To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question

**canadian_divx** · August 25th, 2005

ok i am about to reinstall my os on my PC because its just full of useless crap and all. but just woundering. i have read a lot of reviews and forums about this debate and all. right now i have my PC set up in a raid 0 over 4 drives. yes the boot time is about 20 seconds but i dont care about that because i hardly ever reboot.

anyways i mainly use the system for office work. games, lots and lots of downloading. and well yea.

would there be any benifit for a RAID 0 for these uses?

i know there are a lot of people that will say yes and will say no. but just technicaly speaking. i know the opinions from the other forums were about 50 50 on the idea but i trust what most people here say.

so anyone got any imput weather i should continue to raid or it is useless for my application?

**LordOfLA** · August 25th, 2005

no there wont be any benefit really per se. but you coul dhave one nice big parition to store all your stuff on

celticfan11 · August 25th, 2005

well 4 harddrives over 1 raid 0 array i would say: NO dont do it. If one drive fails your out of luck. I assume you have heard it all before. But i have had many hard drives die, so dont say "it wont happen to me". Plus im not sure you would see any performance benefits anywayz.

1 more vote NO

**canadian_divx** · August 25th, 2005

thank you for the responce. and good point one drive gone and thats a lot of data lost

**LeeJend** · August 25th, 2005

Originally Posted by canadian_divx

anyways i mainly use the system for office work. games, lots and lots of downloading. and well yea.

would there be any benifit for a RAID 0 for these uses?

Maybe, depends on how much you download and what your connection speed is.

RAID 0 is for speed. In the process it doubles your risk of data loss (in your case quadruples the risk) because if one drive fails you loose all your data so the probability of a drive crash quadruples.

Office work - do you really care if that spread sheet opens in 50 milliseconds instead of 100 milliseconds?

Gaming - sell 3 HD's and use the money to buy more ram or a vid card with more texture memory because if that game has to go to the HD it is instant lag.

Downloading - if your internet connection is 150 mBytes per second (1.5mbps) . That is the same speed as a single SATA drive so you can't use anymore speed. If you have a 450 mByte (5mbps) connection and stream for extended periods then the RAID may be of value if the higher failure rate is not a concern. Are you actually receiving data any faster than 150 mBytes on your transfers? You should see up to 400 mBytes per second for extended periods on transfers from fast sites assuming 4 - ATA 100 drives in RAID 0.

If you are running a server on a damn fast connection where you have to pull large streams of data off constantly RAID 0 is of value. But in those situations you usually have RAID 0 & 1 setup for data loss prevention.

Let the arguments begin.

**VenomXt** · August 25th, 2005

why not raid 0 two drives? give you speed and lessen chance od device faliure taking you out.

**ming** · August 25th, 2005

Is Raid 0 the one which joins two drives together or mirrors the primary drive?
Either way, I can't see the benefits for home users because if the former, you'll lose everything if one drive fails, or in the latter case, you're just wasting a whole drive mirroring (but gives you a piece of mind if the first fails).

**ming** · August 25th, 2005

I'd probably just go with the drives as they are, and put the Page File on the 2nd drive for faster access. Other than that, I wouldn't use Raid at all for a home PC.

**LordOfLA** · August 25th, 2005

Originally Posted by LeeJend

Downloading - if your internet connection is 150 mBytes per second (1.5mbps) . That is the same speed as a single SATA drive so you can't use anymore speed. If you have a 450 mByte (5mbps) connection and stream for extended periods then the RAID may be of value if the higher failure rate is not a concern. Are you actually receiving data any faster than 150 mBytes on your transfers? You should see up to 400 mBytes per second for extended periods on transfers from fast sites assuming 4 - ATA 100 drives in RAID 0.

thats KBytes not mByes... hehe we dont even have that much bandwith at coreix

You're talking 32Gbps+ bandwidth there dude

trainmaster77 · August 25th, 2005

Originally Posted by celticfan11

well 4 harddrives over 1 raid 0 array i would say: NO dont do it. If one drive fails your out of luck. I assume you have heard it all before. But i have had many hard drives die, so dont say "it wont happen to me". Plus im not sure you would see any performance benefits anywayz.

1 more vote NO

how often do drives actually go bad? Ive NEVER had one go bad ever ever. Of course me saying that now probably one crap out.

Personally id raid every drive i had in 0 config. I mean why not. Just back up yer stuff once or twice a month and if one goes bad ..take it out and either replace it or raid 0 the remaining drives again and use your backup to reload them.

Doesnt seem like itmatters if one goes bad having them all seperate or if one goes bad in raid 0 besides data loss.

**VenomXt** · August 25th, 2005

knockopn wood train master knock on wood.

celticfan11 · August 25th, 2005

Originally Posted by trainmaster77

how often do drives actually go bad? Ive NEVER had one go bad ever ever. Of course me saying that now probably one crap out.

