I've got a guy who is building me a computer soon, and we're ordering the parts right now.

We've got everything ordered but the hard drives. I've always been a big proponent of keeping my OS drive separate from my data, just in case something happens to the OS, I can easily reformat without the worry of damaging my data. Typically, I've done this by having two separate drives. I've got an older computer, so I have a 45GB that came with it for the OS, and a 120 that I use for my data.

My buddy is trying to get me to get two large hard drives, configure them in a RAID 0 (i think this is it) configuration, and then partition them into separate drives to give me my separation between the OS and data.

Is this a pretty safe thing to do? He tells me that the speed of running the RAID configuration on two SATA drives is incredible, and that I would be much happier. However, he also noted that if one drive died, then both drives are worthless.

If the speed advantages of the RAID are really worth it, then would it be best (or safest) to buy 2 smaller HDDs for the OS/RAID, and then buy a third larger HDD for my data?

6/14/2007 9:35:37 AM

Quote :

"buy 2 smaller HDDs for the OS/RAID, and then buy a third larger HDD for my data"

This is what I use.

6/14/2007 9:37:52 AM

first of all you never want to put important data on a RAID 0 setup... even if you have the array separated into different partitions, if a drive fails you lose everything, both the OS & the storage.

imho, this is the safest... do this:

Quote :

""buy 2 smaller HDDs for the OS/RAID, and then buy a third larger HDD for my data""

as i warn everyone who pursues RAID 0 or 1, there's more cost (two hard drives instead of 1), there's increased heat, increased power consumption, and increased risk of failure... but it does give you ridiculous speed. your really only other option in hopes of obtaining similar speeds is to get a 10k sata drive...

earlier this year i was on an nforce3 board and since it didn't support vista, i was SOL in terms of RAID, so it's also important to keep in mind if you are going to dual-boot to make sure your RAID array is cross-platform compatible.

this all really doesn't matter though if you just back your stuff up daily.

[Edited on June 14, 2007 at 9:59 AM. Reason : .]

6/14/2007 9:51:12 AM

sounds good

I appreciate the help. I'm real anal about keeping my data safe, which is one of the reasons I am getting a new computer. These drives are about 6 years old, and while I have backups (other HDDs and online w/ Mozy) I still would hate to lose anything

I plan on running XP for the time being.

6/14/2007 9:58:53 AM

Raid 0 doubles your probability of failure with marginal if any speed increase.

imo the time it would take to get the drive RMAed or buy a new one, reinstall windows, fix/reinstall exting programs, isn't really worth the imagined speed increase.

6/14/2007 10:02:39 AM

Quote :

"with marginal if any speed increase"

Quote :

"isn't really worth the imagined speed increase."

you must be thinking of a number other than 0, RAID 0 is QUITE a bit faster than anything on the market except the digital raptors 10k hdd's

you won't notice it day-to-day word processing, but ANY data transfer (copying files), loading of data to memory (graphics apps, games), etc., anything where it max's out the bandwidth of the drive, you'll notice a significant speed increase.

[Edited on June 14, 2007 at 10:10 AM. Reason : .]

6/14/2007 10:09:30 AM

i have a raid 1 - 2 200GB 7200.10 seagates

and one is on the verge of failure, i havent started the rma process because i just shut the computer down

if it was the only drive i had then i would have been sol

if you can afford it go with either raid 1 or 5

6/14/2007 10:38:05 AM

^^ realworld benchmarks would seem to disagree
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=1

Quote :

"If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop. There are some exceptions, especially if you are running a particular application that itself benefits considerably from a striped array, and obviously, our comments do not apply to server-class IO of any sort. But for the vast majority of desktop users and gamers alike, save your money and stay away from RAID-0. "

6/14/2007 11:18:13 AM

From that AnandTech article, the results show they're negligible... They used 10k drives. Do you think the performance would be the same for a 7200 RPM drive?

here's something else: http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-283-2.htm
although I would be more likely to trust an AnandTech review over this one

also, in looking at the various SATA drives, is that perpendicular technology overhyped? or does it really matter? I was looking at two 320GB drives, a Samsung for 70 and a Seagate (w/ perpendicular technology) for 80.

6/14/2007 12:36:10 PM

perpendicular recording is pretty nice, even at the same disk size it tends to offer higher transfer rates over a linear access pattern

6/14/2007 1:11:49 PM

^^ the seagate has a five year warranty

that alone makes it worth the extra $10

6/14/2007 1:20:51 PM

what about raid 5?

(i mean he did mention 3 disks at one point)

6/14/2007 1:24:45 PM

Shaggy, i'm quite familiar with the anandtech article it seems to get referenced a lot regarding this, but the fact that they used digital raptors in RAID-0 kinda negates some of their comparisons.

i have a digital raptor, and i've had RAID-0, and i can tell you they are very close in performance, so I'd strongly advise the single drive because of the con's I listed above... but I'd rather see (and put more value) into a test with 7200rpm drives, since there's more performance to be gained.

i can tell you from personal experience that my (2) 160gb hitachi t7k250 7200rpm drives were MUCH faster in RAID 0 than the comparable single 7200rpm drive setup...

comparing my digital raptor to the RAID-0 setup i can tell you that they were very close indeed, this is in fact why i do not run RAID-0 today.

BUT, 10k hard drives aside, it it MUCH cheaper and MORE storage to run (2) 7200rpm drives in RAID-0 than a single 10k drive.

consider this, (1) digital raptor 150gb costs $160 on a good day.
you can buy (2) seagate 320gb's that cost $70 each, $140 total, for a 740gb striped RAID-0 array... all with similar performance as the 150gb... sure it will be half the life of the 10k drive, but you'll have (3) times the storage space

take the digital raptor out of the equation and you'd see substantial gains by RAID-0, that's all i'm saying

[Edited on June 14, 2007 at 1:38 PM. Reason : .]

6/14/2007 1:28:08 PM

bensbargains has a raptor 150 for 170 right now.
(guess its not a good day)

6/15/2007 9:42:57 AM

ASK SMOOTHCRIM, HE IS LEET EXPERT...

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=480829

6/15/2007 12:08:06 PM

How can a raid 0 not be worth it? HDD's are so cheap, recovery is so expensive and takes time, creating a backup takes time as well as restoring it, and you're down a computer until you get it back up.

That anandtech article is 3 years old.

I love my RAID because I know my data is safe unless my PC catches fire.

6/15/2007 2:12:07 PM