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Is RAID 0 worth it

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Xiphias

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Joined
Mar 1, 2003
Location
Inside Rama
I'm thinking of putting a couple of WD 40gb Special Edtion Drives on a PCI RAID controller card(software).

I know in theory the performance should be twice as fast but what is actual average performace increase?
 
RAID 0 doubles performance when data files are huge or data requests are sequential, it will give you great results in benchmarks, but in everyday office or gaming use, where data files are small and data requests are NOT sequential, the benefits are small, still, if you have squeezed the last Mhz from your CPU and Video card, upgrade to RAID by all means.
 
Well I'll be mostly be using it for gaming, perhaps I'll get some stuff from quietpc instead of the second hard drive and RAID card.
 
Xiphias said:
Well I'll be mostly be using it for gaming, perhaps I'll get some stuff from quietpc instead of the second hard drive and RAID card.

I use RAID 0 on my gaming rig and I'll never go back. It's not a 100% increase in speed, but for UT2K3 maps -- and these can be HUGE -- it is a godsend! It certainly helps at least a little for smaller files as well and helps speed up boot time from power up.

My 2 cents...
 
RAID

I used to run raid on an MSI mobo. I used it for internet and for Tribes 2. It was ...."SLOWER". I was using ata 100 drives too. I talked to a certified A+ tech. I was told alot of stuff I did not understand but bottom line you will not have speed with raid. That was also my own experience. If you run files with huge video you would see some increase.
I ran the setup both with and without raid. I changed about 4 times. It was always slower with raid....
Just my experience.
Allan
 
Maybe your werent running a raid 0 array?

I am also thinking of running Raid 0, with my 800JBs, need to buy a card for it. I know a few people that have raid 0 and say that there is a noticeable difference with everyday usage. Guess it all depends on the user (for day to day use, not benchamrking)
 
Its only an extra £100 pounds, If I don't like it I can always use the second hard drive as a back up one
 
Xiphias said:
Its only an extra £100 pounds, If I don't like it I can always use the second hard drive as a back up one

if you don't like raid 0, you could always put it in raid 1 and have a nice backup :)




*edit: spelling*
 
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TheCor4D said:
Maybe your werent running a raid 0 array?

I am also thinking of running Raid 0, with my 800JBs, need to buy a card for it. I know a few people that have raid 0 and say that there is a noticeable difference with everyday usage. Guess it all depends on the user (for day to day use, not benchamrking)

i have that setup right now and i can notice a difference from when i had them just connected to the primary ide. it's much faster in raid 0 than the other setup. my computer is mainly used for gaming and as said above by mbigna with the ut2k3 map loadings, i can definitely notice they load faster with raid 0 than before, im always going raid 0 from now on
 
I also vote in favor of RAID0. It's a significant boost to one of the slowest but crucial subsystems in a PC.

Loading times, bootup, file transfers and operations etc... it's all faster. It's also pretty problem-free and easy to use. My setup was pretty much fire and forget (though I did have to clear an IRQ issue come to think of it heh).
 
Most reviews I've read online show it does not help very much. I thought very hard about doing it last year but after seeing numerous dissapointing reviews I decided against it. There were times when it was actually slower than not using RAID and there were times when it was slightly faster but the gains it showed were very minimal to point of not even being noticeable.
 
Blkout said:
Most reviews I've read online show it does not help very much. I thought very hard about doing it last year but after seeing numerous dissapointing reviews I decided against it. There were times when it was actually slower than not using RAID and there were times when it was slightly faster but the gains it showed were very minimal to point of not even being noticeable.

i believe that when raid is done correctly (with good hardware and drives) it can be a great improvement. most of the controllers that you see are mostly software controllers which will degrade performance. if you get a full hardware raid controller, the performance will also go up. also, if you have 2 very high performance drives, it can make them soar... it just depends on how much you are willing to spend, more or less...
 
mbentley said:


i believe that when raid is done correctly (with good hardware and drives) it can be a great improvement. most of the controllers that you see are mostly software controllers which will degrade performance. if you get a full hardware raid controller, the performance will also go up. also, if you have 2 very high performance drives, it can make them soar... it just depends on how much you are willing to spend, more or less...


I'd bet the farm that in day to day apps, you'd never see the difference. I bet the only time you would ever see a difference is in benchmarks or specialized apps. No need to **** money away on that.
 
I definitely see an improvement and would NEVER ever go back to single HDs again!

Remember with these 8 MB caches you are also doubling your cache when you run RAID 0. That in itself is a speedup if one considers nothing else.

But also the larger the program, just like the mapps in UT2003, which I also run, the larger the files the more benefit you will see. Those reviewers or whoever said gamers didn't benefit from RAID 0 was feeding you/us a bowl of crap! (Just goes to show you how well these reviewers are researching what they write! I have little confidence in them anymore, because of all the similar past comments they've made! ) Almost ALL games, and practically every last major game is HUGE in tems of total size as well as file size! I can't think of a serious/major single game in the past year that is small.

But the biggest benefits is in running things like video and sound editing prgrams. There is so much difference here it makes single HDs laughable!

As for some people not doing so well with RAID 0 setups, I will state that the RAID must be configured properly, or at least have a decent RAID controller and HDs to set up as RAID. I started out with High Point Technologies RAID, onboard a Abit mobo. Performance was indeed spotty with it.... I could have quit RAID and said it wasn't worth it, especially with the associated problems HP Technologies had with Abit's BIOS. (It wasn't a good match.) But I tried a Promise TX 2000 pci RAID controller card and with it every last thing improved! So there is a definite relationship with the components used.

