Anyone use RAID 0 at home ?
 

I'd like an increase in HD performance so was thinking of setting up a RAID 0 arrangement on my home PC.

My mainboard has an integrated SATA RAID solution, which I'm curious to try.

Will I see much of a gain ?

With RAID 0 you will see a useful disk read/write increase especially when using separate controllers. However you need to be aware of the disadvantage of RAID 0 in that there is no fault tolerance at all. In fact, your risk of disk failure is double what you have with a single drive as if either disks fails, then the whole array will fail. Therefore a good backup system is essential.

As to your expected gain, it depends on your main usage. As an example with Photoshop:
SATA 1 = 14100
RAID 0 = 19700
RAID 1 = 13700
Higher is better.

Nick, yeah I'm aware of this.

So it will give a noticeable increase ?

TBH I would just run a Raptor as your o/s and games drive and a seperate 160gb+ drive for storage.

For me, the risks outweigh the benefits.

Sorry, I edited my post to give speed example.

I have been a running RAID 0 sata array for 18 months and never had an issue with it.

I'm on SATA Raid 0 two 60gb drives noticeable speed increase and haven't had any problems. Like people have a said if you loose a drive you'll loose all your data :(

I am yet to take a backup but am currently looking into cheap network storage solutions :)

Eggzackerly wot I do. cept storage is 250GB. Though I was thinking of 2 Raptors in RAID o ... reading the article pointed to above means I'm glad I saved my money ...

Dave

I run raid 0 with two 36 gig raptors just for the os. I know the risk but imo it's just the same as running one with regards to losing all your data, hence I have another 200 gig drive for storage. fwiw, as I ran one 36 gig raptor before I can say that the speed is not noticably that much faster.

I run raid 0 with two 74GB raptors. This is certainly the fastest system drive I have ever used :notworthy

Just like _RIP_ I have a large drive for all the critical stuff.

The risk doesnt bother me, I rebuild windows once a year anyway and besides the WD raptors have 5 yr guarantees.

Go for it.

In terms of real world performance i have noticed the following,

Good

1) Installing windows XP takes <9 minutes
2) Booting windows takes < 30 seconds (A full bloated year old install)
3) Loading games like halflife and Doom is no longer a chore (changing levels is nice and quick)

Bad

4) Applications like Office dont start any quicker
5) Extra power consumption
6) Cost!

As the link says and I couldnt agree more:

Raid-1 Is a different topic entirely.

There is some benefit with raid 0 though, certainly BF2 maps load far quicker than under any other array or single drive, and if you've played BF2 and hate waiting then it's worth it. It's the only game I have installed on c: :D

I didnt say there wasnt a benefit, only way I would do it is raid 0 and raid 1

But then I dont play games on my pc because Im **** at them. And when you work with computers you dont allways want to play with them at home.

David

I've run two 36GB Rators in RAID 0 as the system drive for the last year or two, never had a problem with them and as has been said above, there is a MARKED increase in performance.
I notice it everytime I use someone elses pc :brickwall, I have yet to find another pc as quick.
As for storage I've been a bit greedy and got a..
18GB maxtor as my outlook / hotmail and recieved files store.
400GB Barraccuda as my download store
and another 400GB Barracuda as my archives store.:notworthy
Also as said Windows re-installs yearly dont worry me, not lost anything important yet! I even keep a file on the archives store dedicated to drivers and add ons ready to put straight back in after windows has finished installing.


Andy

Now there's a man with style. I like it, although it sounds a little power hungry :eek:

May I ask which RAID controller you use ? I'd like something that doesn't hog the CPU

2 Maxtor 120Gb SATA Raid 0 here.
Very fast for loading Windows and Games.
Only had to rebuild/reformat once so far due to corrupt files and directories. Reformat and start again was the only option. Working fine currently.
I still think the risk is worth it.

Can be arranged :D

(David reaches for his i486 DX2 / 66 with a full 16MB of RAM) :D

nah still got:

amstrad pc2086

8086 8mhz 640k, 30mb hdd (RLL or MFM)

Bring back dos 3.3, stacker, dos 6.2, memmaker :o doublespace :o

David

:lol1:

I've stil got my 3.54MHz Z80, with 48k RAM, but it doesn't run DOS. It runs Sinclair Basic!! Its more fondly referred to as a Spectrum!

Ive still got a compukit UK101 that my dad made.. look that up!!

I have an MCP in notepad if thats any use here.

I lusted after one of those or a nascom 1, but pocket money meant that's all I'd ever do. Still got a ZX81, BBC, Atari ST around the place. Ditched all the old PCs tho'.

I've still got my Dragon 32, Atari ST 1024, and Atari STE 1024. Got rid of all my old pcs though...

But back on subject...

I tried my new machine in Raid 0 (2x 250gb Sata drives), and to be honest, I didn't really notice any real speed increase so I've gone back to just using them as sata drives instead (2x250gb sata and 1x500gb sata2).

For me, reliablility and storage is more important than a second or two knocked off the loading times of BF2 maps :D

iain, did you use a software stripe or hardware stripe?

Personally, I've found the benefit of 2 drives in RAID0 used for OS and apps/games, less beneficial than using them as separate drives, ie dedicated OS drive and dedicated Games/Apps drive.

DrEvil, so do you run your web browser and email on the separate "Games/Apps" drive ?

Personally my ideal setup would be:

Mirror for OS and Raid 5 for my Data.

Hardware (it's built into the motherboard).