Personally id raid every drive i had in 0 config. I mean why not. Just back up yer stuff once or twice a month and if one goes bad ..take it out and either replace it or raid 0 the remaining drives again and use your backup to reload them.

Doesnt seem like itmatters if one goes bad having them all seperate or if one goes bad in raid 0 besides data loss.

well that is silly to say it hasn't happened to me yet so it won't? Ive lost about 3 hard drives (2 western digital 40gig and 20 gig and 1 IBM 40 gig ) drive over the past 3-4 years. My friend has lost 2 120GIG drives over the past 2 years. Hard drives crash. Sure a good backup plan will help to ease your fears of loss. But who sticks to weekly or bi weekly backups? Few of us. And you are saying backup monthly or bi monthly, well 29 or even 59 days of data is alot of data loss (to me it is). I think raid 0 is pointless in the home enviroment, mainly because you will not get much of a benefit and very few people stick to their desired backup plans. In a corporate enviroment its different because the IT teams should run nightly backups.

**VenomXt** · August 25th, 2005

I use two 36 gig raptors in a raid 0 array. I do it for the following reasons.
1. Im anerd and can say i run raid
2. there is a diffrence in loading games. its bigger than you think.'

But if i lost a aray id just be out a OS most of sensitive stuff gets taken to my server.. sh*t i havent backed that up in months hehe.

trainmaster77 · August 25th, 2005

Originally Posted by VenomXt

I use two 36 gig raptors in a raid 0 array. I do it for the following reasons.
1. Im anerd and can say i run raid
2. there is a diffrence in loading games. its bigger than you think.'

But if i lost a aray id just be out a OS most of sensitive stuff gets taken to my server.. sh*t i havent backed that up in months hehe.

CHEERS

yeah and i do the same for my 2 74 gig raptors. if you ahve a good powersupply and a line conditioner/power backup you should have no problems with teh hard drives.

**VenomXt** · August 25th, 2005

I need to get a UP but i do have anice power supply .. hehe the only 80 percent effecient one. hehe

celticfan11 · August 26th, 2005

Originally Posted by VenomXt

sh*t i havent backed that up in months hehe.

heh exactly my point

**LeeJend** · August 26th, 2005

Originally Posted by ming

I'd probably just go with the drives as they are, and put the Page File on the 2nd drive for faster access. Other than that, I wouldn't use Raid at all for a home PC.

Don't put the page file on a second drive. It usually spins down for power savings and there is a long delay for it to spin up when you try and access the pagefile. I made this msitake once and quickly fixed it.

Originally Posted by LordOfLA

thats KBytes not mByes... hehe we dont even have that much bandwith at coreix You're talking 32Gbps+ bandwidth there dude

I knew something wasn't adding up there the internet speed should have been negligible compared to the HD speed. Sheesh am I embarassed.

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #1
canadian_divx Canadian_divx Joined: June 2002 Location: waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Planet Earth Posts: 1,551 Reputation: 150 Power: 134	To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question ok i am about to reinstall my os on my PC because its just full of useless crap and all. but just woundering. i have read a lot of reviews and forums about this debate and all. right now i have my PC set up in a raid 0 over 4 drives. yes the boot time is about 20 seconds but i dont care about that because i hardly ever reboot. anyways i mainly use the system for office work. games, lots and lots of downloading. and well yea. would there be any benifit for a RAID 0 for these uses? i know there are a lot of people that will say yes and will say no. but just technicaly speaking. i know the opinions from the other forums were about 50 50 on the idea but i trust what most people here say. so anyone got any imput weather i should continue to raid or it is useless for my application?

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #2
LordOfLA Godlike! Joined: February 2004 Location: Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK Posts: 7,015 Blog Entries: 5 Reputation: 4137 Power: 209	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question no there wont be any benefit really per se. but you coul dhave one nice big parition to store all your stuff on If HK-47 and GLaDOS had a child, the character they create would cause the video game world to overdose on awesome. -sheridanmovieguy: Dragon age forum user.

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #3
celticfan11 OSNN Senior Addict Joined: January 2003 Location: Vernon, CT Posts: 744 Reputation: 340 Power: 121	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question well 4 harddrives over 1 raid 0 array i would say: NO dont do it. If one drive fails your out of luck. I assume you have heard it all before. But i have had many hard drives die, so dont say "it wont happen to me". Plus im not sure you would see any performance benefits anywayz. 1 more vote NO CPU: Intel 3.2GHz OC'd to 3.4GHz RAM: 1GB PC3200 Harddrive: .710TB combined Local and Network storage Video Card: Geforce 6800 GT 256MB RAM Motherboard: ASU P4P800 Sound: Onboard sound baby Monitor: Faithful 21 inches of PURE CRT Number of Programs Installed: 39 and growing: not counting games, (and yes i use them all)

