SATA RAID vs Single 10k SATA

I plan on building a new Gaming system in the coming months but havent been able to decide on a HDD setup yet.

I know i will need between 80-120gb of storage. The system will be used for all types of tasks ranging from web design & software development to hardcore gaming (Doom3, HL2, Etc...)

The Setup So far is going to be this:
MSI Neo2 Platinum
Athlon 64 3500+ (939)
Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPLT (2 x 512mb Sticks, 2-2-2-5)
GeForce 6800 GT
SB Audigy 2 ZS
8x DVD-R/W
56x CD-Rom
Floppy (yes, i still use them)

My question is this: Would a Single 74gb WD Raptor Perform better than 2 120gb Seagate 7200.7 Barracuda's in RAID 1?

Both setups would cost me roughly the same price, i just dont know witch is more logical. the Raptor is probably faster, and the RAID 1 is more secure but will possibly lose performance in games.

Any help is appreciated.

The raptor will have lower seek times and so will feel faster overall. A RAID 0 array would have a higher sustained transfer rates. A RAID1 array will probably slow things down, plus you lose half your disk space.

I would say get a raptor and use a DVD burner for backups. A raptor will almost certainly be faster than RAID 1, both in seek times and transfer rates.

ok. I think what i am going to do is get dual 80gb SATA Barracudas in RAID 0, then use my old WD 160gb Caviar 7200rpm fro Storage and Backups.

320gb Total Storage should be Plenty

Sounds like a good setup to me.

i concure.. get a raptor.

My friend's pc I built him uses dual Seagate SATA 7200.2 baracuda 160 gigs in RAID 1 and its reeealy fast, I got sustained transfers in Sandra of up to 56megs a second, and writes of 42. Also had a seek time average of 8.2....I was very impressed.

My friend's pc I built him uses dual Seagate SATA 7200.2 baracuda 160 gigs in RAID 1 and its reeealy fast, I got sustained transfers in Sandra of up to 56megs a second, and writes of 42. Also had a seek time average of 8.2....I was very impressed.

Click to expand...

You mean RAID 0? Or RAID 1?

johan851 said:

You mean RAID 0? Or RAID 1?

Click to expand...

those numbers suggest raid 1

I can hit rates of 120 mbs read and write from raptors raid zero.

PAWO said:

My friend's pc I built him uses dual Seagate SATA 7200.2 baracuda 160 gigs in RAID 1 and its reeealy fast, I got sustained transfers in Sandra of up to 56megs a second, and writes of 42. Also had a seek time average of 8.2....I was very impressed.

Click to expand...

those seek times dont seem right.... you didnt add the average latency. Actual seek times for typical 7200rpm drives are +12s, and with raid-0 its usually +13s

those numbers suggest raid 1

I can hit rates of 120 mbs read and write from raptors raid zero.

Click to expand...

Usually reads from 7200RPM drives are in the 30mb/s category though, so...it sorta seemed possible either way. Fragmented 7200RPM drives in RAID 0 would pull about 56mb/s in Sandra, wouldn't they?