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

[canadian_divx]

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]

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

 

[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

 

[canadian_divx]

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

 

[LeeJend]

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]

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

 

[ming]

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]

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]

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]

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]

knockopn wood train master knock on wood.

 

[celticfan11]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[celticfan11]

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

heh exactly my point

 

[LeeJend]

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.

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.