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #4
canadian_divx Canadian_divx Joined: June 2002 Location: waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Planet Earth Posts: 1,551 Reputation: 150 Power: 134	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question thank you for the responce. and good point one drive gone and thats a lot of data lost

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #5
LeeJend OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: January 2003 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 5,255 Reputation: 3386 Power: 196	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question Originally Posted by canadian_divx anyways i mainly use the system for office work. games, lots and lots of downloading. and well yea. would there be any benifit for a RAID 0 for these uses? Maybe, depends on how much you download and what your connection speed is. RAID 0 is for speed. In the process it doubles your risk of data loss (in your case quadruples the risk) because if one drive fails you loose all your data so the probability of a drive crash quadruples. Office work - do you really care if that spread sheet opens in 50 milliseconds instead of 100 milliseconds? Gaming - sell 3 HD's and use the money to buy more ram or a vid card with more texture memory because if that game has to go to the HD it is instant lag. Downloading - if your internet connection is 150 mBytes per second (1.5mbps) . That is the same speed as a single SATA drive so you can't use anymore speed. If you have a 450 mByte (5mbps) connection and stream for extended periods then the RAID may be of value if the higher failure rate is not a concern. Are you actually receiving data any faster than 150 mBytes on your transfers? You should see up to 400 mBytes per second for extended periods on transfers from fast sites assuming 4 - ATA 100 drives in RAID 0. If you are running a server on a damn fast connection where you have to pull large streams of data off constantly RAID 0 is of value. But in those situations you usually have RAID 0 & 1 setup for data loss prevention. Let the arguments begin. Thought for the new millenium: In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates? - Open Office - Firefox - Thunderbird - Gimp -Ubuntu - Red Hat -

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August 25th, 2005	Top \| #6
VenomXt Blame me for the RAZR's Joined: March 2004 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 3,442 Reputation: 1240 Power: 143	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question why not raid 0 two drives? give you speed and lessen chance od device faliure taking you out. www.venomxt.com

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #7
ming OSNN Advanced Joined: June 2003 Location: UK Posts: 4,252 Reputation: 1160 Power: 159	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question Is Raid 0 the one which joins two drives together or mirrors the primary drive? Either way, I can't see the benefits for home users because if the former, you'll lose everything if one drive fails, or in the latter case, you're just wasting a whole drive mirroring (but gives you a piece of mind if the first fails). Curent system: Intel Quad Core 9450 \| 4GB RAM \| WD Raptor 36GB \| nVidia 8800GT 512mb

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #8
ming OSNN Advanced Joined: June 2003 Location: UK Posts: 4,252 Reputation: 1160 Power: 159	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question I'd probably just go with the drives as they are, and put the Page File on the 2nd drive for faster access. Other than that, I wouldn't use Raid at all for a home PC. Curent system: Intel Quad Core 9450 \| 4GB RAM \| WD Raptor 36GB \| nVidia 8800GT 512mb

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #9
LordOfLA Godlike! Joined: February 2004 Location: Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK Posts: 7,015 Blog Entries: 5 Reputation: 4137 Power: 209	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question Originally Posted by LeeJend Downloading - if your internet connection is 150 mBytes per second (1.5mbps) . That is the same speed as a single SATA drive so you can't use anymore speed. If you have a 450 mByte (5mbps) connection and stream for extended periods then the RAID may be of value if the higher failure rate is not a concern. Are you actually receiving data any faster than 150 mBytes on your transfers? You should see up to 400 mBytes per second for extended periods on transfers from fast sites assuming 4 - ATA 100 drives in RAID 0. thats KBytes not mByes... hehe we dont even have that much bandwith at coreix You're talking 32Gbps+ bandwidth there dude If HK-47 and GLaDOS had a child, the character they create would cause the video game world to overdose on awesome. -sheridanmovieguy: Dragon age forum user.

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #10
trainmaster77 OSNN Senior Addict Joined: February 2005 Location: St. Louis/Chicago Posts: 509 Reputation: 170 Power: 92	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question Originally Posted by celticfan11 well 4 harddrives over 1 raid 0 array i would say: NO dont do it. If one drive fails your out of luck. I assume you have heard it all before. But i have had many hard drives die, so dont say "it wont happen to me". Plus im not sure you would see any performance benefits anywayz. 1 more vote NO how often do drives actually go bad? Ive NEVER had one go bad ever ever. Of course me saying that now probably one crap out. Personally id raid every drive i had in 0 config. I mean why not. Just back up yer stuff once or twice a month and if one goes bad ..take it out and either replace it or raid 0 the remaining drives again and use your backup to reload them. Doesnt seem like itmatters if one goes bad having them all seperate or if one goes bad in raid 0 besides data loss. Care for some tea?

