to RAID or not to RAID?

[3030vision]

I just bought an AOpen MB with a Silicon Image SATA RAID controller. I decided i should probably go ahead and upgrade my existing PATA drives to SATA.

I'm familiar with RAID and i read the FAQ to get up-to-date. However, i've got a friend that's been encouraging me to setup a striping RAID. I haven't heard too much that's convincing me, although he claims i'll see about a 10% performance increase. My main reasons for NOT wanting RAID are:
1. another drive producing noise and heat
2. (apparently warranted) concern for data integrity

Are there other reasons i might be missing as to why one would setup a striping RAID on a desktop machine? I understand the performance, but unless you're doing heavy-duty data transfers and what not, i wouldn't think even 10% would be that noticable.

Your thoughts/feedback appreciated. Thanks!

 

[joe_tlj]

Raid 0 has (as far as i know) passed out of the performance spotlight since those (german?) guys were all over the web denouncing raid 0's perfomance with under-performing benchmarks.

You could use Raid 1+0 or Raid 0+1, from what I hear (I've never tried it myself) they ofter much of the (denounced)speed increases thet you get from raid 0, and the data redundancy you get with raid 1 (hence the names 1+0, 0+1).

My advice: buy diskeeper and norton ghost. This will offer you a more than 10% speed increase (assuming you don't already have diskeeper) and all the data redudance you would ever want.



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