How would you do it.

[pwilson316]

I am getting ready to install 2 new 250MB Sata drives in my system. I will be taking out a 160GB IDE (moving it to another system) and leaving in an 80 GB IDE.

I am putting the two 250GB Sata dirves in together in a RAID0.

So, my question is, where would you put the OS - On the 80GB IDE, or the 500GB Sata RAID0 (partitioned)?

I use this system mostly for gaming and some office apps.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Why would you even both leaving the 80gig drive in there. Take it out and disable your IDE ports.

Put it on the RAID-0 array.

-Kevin

 

[pwilson316]

Is there any performance gain from disabling the IDE ports? I was thinking of leaving the 80GB in for image/iso storage (Daemon Tools) and photos.

 

[Jiggz]

Leave the 80GB hdd as you wish for additional storage. As for the 500GB, you would want to at least partition it into two and then making the first partition as the OS Drive. It doesn't have to be big, it can just be the same size as the 80GB so you can clone it to the 80 HDD for instant back up. Since you will be in RAID 0 you will need back up for your data. This could be removable media like DVD or CDR's.

 

[milleron]

I hope I'm not gonna rain on your parade too much. Why are you installing a RAID 0?? If you've never done it before, and you're under the impression that you're going to see a perceptible performance increase, you're in for a disappointment. If you understand that you're going to approximately double the chance of hardware failure that will result in loss of data, you're correct. You probably know more about this than I do, but in case you don't, I always like to be sure that users contemplating RAID 0 know that it's not necessarily a good thing. It's probably a bad thing to do unless they actually do a lot of work with specific applications that can benefit from RAID 0. Also, if you have an onboard RAID controller, you have to be prepared to sacrifice CPU cycles when you enable it.

I'd put those gorgeous new SATA drives in RAID 1 if I needed only 250 GB of space. If I needed 500 GB, I'd simply install them as two independent drives.

 

[pwilson316]

I am under the impression that the RAID0 will give me a performance increase. Am I mistaken? I do understand the hardware failure possibilities.

If the onboard RAID controller is going to decrease CPU power, and the Raid0 really does not give a noticeable performance increase, maybe I will just put them in as independent drives. Perhaps just going from IDE to SATA will be a satisfying performance increase.

 

[porcorosso]

Originally posted by: milleron

I hope I'm not gonna rain on your parade too much. Why are you installing a RAID 0?? If you've never done it before, and you're under the impression that you're going to see a perceptible performance increase, you're in for a disappointment. If you understand that you're going to approximately double the chance of hardware failure that will result in loss of data, you're correct. You probably know more about this than I do, but in case you don't, I always like to be sure that users contemplating RAID 0 know that it's not necessarily a good thing. It's probably a bad thing to do unless they actually do a lot of work with specific applications that can benefit from RAID 0. Also, if you have an onboard RAID controller, you have to be prepared to sacrifice CPU cycles when you enable it.

I'd put those gorgeous new SATA drives in RAID 1 if I needed only 250 GB of space. If I needed 500 GB, I'd simply install them as two independent drives.

++

I'm thinking you'll see an improvement in performance whichever way you go, but it's going to be due to the change from IDE to SATA, not due to the RAID configuration you choose -- unless you're running something really unusual as a workstation app -- like a database that really gets thrashed through multiple connections.

Oh, and I'd just use one partition per physical drive for most Windows installations. There are cases where I might make an exception, but not many.

 

[bruceb]

This link will tell you all about the various types of RAID and what each is best & worst for:

http://www.acnc.com/04_00.html

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: milleron
I hope I'm not gonna rain on your parade too much. Why are you installing a RAID 0?? If you've never done it before, and you're under the impression that you're going to see a perceptible performance increase, you're in for a disappointment. If you understand that you're going to approximately double the chance of hardware failure that will result in loss of data, you're correct. You probably know more about this than I do, but in case you don't, I always like to be sure that users contemplating RAID 0 know that it's not necessarily a good thing. It's probably a bad thing to do unless they actually do a lot of work with specific applications that can benefit from RAID 0. Also, if you have an onboard RAID controller, you have to be prepared to sacrifice CPU cycles when you enable it.

I'd put those gorgeous new SATA drives in RAID 1 if I needed only 250 GB of space. If I needed 500 GB, I'd simply install them as two independent drives.

I agree with what you said about RAID 0. But, why are you suggesting RAID 1 for a home PC?!

 

[Tsuwamono]

Personally i have an 80 GB IDE and a 80 GB SATA(Long story please dont ask why) and i put my OS on the SATA and i run all of my games off the 80 GB IDE... i gained about 2-8 FPS off every game i have played by having a OS on a seperate HD. Especially since they arent running off the same IDE*Shudders*

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
Personally i have an 80 GB IDE and a 80 GB SATA(Long story please dont ask why) and i put my OS on the SATA and i run all of my games off the 80 GB IDE... i gained about 2-8 FPS off every game i have played by having a OS on a seperate HD. Especially since they arent running off the same IDE*Shudders*

That's interesting!

Correct me if I am wrong. But, as far as I know, after you load a game, the hard drive is out of the picture! It is only the graphics card (mainly) and CPU and memory that determine your frames per second (FPS).