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #11
VenomXt Blame me for the RAZR's Joined: March 2004 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 3,442 Reputation: 1240 Power: 143	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question knockopn wood train master knock on wood. www.venomxt.com

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #12
celticfan11 OSNN Senior Addict Joined: January 2003 Location: Vernon, CT Posts: 744 Reputation: 340 Power: 121	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question Originally Posted by trainmaster77 how often do drives actually go bad? Ive NEVER had one go bad ever ever. Of course me saying that now probably one crap out. Personally id raid every drive i had in 0 config. I mean why not. Just back up yer stuff once or twice a month and if one goes bad ..take it out and either replace it or raid 0 the remaining drives again and use your backup to reload them. Doesnt seem like itmatters if one goes bad having them all seperate or if one goes bad in raid 0 besides data loss. well that is silly to say it hasn't happened to me yet so it won't? Ive lost about 3 hard drives (2 western digital 40gig and 20 gig and 1 IBM 40 gig ) drive over the past 3-4 years. My friend has lost 2 120GIG drives over the past 2 years. Hard drives crash. Sure a good backup plan will help to ease your fears of loss. But who sticks to weekly or bi weekly backups? Few of us. And you are saying backup monthly or bi monthly, well 29 or even 59 days of data is alot of data loss (to me it is). I think raid 0 is pointless in the home enviroment, mainly because you will not get much of a benefit and very few people stick to their desired backup plans. In a corporate enviroment its different because the IT teams should run nightly backups. CPU: Intel 3.2GHz OC'd to 3.4GHz RAM: 1GB PC3200 Harddrive: .710TB combined Local and Network storage Video Card: Geforce 6800 GT 256MB RAM Motherboard: ASU P4P800 Sound: Onboard sound baby Monitor: Faithful 21 inches of PURE CRT Number of Programs Installed: 39 and growing: not counting games, (and yes i use them all)

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #13
VenomXt Blame me for the RAZR's Joined: March 2004 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 3,442 Reputation: 1240 Power: 143	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question I use two 36 gig raptors in a raid 0 array. I do it for the following reasons. 1. Im anerd and can say i run raid 2. there is a diffrence in loading games. its bigger than you think.' But if i lost a aray id just be out a OS most of sensitive stuff gets taken to my server.. sh*t i havent backed that up in months hehe. www.venomxt.com

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #14
trainmaster77 OSNN Senior Addict Joined: February 2005 Location: St. Louis/Chicago Posts: 509 Reputation: 170 Power: 92	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question Originally Posted by VenomXt I use two 36 gig raptors in a raid 0 array. I do it for the following reasons. 1. Im anerd and can say i run raid 2. there is a diffrence in loading games. its bigger than you think.' But if i lost a aray id just be out a OS most of sensitive stuff gets taken to my server.. sht i havent backed that up in months hehe. CHEERS yeah and i do the same for my 2 74 gig raptors. if you ahve a good powersupply and a line conditioner/power backup you should have no problems with teh hard drives. Care for some tea?*

August 25th, 2005	Top \| #15
VenomXt Blame me for the RAZR's Joined: March 2004 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 3,442 Reputation: 1240 Power: 143	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question I need to get a UP but i do have anice power supply .. hehe the only 80 percent effecient one. hehe www.venomxt.com

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August 26th, 2005	Top \| #16
celticfan11 OSNN Senior Addict Joined: January 2003 Location: Vernon, CT Posts: 744 Reputation: 340 Power: 121	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question Originally Posted by VenomXt sht i havent backed that up in months hehe. heh exactly my point CPU:* Intel 3.2GHz OC'd to 3.4GHz RAM: 1GB PC3200 Harddrive: .710TB combined Local and Network storage Video Card: Geforce 6800 GT 256MB RAM Motherboard: ASU P4P800 Sound: Onboard sound baby Monitor: Faithful 21 inches of PURE CRT Number of Programs Installed: 39 and growing: not counting games, (and yes i use them all)

August 26th, 2005	Top \| #17
LeeJend OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: January 2003 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 5,255 Reputation: 3386 Power: 196	Re: To Raid? Or Not To Raid, That Is The Question Originally Posted by ming I'd probably just go with the drives as they are, and put the Page File on the 2nd drive for faster access. Other than that, I wouldn't use Raid at all for a home PC. Don't put the page file on a second drive. It usually spins down for power savings and there is a long delay for it to spin up when you try and access the pagefile. I made this msitake once and quickly fixed it. Originally Posted by LordOfLA thats KBytes not mByes... hehe we dont even have that much bandwith at coreix You're talking 32Gbps+ bandwidth there dude I knew something wasn't adding up there the internet speed should have been negligible compared to the HD speed. Sheesh am I embarassed. Thought for the new millenium: In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates? - Open Office - Firefox - Thunderbird - Gimp -Ubuntu - Red Hat -