SataII 3gb in raid 0 or 1 vs single sata III 6gb

nyhcbri

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Apr 27, 2012
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i just had a hard drive fail in my raid 1. these are older sataII drives. would a single sataIII drive be faster than the old raid 1 or 0 i was using. there about the same price and the good one i have is only 320gb not enough for me so i was gonna try raid 0 with another 320 or just get a large sata III drive
 

s3anister

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May 18, 2006
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It depends on the storage medium you use.

If you decided to get a SATA 3.0 device such as a Solid State Drive (SSD) that uses a sandforce SF-2281 controller (Like an OCZ Vertex 3) then you will immediately be getting Read/Write speeds around 450MB/s on average as long as you get a 120GB model. I myself have the 60GB Vertex 3 and it's great for Read speeds but write speeds are actually lower than my Samsung Spinpoint F3.

It all comes down to how much you want to spend, SSD's are expensive compared to hard drives but I would never again use a traditional hard drive for my Boot drive because of the fact that my programs load in a second or two at most (windows boot from computer off is 18 seconds for me).

Plus factor in the fact that if you just had one drive die you would want to replace both drives for reliability. At that point it might be cheaper for you to keep the one drive for storage and buy a SSD to replace your RAID setup.
 

nyhcbri

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Apr 27, 2012
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Sounds like a good plan and i may go that route. But still i bring up a good question. As far as speed goes especially when loading game zones Will 1 single sata3 drive be better than 2 sata2 drives in any raid.
 
First off, Sata III HDDs are a marketing tool, For example if you place a SATA III HDD on a SATA II port it will be Just as fast - Sata III HDD only benifit in terms of burst rate - No real impact on throughput. To answer your question, Raid0 w/2 Sata II HDD will normally be faster than a single Sata III HDD, Assuming thay have simulare spect on sustained throughput, But read on for a better understanding.

On SSDs, They are 20 -> 40 Times faster than HDD and will "blow the doors" off even a raid0 HDD setup when looking at the IMPORTANT 4 K random performance.

s3anister said "it's great for Read speeds but write speeds are actually lower than my Samsung Spinpoint F3." If that is the case He has a problem. Even my older SSDs have MUCH higher 4 K read/write performace compared to My Samsung F3 1 TB drive. Added: and that includes my 120 gig Agillity III SSD, that is slower than his Vertex III

Now on HDD raid0 configuration.
A) Great for Improving Sequencial read /write performance. Unfornatuly this is the LEAST important parameter for a OS + Program drive. How much depends on the Files being read, ie your game maps. If they are LARGE files and NOT fragmented, it will improve the loading of a map. - STILL no wheres near the speed of an SSD.
B) Raid0 does NOTHING for:
.. Improving access time.
.. Very little, to none, on improving the 4 K random File performance. This is what is important to Loading the operating system and loading the initial programs.

PS NONE of the above will improve FPS in game play, nor improve internet broosing, email, or down loading files.

I Have used raid0 for a Long time (including the faster method of short stroking Raid0), and there is NO comparision between Raid0 and an SSD for working with files loaded on the SSD. PS I do Not recommend the 60/64 Gig SSDs, for an OS + program My Min size is 80/90 gigs, with a recommended size of 120/128 gig.
 
Somewhat depends on what the Sata III ports are (looked back and didn't see what MB you have).

For example I have 2 Intel Sata III ports and two marvel based Sata III ports on my Z68 MB. On my I 5 I only have two marvel based (older ver) sata II controller and on this one I just stayed with the Intel Sata II ports for my SSD.

In terms of performance: The older Marvel Based Sata III controller really is not much better than the Intel sata II ports. The newer Marvel controller is slightly better.

And to answer your question - NO. For HDDs sata II is Just as good as Sata III. For Sata III SSDs you lose out on Sequencial performance (as I indicated no biggy), and you will lose maybe a little on the more important 4 K random.
 
AMD chipset for Sata II and using a U3S6 pcie card for USB3 and Sata 6.
My Older i5-750 is simular, 4 Intel Sata II slots and I added a USB3/Sata6 pcie card.
I put my SSD on the Intel sata II port, The controller on the addon card is not that great, and depending on if the card is an X1 vs an X4 slot may have a big influence on performance. As all devices attaced to the card will share pci lanes.

I'd probably go with a sata III SSD and stick on your AMD Sata II port. BUT THEN i'm not personnaly familiar with the performance of SSDs on the AMD controller - Make sure that you have the LATEST Bios ver for your MB.

Sorry, But your best bet is to try on both and pick which performs better. Leave HDD disconnect and install windows check, then reinstall using the other port - Pick best one and when done then reconnect HDD.