First Time Raid Choices!

[Volkswagen]

Hello all.....

After reading all the great things about Matrix Raid I want to give it a try.....My pc is down atm ( Asus P5k Vanilla Dead RMA ) and since it dosnt do Intel Matrix Raid and I need more HDD Space I figured its a great time to buy a new board (Abit IP35 offers MAtrix Raid ? ) and 2 x 250GB ST3250410AS drives....I would love to do 2 x 150GB raptors but thats too much money for me atm...Now I have a few questions....

First of all the Abit IP35 Board offers Intel Matrix Raid ?

The Segate ST3250410AS DRives are they the .AAK Firmware? I think I read on this forum that since they are single platter drives that they have the good firmware? Can anyone confirm this? WOuld hate to order 2 drives and RMA them due to crappy firmware....

Now I uderstand that I can create 2 ( technically 1 raid arry) so like a 40GB Raid 0 for OS/Apps and 360 GB or whatever is left for Storage Games in Raid 0 since I want the games to load fast....What stripe sizes do you guys reccomend with this setup? I am a normal pc user that likes to stay somewhat up to date and I game listen to music surf the web make cd's/dvd's and thats about it....I dont deal with large files or encoding and crap..Basiclly I just want performance and the system to respond quick!

Thx, Adnan

BTW will this setup be faster then my current setup 1 x 74gb raptor 8mb cache for os/apps/games and oldskool 36gb raptor for storage

[thideras]

:welcome: to the forums!!

The Abit IP35-Pro offers RAID ;)

I don't know on that firmware, talk to bing about that.

You should create a larger partition than 40gb for your OS/Apps. I'd say atleast a 100gb for the OS/Apps/Games.

Then use the remainder of the drive in a RAID1 for your documents to protect your data.

[Volkswagen]

My understanding the smaller the arry is the faster it will be?

[aja]

My understanding the smaller the arry is the faster it will be?

No, not at all. Size has little to do with it!

You want to have:
as many drives as possible,
a good controller (intel onboard on that abit is great!),
Drives with as few platters as possible,
drives with quickest seek read/write times.

[Volkswagen]

What will be faster> 147GB Raptor X or 2 x 250GB Segate 7200.10 in Raid 0?

Purpose normal pc use ( internet, music, chatting and apps( Office, Nero.....) and GAMING! I want fast load times and quick/responsive drive

[jason4207]

The Seagates will give you better STR, but the Raptor will have better seek times.

Matrix RAID the 2 Seagates w/ a RAID0 100GB for OS/Programs/Games, and RAID1 200GB for data. Install the games to the OS drive, but store it on your data drive (unless it's on CD/DVD). Use 128k for the sector size.

Edit: You could just keep the setup you have unless you need more space. Raptor's are pretty quick as-is.

[Volkswagen]

nothing wrong with current drives just seem outdated and I was gona pick up a storage drive then I tought about the whole RAID idea because of the benchmarks ive seen here.....Lets say I go ahead with the 2x250GB single platter segates and slice of 50 gb of each drive to have Raid0 100gb for OS/Games and then 200/400GB Raid 1 ( does Raid 1 offer half the storage?) I just need a fast portion of the space for OS and Games so they can load fast and respond fast in the os.....What Average Seek Time would the 100GB partition in Raid0 offer with a 128k stripe size? How would a single 147GB compare to that? Hoping bing and rattle would reply to this thread :p

[bing]

Basically your plan is quite good especially comparing with those old Raptors, these new Seagate in Matrix Raid with thin Raid 0 slice will beat them.

Regarding those new AAK firmware, I've seen alot in the net that not every one of them has the problem, and also I think the 250GB model is not affected since it has only single platter and its using the latest 100MB/s platter.

The smaller that Raid 0 slice the faster you will get in term of seek time, look at this example HERE (http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=4619376&postcount=55), and once you have those drives, you can do the whole raid 0 like that to see how much you want to chop out for the raid 0 slice.

Just curious, do you "really need" a 100 GB (50 GB from each drive) just for the OS/Programs ? Cause the other data can be put at the left over space.

About the Raptor (new version) vs Seagate (new version 100 MB/s platter) in Matrix Raid, definately Raptor "in benchmark" will beat Seagate. But I strongly believe even on the "same size at Raid 0 slice", you won't feel any difference at your computing experience, and the Seagate Bytes/performance/$ ratio is far more superior than Raptor.

[Volkswagen]

basiclly I want my games to be on the fast part of the hdd and with the os installed I will defenatly need more then 20GB 40gb would be cutting it close...What if I slice of 40gb of each drive for OS/Games and the other 420gb I put data and other crap on? What seek times would I get with the 80gb Raid 0?

Isn't that where it is at the random access time? Isn't that what makes the raptor what it is?