ssd and 4 velociraptors

[tmcdaniel]

hey guys im new to building gaming computers. So maybe you guys can help me I have an 80gb ssd im going to put my OS on and 4 velociraptors for storage that i want to have in a raid array what would be the best way to get the best performance out of the 4 raptors should i run in raid 0 and raid 1 or what .plz help

 

[Mattios]

RAID 0 is for speed. If you have backups then by all means use RAID 0.

To be honest though velociraptors are fast enough anyway. I would suggest keeping them as individual drives for maximum space. Maybe even RAID 5 or 6 (6 more preferable)

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, Daniel!

Quite the setup you are planning there! Congrats!
Since you are planning to have 4 WD VelociRaptors in your rig, you have a lot more options for RAID configurations besides the famous RAID 0 & 1. With the four HDDs, you can also build a RAID 5, RAID 6 or RAID 10.

As you know the RAID 0 (stripe) configuration has no redundancy and thus it's one of the most "dangerous" arrays for your data. If you decide to go with it, you should do backups on regular basis because if one of the Raptors fails, you'd lose the data on all of them! (The available capacity would be 4 TB)

RAID 1 (mirror) would allow you to use only half of the capacity of the 4 drives. Half of the capacity would be a mirror of the data stored on the other half. So that if you replace one failed drive, it would automatically rebuilt an exact copy from the mirrored HDD. However, it's not really going to deliver on the performance you are seeking, but RAID 1 is a safe haven for your data though. (The available capacity would be 2 TB)

RAID 5 (stripe with parity) writes data blocks evenly to all the disks, in a pattern similar to RAID0. However, one additional "parity" block is written in each row. This additional parity, derived from all the data blocks in the row, provides redundancy. The problem here, however, is that if one of the HDDs fails in the exact moment that a data recovery operation is being conducted, the system fails and there is data loss after all. (The available capacity would be 3 TB)

RAID 6 (stripe with dual parity) uses a block pattern similar to RAID5, but utilizes two different parity functions to derive two different parity blocks per row. If one of the drives fails, its contents are reconstructed using one set of parity data. If another drive fails before the array is recovered, the contents of the two missing drives are reconstructed by combining the remaining data and two sets of parity. However, the double parity makes this configuration a bit slower than the RAID 5 and the recovery - complicated. (The available capacity would be 2 TB)

RAID 10 (mirror over stripes) uses two identical RAID0 arrays to hold two identical copies of the content. Each drive can read its block of data independently, same as in RAID0. However, writes are two times slower than reads, because both copies have to be updated. And yet again, half the array capacity is used to maintain fault tolerance. (The available capacity would be 2 TB)

There is another option RAID 01 (0+1 a.ka. stripes over mirror). Here I'd recommend you to take a look at this benchmark between the RAID 1+0 and RAID 0+1: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/10/raid10-vs-raid01/

I believe Google would be able to help you if you are interested in any of the arrays and want to dig some more info.

Hope this was useful! Still keep me posted if you have more questions!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[tmcdaniel]

So if i went individual on the drives there only 300gb each at 10.000 rpm you think that the load speeds are going to be fast . and if i go individual am i going to have to set the four velociraptors as slaves since im using the ssd or how do i do that this is the first ssd ill be trying out
Here is my build http://pcpartpicker.com/p/FgYrBm

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hi again, Daniel.

I can't say what will work best for you, since I'm not aware what is you intended purpose for the storage setup. This is exactly why I've shortly described all the possible RAID options using 4 HDDs in an array. However, I'd recommend you to take a look at a couple of threads from the community that are discussing similar issues:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2452905/properly-setting-ssd-hdd-combo.html
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/255578-32-000rpm-raid
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1822655/properly-set-ssd-2x1tb-hdds-raid.html
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1792812/ssd-ahci-hdd-raid.html

Let me know what exactly are you planning to use the speed of 4 VelociRaptors for, and if you have more specific questions concerning the storage setup itself.

Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD