCI-E RAID card out there and it's expensive. The rest are PCI w/ 133MB/s bottlenecks (though no PCI device actually comes close to achieving 133MB/s b/c of overhead and other PCI devices.) A good RAID 0 array will push the limits of that anyways.

So, my suggestion is if you really are interested in going RAID 0, get a new motherboard w/ RAID support. Make sure the southbridge natively supports RAID. Lots of motherboard vendors will add RAID support via a chip that connects to the PCI bus- which is the same as installing a RAID controller in a PCI slot. For example, nVidia's nForce 4 Ultra has the SATA RAID chip integrated into the southbridge- because it's there it has full access to the hypertransport which is theoretically 1GB/s.

Also, keep in mind that if you want to do RAID 0, you need 2 identical drives. So you'd have to invest in at least one more hard drive as well. RAID 0 is fantastic w/ Western Digital Raptors (see below).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144160

If you need help selecting a RAID capable motherboard, just PM me. I'd be glad to help. I run a RAID 0 array myself. It's awesome and well worth the extra $$$ IMO!

-mpjesse

 

[ArthurDent]

I was about to post a question asking what the performance difference would be between a system running a raptor on its own and a system running 2 raptors in RAID 0.

What are your thoughts on this mpjesse?

I'm also looking to get a S754 motherboard with onboard RAID and PCIe, any suggestions? I was looking at the Gigabyte GA K8NE which is nforce 4X not ultra as you suggest although the specs say it supports RAID.

http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_Spec_GA-K8NE.htm

 

[pickxx]

Technically, there is no Redundancy in RAID 0, so it really shoud be AID 0

Don't be a f*cking retard....lol.....you know they dont know wha RAID stands for....Thats like when you say NIC card. EVERYONE F*CKING SAYS IT!!!

 

[pickxx]

I heavily disagree with that. Most hard core gamers I know run RAID 0 w/ Raptors. Load time in games is nearly cut in half with RAID 0 and Raptors. And it doesn't cost much. I personally use RAID 0 and I love it. Windows loads in no time... unRARing crap is twice as fast, loading levels in all my games is quicker, etc.

Well first off do not EVER compare someone who is a hardcore gamer to "everyone" those are the people who SLI 7800GTX 512's (for $1500) and buy FX57's ($1000) so i guess Raptors are cheap.

A Raptr is $166x2 is $322...for 150GB.
OR
For that same $322 i could get nearly a TB of diskspace....lol

If you want to spend $322 plus tax and shipping for level loading, and making windows start faster....go for it, but i rarely advise people to do so....

Figure out WHY they want RAID-0, often times they want more RAM, faster cpu, better gpu, or something else.
if they want something RAID-0 can cover, and they are willing to risk a disk failure....i would be happy to help them

but its not something EVERYONE should have.
in fact it's something that 95% of people shouldn't have.

 

[RichPLS]

SHOW ME THE REDUNDANCY, BIATCH!!!
YOU AIN'T GOT NUTTIN BUT AN AID, RAID STARTS WITH 1!

 

[pickxx]

Hot water heater....Why would anyone heat water thats already hot?
NIC card

and many more...they dont make sense, but thats what they are called...

lave them alone....be nice to them and let this pass.

 

[RichPLS]

I suppose it would be hard to market AID's to the industry...

 

[RichPLS]

So it could be Fast Array of Indepenent Disks, or FAID's for RAID 0, which would resemble what will happen to your data if one drive fails, which is now twice as likely.

 

[pickxx]

You are KILLING ME
you are trying to change the industry over something so stupid.

 

[RichPLS]

Truth in advertising...

 

[mpjesse]

but its not something EVERYONE should have.
in fact it's something that 95% of people shouldn't have.

Why not? You don't need to have Raptors to get the advantage of RAID 0. What I'm saying is if you can afford two like drives (no matter what size) you might as well use RAID 0. RAID 0 will combine the disk space so it's not like your losing disk space. And you can still partition. BTW, I didn't mean to imply that everyone should have RAID 0, I was saying that it's for anyone. I.E. anyone can benefit from it.

