RAID

[Extermn8rX]

I am planning on buying a new computer within the next few weeks. I'm still debating on whether or not to go with a mobo with onboard RAID. Does it have any worth while advantages for the average user/gamer. I dont wanna hear none of that "it starts up faster" or "games start up faster" mess, cause i really dont reboot my comp much, and i dont care if it starts up my games twice as fast because that doesnt help me much IN the game. Are there any other benefits that you really will notice other than benchmark scores. I want performance i can see regularly, not just when i run tests and look at the numbers.

Id like to hear a few of your experiences with RAID and what you noticed about the performance increases and whether it was worth it or not. thx :)

[bob63]

My feeling is that performance gains were pretty negligible. Did it more for the experience. Now I know how to set up a raid array, not very hard really.

[Ridenow]

I set one up because I could. I had the money and wanted to know how to use them.
For most people there is no point. They do not need the data security of a mirrored RAID and the access gains are only a real benifit if you are doing constant data transfers , like a true server does.

[Shadow ÒÓ]

yes, it makes a noticeable difference. Bench marks alone went from 20k to 33k on Sandra.

UT loads twice as fast, and even though you didn't want to hear that, changing maps, moving around in game, etc were also improved as well.

Adobe photoshop was definitely better....rendering, pulling up new photos, etc.

I absolutely will not go back to a single hard drive.

[Gandalf]

This is hte situation...

If I have 1 HD (with programs loaded), and I decide that I want to use RAID with a second HD, will I have to reformat the 1st one to do it?

[Shep]

If you use raid 0 which make the two drives look like one to the pc yes you will have to format, I think you can use raid 0+1 which mirrors the drives without a format but I am not sure

[Gandalf]

Yah, I as going to do it with RAID 0.......I just didn;t want to download or laod a whole bunch of programs just to be deleted again....

[Kendan]

If you want to use raid 0 then yes it will erase the whole drive.
If you want to use raid 1 then no you can set it up without erasing the drive.
If you want to use 0 + 1 then yes it will erase your drive.

Raid 0 = Striped 2 40 gig drives = 1 80 gig drive
Raid 1 = Mirrored 2 40 gig drives = 2 40 gig drives with the exact same data.
Raid 1 + 0 = 4 x 40 gig drives = 2 80 gig drives with exact same data.

Just be carefull when using Raid 0 and keep backups of everything important because broken stripes can Happen.

[Shep]

I have to agree with Shadow not because it is faster but because you can put your Hard drives cd-rom and burner all on different controlers and don't have to wory about buffer underrun.

[Gandalf]

OK, thanx everyone.

[Jester]

I know very little about RAID. I know the advantages but I don't know how it really works. My main question is, do you need multiply HDD to for it?

[Placid]

Yes you need at least 2 hard drives to make a raid.
Preferably the same make-model and size but its not necessary.

[Yodums]

Originally posted by Placid
Yes you need at least 2 hard drives to make a raid.
Preferably the same make-model and size but its not necessary.

Since we're asking raid questions.

Is it that you need only 2 SCSI drives for a raid setup and AT LEAST 4 IDE drives for raid setup?

[Shadow ÒÓ]

no...2-4 drives..IDE or SCSI.

[Kingslayer]

The number of drives isnt relevant. You'll always need a minimum of 2 regardless of SCSI or IDE. You have have more than 2 drives for most flavors of RAID. Even RAID 5 is possible with 4 disks, although you run into performance problems that plague RAID4 without that extra disk.

[bob63]

Kingslayer
Nice avatar, SemperFi