RAID Block Size

well, if youre even considering raid 0, the best stripe size would be the largest available to you... as raid 0 provides the most benefit when dealing with large sized file transfers, such as for editing and transferring video, audio, etc (due to increased STRs)

raid 0 is not really worth considering for other uses, in a desktop environment
 
If you're referring to the stripe size, that is dependent on the data that you have on the array.

If you access tons of small files, a smaller stripe size like 16K or 32K is recommended. For primarily large, sequential accesses like video files, a higher stripe size like 128K is recommended. If you're not doing either one of these, then a good overall size for many applications is 64K.

The block size would refer to what sector size the RAID controller abstracts to the computer. In virtually all cases, this is 512 bytes and is not changeable. Although, I have seen some high-end SAN units that can alter the block size, although this technique is incompatible with all versions of Windows except Vista.
 
Yes, I meant stripe size. I want a PURE gaming rig. And I am planning on using Vista Ultimate with almost everything stripped off using vLite.
 
for gaming you shouldnt use raid 0, as raid 0 will provide near no benefit to the vast majority of games (as most games dont benefit from the higher STRs)... load times are improved by an average of ~1 second, unless the maps are consisting mostly of large bitmaps and such

if youre looking to improve game load times however, youre much better off going with a faster single hdd, more system memory, or a faster cpu
 
bahh... I beat 90% of players by quite a margin from FPS(on WolfET i don't even see the load screen on some maps...farcry gets a boost in load speeds too) to MMO's(in guild wars it can be up 5+ second....does not sound like much....but it is...on COH the lead can be more....i can get to a mission while players are still loading the map to go there)..... thank you raid....

On the other hand...if you get a single raptor....the seek times may beat me on game loads....but if i am defragged its not a problem..
 
i never understand why people say there is no gain from raid 0 for gaming, i see a huge difference between load times with raid 0 machines and non raid...i have two amd 3500+ machines both with 1gb memory same wd drives one with 2 x80gb raid 0 and the other has just 1 80gb loading CS:S maps is cut almost in half on the raided machine.
 
ill simply say to google for 'raid 0 game load times' (or a variation of that)... doing that youll find quite a few benchmark reviews from reputable sites about exactly this topic, and how much raid 0 actually does help (and doesnt in other cases)... ive posted quite a few thread responses on this TBH, and a multi page topic about it as well (on THG forums)... but, if you do the research, instead of just relying on hearsay, or what you feel is the reason why... youll then find out the truth (with numbers to back it up, that are entirely reproducable as well).
 
okay, those are 2 games, very good :)

but its still not doing anything to disprove what im saying, lol... have you googled for any factual info yet, any explainations, any charts even, to disprove what im saying?
 
ill simply say to google for 'raid 0 game load times' (or a variation of that)... doing that youll find quite a few benchmark reviews from reputable sites about exactly this topic, and how much raid 0 actually does help (and doesnt in other cases)... ive posted quite a few thread responses on this TBH, and a multi page topic about it as well (on THG forums)... but, if you do the research, instead of just relying on hearsay, or what you feel is the reason why... youll then find out the truth (with numbers to back it up, that are entirely reproducable as well).

HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!!!

Choir.... are we going to have to explain this all over again? :?

I can't keep going through this... I'm going insane lol.

RAID 0 ~0 benefit in load times as you are bottlenecked by your CPU. Using old games with new hardware will skew your results. Using new games with new hardware is what is in question.

Of course if you try and load a game from 2000 on a new system you will be bottlenecked by your hard drive, but if you tried to load that same game on a rig from 2000 it would be bottlenecked by the CPU.

The best thing for gaming is a Raptor.... not RAID 0
 
i know lol, i do honestly get tired of this same thing... i guess i did forget though, that some people really dont, or just wont, listen, lol

thank you :)
 
i know lol, i do honestly get tired of this same thing... i guess i did forget though, that some people really dont, or just wont, listen, lol

thank you :)

Word.

There are some things that are in debate.... but this has been proven time and time again. Don't make me go and benchmark a *new* game to prove this... I really don't want to take the time to prove something I know.... lol.
 
for theoretical performance (benchmarking), the 4 seagates would most likely offer better results... for sustained transfer rates, they would most likely be better also... it also depends on which raptors your referring to also, 2 of the oldest, or 2 of the newest... comparing 4 of those seagates, against 2 of the newest, in real world usage the seagates would probably be slower, TBH

and again, sidestepping the debate of why this is or that for raid, in regards to most games in general... comparing a single raptor (any raptor i guess), to a single 250GB seagate... a raptor will almost always come out of top, to some extent
 
4x Seagate Barracuda 250GB
vs
2x Western Digital Raptor X 150GB

Both in a RAID0 array. I want PURE gaming. I don't give a damn about anything else but gaming. Which is the best?
 
I have to agree with choir... I think the Raptor 150's should be faster due to the shorter seek times in straight up gaming performance. Games request "random" data, not necessarily sequential data, so you would benefit more from the shorter seek times on the Raptor's 10k RPM than the larger sequential throughput from 4 seagates.
 
well prove why my Athlon 64 raped my core2 in guild wars(both loading maps and on the fly world loading)? ohhh right raid....was the same on lots of FPS too....

What....? Hard to understand without proper grammar.

You can't just say A64 vs C2D.... that could mean FX60 vs E4300 at this point.
 
well prove why my Athlon 64 raped my core2 in guild wars(both loading maps and on the fly world loading)? ohhh right raid....was the same on lots of FPS too....

What....? Hard to understand without proper grammar.

You can't just say A64 vs C2D.... that could mean FX60 vs E4300 at this point.

You spelled "propper" wrong... And as long as we are on the topic of grammar, there should be a maximum of three "."s. So "What....?" is wrong.

As far as the A64 vs C2D comparison, that is very, very vague. Please elaborate on the specific models.