Looking at pricewatch.com, it's almost the same price to get 2x 320GB SATA drives ($256) than 1 400GB SATA drive ($209). So if anyone's looking for mass storage they might as well use RAID 0 or 1 (depending on what they're doing of course).

This guy is obviously interested in RAID so I'm going to recommend he uses it.

-mpjesse

 

[RichPLS]

FAID 0 with drives of different sizes, you only get double the smallest size in your array.

 

[mpjesse]

If you were to run 2 indentical systems (w/ one Raptor and another system w/ 2 Raptor's in RAID 0) side by side, you would see a noticable difference in the loading of anything. If you're looking for some benchmarks, here's a good one:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1746&page=1

Note that read performance is nearly double in some benches w/ Raptors in RAID 0 compared to just 1 Raptor. That doesn't mean they're twice as fast just 1 drive. However, there's a significant noticable difference.

As for that board you're looking at, i'm pretty sure the RAID is through the nVidia chip. I don't see any 3rd party RAID controllers soldered into the board. So... go for it.

Like pickxxx said, not everyone should blow their money on dual raptors. But if you've got the money, it's well spent on dual raptors in RAID 0. Even if you're only playing games and using the internet.

A lot of ppl around here like to say "RAID is only for ppl who do video editing, photoshop, database, blah blah blah." That's bullshit. People who say that don't even have RAID and have probably never even used it or seen it in action. So how the hell would they know?

I have RAID 0 and all I do is game, surf the net, and unRAR crap. So far I'm glad I blew $300 on these raptors. It is the best investment in my entire system.

-mpjesse

 

[drugfreeboy]

Alright, I was cosidering getting a new motherboard too, so thats not a problem, and Ive been researching info about RAID 0. I dont quite have the budget for a 10,000 rpm raptor, but I was thinking about 2 Maxtor 160GB 7200s.

 

[ArthurDent]

A lot of ppl around here like to say "RAID is only for ppl who do video editing, photoshop, database, blah blah blah." That's bullshit. People who say that don't even have RAID and have probably never even used it or seen it in action. So how the hell would they know?

Well I think HDD performance is quite a bottleneck so if people have money to spend upgrading their systems then I don't see why going for a high performance hdd solution is a waste of money. So it only improves disk related tasks like loading times, swap file access, etc. well that's a significant chunk of what a PC spends its time doing so why not improve performance?

I'll be upgrading from 3200+ on a K8N pro with Radeon 9800 pro 1Gb RAM to the same CPU on a gigabyte K8NE, GF7800 GT, 1.5Gb RAM and 2xraptors in RAID0 with my current Baracuda 200Gb drive for storing data on, and I think I'll see very good overall performance boost.

I'll then go for a X2 CPU next year sometime when the prices come down a bit. I'll need another motherboard but the K8NE I'm going for right now is pretty cheap so I don't much mind.

Thanks for your input dude.

 

[mpjesse]

Go for it... it's still a better solution that not using RAID at all. And here's some home made screenshots for the naysayers. They were taken from my system:

http://www.badongo.com/pic.php?file=700MB+Video+file+unRAR--d+on+7200RPM+SATA+Drive__2005-12-09_250GB+7200rpm+SATA.JPG&s=black

It took 34 seconds to unRAR the file on a 7200rpm SATA drive (NO RAID)

http://www.badongo.com/pic.php?file=700MB+Video+file+unRAR--d+on+10000RPM+SATA+Drive+in+RAID+0__2005-12-09_10000rpm+RAID+0.JPG&s=black

Here, it only took 21 seconds to unRAR the same file on my dual 10,000 RPM Raptors in RAID 0.

That's over 50% faster!

-mpjesse

 

[drugfreeboy]

wow...thats awesome, ok well i have a mATX case and i cant seem to find a motherboard that supports sata raid, So I think im gonna need a new case too , unless someone can find one