The benefits from having a pci RAID controller card are MANY! Easier migration of your OS and drives to a different mobo and system when needbe. No hassle in playing with the mobo makers BIOS just to upgrade the RAID BIOS. Cheaper in the fact that you only have to buy the pci RAID controller once, plus you don't have to buy mobos with onboard RAID. Not as many conflicts with pci RAID controllers as with onboard RAID controllers. Better support and usually more functionality with pci RAID controllers. And generally overall better performance.

As it stands now, I won't ever be buying another onboard RAID controller, and I didn't buy one on my P4PE! Unless something really drastic changes. But I'll definitely be running RAID one way or the other!

You'll just have to try it yourself and see.

Cheers,
Mike
 
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...

so you say PCI raid card is way better than onboard raid?

...i am using an Abit BE7-Raid mobo.... 3 x 120GB 8mb WDSE, 2 are on raid 0, 1 for back up....well as most ppl said, don't really feel much of improvements DUE TO human feeling isn't so sensitive...i believe anything below double can hardly to be noticed by human feeling(try to use a 1.8GHZ and a 2.4GHZ P4 system without anyone telling you which is which, can you really tell the differences??)......well the benchmark tells me my raid 0 set up is about 30% faster than a single WDSE.

I learned that the raid speed is limited by the ATA and FSB. well a single WDSE is ATA100, and my raid ports are ATA133, so it may be fair for just around 30% increase in speed.... now i see some dual mobos have ATA150 raid ports, that may be better than ATA133 raid ports....just my thoughts
 
got a raid 0+1 setup on a server and its great! 4 80GB hard drives and 2 of them are the mirror. while the +1 aspect may slow it down a bit...its definately faster than just a single drive. btw this is on a dual athalon 1200+ MP
 
oops

"so you say PCI raid card is way better than onboard raid?"

Well I know it is for me, and I've read of others who experienced the same improvements. However I am sure others would say they have good success with the HP Tech onboard RAID. Well I've read a few peeps say they have had good success with HPT onboard RAID. But overall I've read more complaints on it and have personally experienced the downside of the onboard HP Tech RAID. Anyway I'm sure some people like both, so ymmv.

"...i am using an Abit BE7-Raid mobo.... 3 x 120GB 8mb WDSE, 2 are on raid 0, 1 for back up...."

That was the last mobo I used that had an onboard RAID. It didn't like my Maxtor HDs at all, even though it claimed ata 133 support. I spent a lot of time changing and tweaking the BIOS of that mobo, including a lot of the HP Tech BIOS tweaks and changes trying to get decent performance and compatibility out of it. I never did acheive all my goals with it either. BTW did you ever experience the Cold Boot problem from your BE7 RAID? Part of that problem came from the HP Technologies onboard RAID. Not all but some. I know it has been fixed now though. I even had that part of my BE7 RAID fixed before I changed to my Asus P4PE a couple months ago..


"well as most ppl said, don't really feel much of improvements DUE TO human feeling isn't so sensitive..."

I have heard that very same complaint from other Abit users with HP Tech onboard RAID! And I complained about it...


"i believe anything below double can hardly to be noticed by human feeling(try to use a 1.8GHZ and a 2.4GHZ P4 system without anyone telling you which is which, can you really tell the differences??)......well the benchmark tells me my raid 0 set up is about 30% faster than a single WDSE."

I don't know which benchmark you're using but with Sandra as one example, I get scores of app. 54,000. Now that is almost double single HD performance. But I am using the Maxtor DM +9s with 8 MB cache. Still I can notice RAID differences long before such scores. Even at scores of 40,000 I can notice a little speedier performance. Again I attribute this more to the RAID controller card as much as the HDs. In AATO I get read scores of app. 90,000 - 95,000+ and in read scores I get app. 75,000 scores. This is *considerably* higher than single HD scores.


"I learned that the raid speed is limited by the ATA and FSB. well a single WDSE is ATA100, and my raid ports are ATA133, so it may be fair for just around 30% increase in speed.... now i see some dual mobos have ATA150 raid ports, that may be better than ATA133 raid ports....just my thoughts."

While HP Technologies may claim ata133 compatibility I haven't seen my RAID using it actually benefit with the Maxtor HDs. Matter of fact as I was saying my Maxtor HDs did not run nearly as well with the HP Tech controller. Most people I have read posts from seems to claim WDs gives the best performance and compatibility on the HP Tech controllers. Still not many of them gives extra-oridnary good bench scores. The whole thing is strange to me because if you read and believe the reviewers, then the HP Technologies controllers *supposed* to be a top or the top performer in RAID 0. I and many others have yet to see this as being true in actual use.

Cheers,
Mike
PS There were several stories about this very thing in the Abit forum here last year about this time. Which was also the time I changed over to Promise. After reading all the stories about the HP Tech RAID problems.
One other thing for the UT2003 gamers here. I don't know your load times for the game and mapps, but I can load the game from desktop in about 5 seconds and load a mapp in less than 5 seconds. If I replay the mapp, I load the mapp almost instantly. What are some your load times, app.?
 
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Blkout said:



I'd bet the farm that in day to day apps, you'd never see the difference. I bet the only time you would ever see a difference is in benchmarks or specialized apps. No need to **** money away on that.

You have probably not had the RAID0 "experience" yourself, because a -properly configured- array gives a very notable boost in daily usage. I have used comparable single drive and raid systems and the differences are quite large.

I think I'll sell the farm to buy some Cheetah X15's. ;)
 
im really getting interrested in raid0 from reading this thread, i didnt think the performance boost was that great, the worst part of my computer(even though i have a wd80gigSE) is my load times seem to take forever and i have a short attention span so its terrible,
n e ways whats a good quality/good price raid card? im on a pretty tight budget
 
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