Taking the RAID dive

[imported_iliosis]

Hello everyone!
I am helping my older brother whos a univ student right now(4th year), to build a new comp, for general usage: internet+multitask+movies+etc...anyway, hes considering a system like: AMD X2 3800+, 512mb X2 OCz rammage, and some geforce cards, but the main question is: I am thinking maybe he should get a RAID hard drive system, I read online that u need 2 drives to do it. And that if u want high-speed u want RAID 0...Hmm, my bro dont need big drives so I am thinking to get Raptors 32gig X 2, are they about the same speed as 74gig versions? And also, when I create the array and stuff in bios would the two drives appear as one in my comp? ANd lastly people are scaring me saying that RAID 0 is less stable and can fail and ruin all your data...is that really tru? Or are they jsut paranoid cuz, drives rarely fail anyway...

 

[ElTorrente]

If one drive goes down on a RAID0, all the data is lost on all of the drives. You're OS will see the RAID array as being just one big harddrive.

If your bro is a university student, I would recommend not bothering with it. You need to have a computer you can always count on to work when you are in school, and who knows- maybe something will happen to one drive and take the whole array down.

That being said, I love my RAID arrary. I have 4 drives all in RAID0 and I don't care if one of them goes down, because I don't keep anything important on the array. I have two more drives and a DVD burner to keep important stuff.

 

[Loki726]

Let me put this simply. The performance increases you see from RAID-ANYTHING will not be noticeable in a desktop environment. There have been tons of atricles on anandtech and other sites that show that raid is not worth using for 99% of desktop users.

Along with that, any kind of Raid that you will be using will be SOFTWARE raid. Even if its on a chip on your mobo its still software raid. This means that your processor has to waste some of its time figuring out how to store files on your drives. Don't be surprised if you see as much as 15-20% cpu utilization with software raid.

As for data redundancy, this is not important for desktop users. People use raid1/raid4/raid5/etc for the same reason they use a UPS. Businesses use redudant RAID and UPS's because they need their servers to be on all of the time. How many people would be pissed off if your ISP's server's went down for 30 minutes? Now think about how much it would matter if your desktop went down for as long as a week. There is no comparison.

And how much would redundancy really help your brother? If one hard drive in RAID 1 fails (it is EXTREMELY unlikely that this will happen), his array will still work, but you will still have to come over, open up the computer, replace the bad drive and rebuild the array. Does his computer really still have to be working while you replace the bad drive?

The bottom line is that your money would be better spent on more ram/cpu/video card and your time would be better spent trying to get laid.

 

[nycdude]

Originally posted by: Loki726

The bottom line is that your money would be better spent on more ram/cpu/video card and your time would be better spent trying to get laid.

true while lmao