2x 36gb Raptor in Raid, or 1x 74gb Raptor?

[perfectturmoil]

Hey guys.

I'm just asking about possible upgrade paths. I was planning on IDE Raiding my two 160gb IDE drives, but apparently for the raid to work, I need to have at least one SATA drive along with my IDE's :-/

So.. In the never ending pursuit of power, which would be better? Two small raptors raided together, or one big raptor?

I have read that the bigger raptors have better components and faster seek times, but how about two small raptors raided together?

I've always thought about scsi, but I don't know if I want to add extra noise, heat, hassle, etc.. plus the cost is a bit high, when a raptor is basically plug and play :-]

[Xtreme Barton]

shouldnt have to have sata to run 2 ide raid drives..

and about the raptors .. 2 would perform better but the larger is better qaulity.. i would only get one now..(that could be the mystery 3rd drive you need) and run the ide's n raid..... still will be fast either way ..

[Sjaak]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'one sata drive', or does your motherboard have only a single RAID-pata connector (those exist, im not sure how to use them)

[ajrettke]

Actualy in most tests the 74gb raptor is faster than raided 36's. This is because the 74 has a lower seek time than the 36's and when you RAID 0 drives the seek times increase. The only time the 36's would be better is if your loading one very large (200+mb) continuos file (meaning it's all in order and not broken up in the drive).

[mortimer]

Hey guys.

I'm just asking about possible upgrade paths. I was planning on IDE Raiding my two 160gb IDE drives, but apparently for the raid to work, I need to have at least one SATA drive along with my IDE's :-/

So.. In the never ending pursuit of power, which would be better? Two small raptors raided together, or one big raptor?

I have read that the bigger raptors have better components and faster seek times, but how about two small raptors raided together?

I've always thought about scsi, but I don't know if I want to add extra noise, heat, hassle, etc.. plus the cost is a bit high, when a raptor is basically plug and play :-]

I would go for the single 74GB. They are faster and cheaper. At this point I would pass on SCSI unless you anticipate the need for a lot of drives in the near future.

Note: Your signature is unreadable. On my system anyway. Looks like it might be gray on a black background. Anybody else seeing, or not seeing, this?

[Xtreme Barton]

i didnt notice the seek time was about a second faster between the two drives..

hey you got some links on them test ?? and what else do they compare them too?? would like to check it out.. ive been a fan of raid for some time.. but if you tell me that then i have to re-think my goals for my setup..

so would one drive 74gb out perform two 74gb in raid ?? since raid slows it down ??

[clocker2]

i didnt notice the seek time was about a second faster between the two drives..


That's milleseconds NOT seconds.

[unreal]

i say the single 74 also, there is a trrhead on here that explains it,, make sure you do a search before asking the question...

[ajrettke]

well see RAID 0 increases bandwidth or the max mb/s that it can transfer..this is because it only needs to read half the file (per disk but there both doing it)...however, you have to wait for both drives to first find the start of the data, so it takes longer. Now with the raptor already putting up nice speeds by itself, that millisecond delay is a lot....and if the file is not continuous (meaning it has to jump and seek again to find the next part of the file) then you get another seek delay from the RAID 0.

I honestly have my doubts about RAID 0, in theory it's much much better, but in pracice it's not double the performance, you run a greater risk of losing the array over a single drive, in my experiance seek times are much more important.

People say there RAID arrays are much faster but they either say it "feels" faster or give bandwidth benchmarks...one is probably a placebo effect and the other is a sleighted test.

Also be sure to remember that the 74gb raptor is not just a larger 36gb rapter...it has a faster seek time and higher bandwidth as well....I gotta run but if someone has a chance there is a thread where someone put up bench marks for loading a bunch of different games with raptors RAID 0'd and all different stripe sets...it was a great thread if someone can dig it up.

[dark_15]

IDK if this is the thread you were talking about... but here is one:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=310351