The hard drive only affects how long it takes to load. You know when you click on "load", or when you reach a part of the map and it loads a new map, and you have to wait a few seconds before you can start/continue playing? That's when the speed of the hard drive matters. But, as soon as loading is done, the hard drive is out of the equation.

 

[pwilson316]

Thanks all for the advice.

From the link to the RAID tutorial, it seems that RAID0 would give an increase if it is on seperate controlers. I'm not sure about this. But my motherboard manual states that "RAID 0 optimizes two identical hard disk drives to read and write in parallel, interleaved stacks. Two hard disks perform the same work as a single drive but at a sustained data transfer rate, double that of a single disk alone, thus improving data access and storage."

This is on a Asus A7N8X V2.0 Deluxe with at Silicon Image Sil 3112A controller chipset.

 

[ch33zw1z]

depends on what you're doing. If you have the power and space, leave the 80 in there for w/e.

The RAID0 will give you a performance boost, chances are you won't even notice though. I know you know, but if one drive fails you're SOL. no data recovery...

 

[milleron]

Originally posted by: Navid

Originally posted by: milleron
I hope I'm not gonna rain on your parade too much. Why are you installing a RAID 0?? If you've never done it before, and you're under the impression that you're going to see a perceptible performance increase, you're in for a disappointment. If you understand that you're going to approximately double the chance of hardware failure that will result in loss of data, you're correct. You probably know more about this than I do, but in case you don't, I always like to be sure that users contemplating RAID 0 know that it's not necessarily a good thing. It's probably a bad thing to do unless they actually do a lot of work with specific applications that can benefit from RAID 0. Also, if you have an onboard RAID controller, you have to be prepared to sacrifice CPU cycles when you enable it.

I'd put those gorgeous new SATA drives in RAID 1 if I needed only 250 GB of space. If I needed 500 GB, I'd simply install them as two independent drives.

I agree with what you said about RAID 0. But, why are you suggesting RAID 1 for a home PC?!

Note that I qualified it by stating that if I needed only 250GB of space (assuming I already had two 250GB drives, as OP has), then I'd install a RAID 1. I, personally, don't use either RAID 0 or 1. I did install an expensive RAID 0 on the rig I built in 2001. It gave me absolutely nothing but the increased risk, and I vowed "never again."

 

[milleron]

Originally posted by: Navid

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
Personally i have an 80 GB IDE and a 80 GB SATA(Long story please dont ask why) and i put my OS on the SATA and i run all of my games off the 80 GB IDE... i gained about 2-8 FPS off every game i have played by having a OS on a seperate HD. Especially since they arent running off the same IDE*Shudders*

That's interesting!

Correct me if I am wrong. But, as far as I know, after you load a game, the hard drive is out of the picture! It is only the graphics card (mainly) and CPU and memory that determine your frames per second (FPS).

The hard drive only affects how long it takes to load. You know when you click on "load", or when you reach a part of the map and it loads a new map, and you have to wait a few seconds before you can start/continue playing? That's when the speed of the hard drive matters. But, as soon as loading is done, the hard drive is out of the equation.

Yup. It's been stated in numerous reviews of the subject that RAID 0 is of no benefit to gamers other than loading new levels faster. Once that new level has been loaded, the HD geometry can't affect FPS

 

[Madwand1]

Single IDE for OS and RAID 0 or 1 for programs / data should be fine. You could also use some space on the OS drive for backing up critical stuff on the RAID array. As to performance impact, the only way to determine that would be to test -- should be pretty simple to re-configure the two drives to RAID 0, 1 or as separate single drives when you have the OS on a separate drive.

 

[milleron]

Originally posted by: pwilson316
I am under the impression that the RAID0 will give me a performance increase. Am I mistaken? I do understand the hardware failure possibilities.

If the onboard RAID controller is going to decrease CPU power, and the Raid0 really does not give a noticeable performance increase, maybe I will just put them in as independent drives. Perhaps just going from IDE to SATA will be a satisfying performance increase.

RAID 0 will give you a performance increase that can be measured with any HD benchmarking application, but it won't be perceptible for day-to-day use. The RAID tutorials and reviews can give you a list of applications run on a home computer than will benefit from RAID 0 -- like lots of video editing or manipulations of very large graphic images. In my opinion, one would have to do a lot of those types of things to justify the extra CPU overhead and increased risk of hardware failure that is always present.

Note that the RAID 0 built into your A7N motherboard is basically software RAID that will task your CPU. To avoid that, you'd need to purchase a PCI RAID card like the ones from 3Ware -- at least $300.

RAID has it's place. No mission-critical server would ever be built without RAID 5. No highly-accessed file server could be built without RAID striping. The vast majority of home-computer RAID implementations are ill-advised.

Ron

 

[pwilson316]

Thank you all for the excellent advice. I think I may just play around and see what happens. Most likely I will just install the Sata's as individual drives and leave out the Raid.

 

[Rotax]

OS on the RAID 0, vmem on the 80 . . storage on other partitions and the 80 . .

thats the route i'd go at least.

 

[tropic]

Originally posted by: pwilson316
Most likely I will just install the Sata's as individual drives and leave out the Raid.

I would install the OS on the 80GB drive (as long as it's decently fast) and use the the 250GB drives for data. I'd probably move my pagefile to one of the SATAs as well.