What HDDs should i get for my RAID 0 setup?

[fpsdominator]

Hi,

Im having a heck of time deciding what hdds to get my for my RAID 0 setup.

The hdd i think i want is the 500gb seagate 7200.12, but im really not sure.

I would to buy the velociraptor but i really dont want to spend that much money.

I could buy 4 seagtate 7200.12 for the price of 1 velocirator!!!

it has faster transfer rates the the velociraptor but the latency is not that impressive.

do you think the velociraptors are worth price?

if not what hdd would you recommend?

also what has a bigger impact on performance: transfer rates or latency?

do you think 4 or 6 7200.12s will perform better than 2 velociraptor?

Thanks for your help


My Sig Rig:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-X48-DS5
CPU: Intel Q9550 @3.4
Memory: Patriot PC8500 Viper Extreme
GPU: EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 55NM oc'ed to SSC
PSU: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 820W
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB
OS: Vista 64bit

 

[4745454b]

What are you doing that needs that much hdd power? Most home users don't need AID0. I would NEVER put the OS on an AID0 array, thats just asking for trouble. When the RAID drivers get borked, you'll have to reinstall windows and all your programs. Stick with a single 7200.12 500GB/WD640 black drive for your OS if the raptor is to much.

 

[mindless728]

^i'm with him on this, get a separate drive for OS and then have the (R)AID0 for games and such

 

[RetiredChief]

Reference StarFan9 - The Seagate -12 Has a 500 gig platter vs the WD 320 gig platers. Also you can go with the Seagate -12 750 gig and get 32 Meg Cashe (same as WD's 640.

Note: I bought 2 WD blacks (raid0), more from a reliability concern.

Added
?? quess StarFan9 deleted his post

 

[sub mesa]

Seperate disk for OS and Games. Hmmm.. So when reading the game, what I/O is caused by the OS? Very minimal i'd guess. Swapping comes to mind, but we can agree this is not likely when having lots of spare RAM.

Instead, focus on seperating programs from data; data cares only about throughput and not about latency; for example: movies, music, large files. Programs/OS/Games and anything like that will read non-sequentially and care alot about latency and not so much about throughput.

This means that any 7200rpm/10.000rpm disk will disappear; performance will be left to SSD drives, for your OS, Applications and Games. Put these in RAID0 if you like, it won't matter much to reliability.

For all mass-storage data you have, any large data file like Movies, Music, etc, will only require reasonable throughput so they are excellent for mass-storage on 5400rpm data disks, like WD Green 1-2TB.

For any other use, HDDs will be insufficient because of their inherit extremely high latency. So my point is, assuming you can afford it; never use mechanical disks to run your OS or Programs, if you desire ultimate performance and resposiveness.