RAID or separate drives?

CJ · #1 (**permalink**) 07-12-2004, 11:33 PM

Hi All,

Here's my first post - please be gentle!

I'm moving away from my old AMD setup to a new P4 based box and upgrading my disks, too. The new MoBo has SATA RAID, but I've been pretty unimpressed with my curent ATA100 RAID 1 with the XP 2100 chip and the performance using Pinnacle Studio 8.

I realise the P4 will be better anyway - I didn't have editing in mind when I chose the AMD...

So the question is:
Am I better off setting up my two new SATA disks in a RAID 1 config or keeping them separate? I was thinking source video on one disk; output on the other)?

All views/experience welcome!

Thanks!

Marc Peters · #2 (**permalink**) 07-13-2004, 07:15 AM

Argh!!!! Just typed up a long response and IE crashed!!!!

Anyway, crux of it: RAID1 is for risk averse by mirroring drives (u'll always have a working copy). RAID0 said to improve performance (read and write times). It does in benchmarks, but you you need to combine this with regular defrags etc to get the best out of your disks. One for those that want the VERY best performance (i.e every bit counts). Also lengthens boot times by checking the array.

Two seperate drives is good from a housekeeping point of view. Me? I have both! 2x 10,000RPM discs in RAID0 for the boot drive and 2 x 160GB drives for storage.

CJ · #3 (**permalink**) 07-13-2004, 09:16 AM

Doh! I meant RAID 0 and typed 1.

I actually work in the storage business and I'm Storage Area Network qualified...

My only defence is that I've been off work for a fortnight. I won't tell anyone if you don't....

Marc Peters · #4 (**permalink**) 07-13-2004, 10:08 AM

Oh dear. You'd fit it in with the IT guys at my job :lol: - someone managed to delete the procedures manual from the system. Guess they hadn't read the procedures manual....

MoJoe · #5 (**permalink**) 07-13-2004, 08:14 PM

RAID 0 kicks ass

Poweroid · #6 (**permalink**) 08-17-2004, 10:20 AM

Saying it kicks ass is a very wild, generalisation. In some applications RAID 0 slows your PC down. In most applications in makes not the blindest bit of difference to speed. In some benchmarks it shows marginally increased throughput from the hard disk. But, irrespective of the speed issues there are several other risks with RAID that bear checking out.