RAID 0 or another hard drive?

wyemarn · Jul 25, 2006

I'm currently using only one Seagate 7200.9 300GB. My HDD is running all the time because of bit torrent. I feel it's quite slow and I planned to get another driver. So my options are :

1) Get another 7200.9 300GB and set up RAID 0 and RAID1. RAID 0 for OS/games RAID 1 for files/BTorrent.

2) Get a WD2500KS 250GB and use it as OS/games drive. Seagate for files/torrent.

3) Any other single driver which is cheap and offers good performance. eg, 7200rpm, 16MB cache.

The problem with my 7200.9 now is it's quite noisy even at minimal activity. Since I'm sleeping near my PC, I prefer a quiet PC. At the same time I want good performance so thinking of getting another drive. I'm using a Thermaltake Soprano case. P5LD2 mobo with 930D.

aaa · Jul 25, 2006

raid0 for active torrents. Ya know torrenting is perfect for raid0, lots of multiple accesses that get extremely slow with one drive. Wouldn't raid1 just waste space?

wyemarn · Jul 25, 2006

aaa said:
raid0 for active torrents. Ya know torrenting is perfect for raid0, lots of multiple accesses that get extremely slow with one drive. Wouldn't raid1 just waste space?

Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure about raid0's reliability. I don't do backup often, in fact I don't backup at all. So with raid1 my data will be safe. I know Seagate produce reliable drives but with my torrents running 24hrs, I think my HDD will fail in anytime. It's hard to find 7200.9 drives now so I think better snap one for raid0. Anyway I can reduce noise from HDD?

exhausted mule · Jul 26, 2006

wyemarn said:
Anyway I can reduce noise from HDD?

you could put em in one of those swapable 5.1/4 slot dodads.

also, you could look into a raid 10. 0+1

you get stripping and redundancy, however, the array is more cpu intensive then either.

wyemarn · Jul 26, 2006

exhausted mule said:
you could put em in one of those swapable 5.1/4 slot dodads.

also, you could look into a raid 10. 0+1

you get stripping and redundancy, however, the array is more cpu intensive then either.

you mean I have to get special HDD brackets?

aaa · Jul 26, 2006

What I would do is raid0 a smaller partition then use the rest for storage of inactive stuff. Anyhow, I had a bunch of torrents on an hd as well. Then my psu zapped it. If it were in raid 1 I'm pretty sure both hd's would have been zapped. Goes to show that raid1 != backup. As for quietness, suspend them in a 5.25 bay with rubber bands or something, lol. Foam helps too, but you don't want it to overheat.

Cjwinnit · Jul 27, 2006

Get a different hard drive and don't do raid. Apart from the fact that two seperate hard drives gives you more flexibility, seek times actually slow down slightly on a RAID compared to a single drive.

aaa makes a few good points:

aaa said:
I had a bunch of torrents on an hd as well. Then my psu zapped it. If it were in raid 1 I'm pretty sure both hd's would have been zapped. Goes to show that raid1 != backup.

True, especially the bold bit.Redundancy != Backup.

As for quietness, suspend them in a 5.25 bay with rubber bands or something, lol.

Does work for a while but rubber bands do lose elasticity and strength and do snap after a while, sooner in warm environments and under constant strain [guess how I found this out?

]

Foam helps too, but you don't want it to overheat.

True again. Foam is a good landing pad under a rubber-band suspended HDD and I would consider it a requirement but you will need to think about cooling quite carefully.

jiggamanjb · Jul 27, 2006

Sounds like you would like to start backing up your data, but not physically have to do it. You also state that you would like good performance. So I would say go with RAID 0+1 ( not too sure about doing this on only 2 drives, but I know it is possible ).

boris_37 · Jul 27, 2006

My suggestion is buy another large hard drive. Install all your programs and applications on it and run the OS on the other. This will give some decent performance as well as the speed of having an extra drive.

As for torrents it's not usually your hard drive running slow. If you just started your client(Azureus, ABC, whatever is might be) it's most definitely not the hard drive.

Torrents have been known to hog system resources over time and slow your computer drastically. I may suggest either rebooting or just getting a different client. It will most likely solve this problem.

RAID0 is an option, but unless you're willing to buy another hard drive to backup weekly(or monthly if need be) then i really do not suggest RAID. It doesn't give each drive anymore reason to fail, but the chance of losing your data is doubled(as if either drive fails it's all gone).

Also if you want something quiet consider looking at an Antec case as they are not only quite quiet and cheap they have rubber mounts for your drives that can significantly reduce noise.

aaa · Jul 27, 2006

That is why I suggested a small raid partition for active stuff. The majority would not be on raid and would be split up between the drives so only half of it goes if a drive goes. Course that still won't completely save you from a vengeful psu

. And BTW raid is great for server applications and if you think about it uploading separate bits of data to a bunch of clients is a server app.

boris_37 · Jul 27, 2006

aaa said:
That is why I suggested a small raid partition for active stuff. The majority would not be on raid and would be split up between the drives so only half of it goes if a drive goes. Course that still won't completely save you from a vengeful psu . And BTW raid is great for server applications and if you think about it uploading separate bits of data to a bunch of clients is a server app.

um as far as i know unless you are using something like intel matrix raid you either RAID it all or none...

lordkosc · Jul 27, 2006

aaa said:
raid0 for active torrents. Ya know torrenting is perfect for raid0, lots of multiple accesses that get extremely slow with one drive. Wouldn't raid1 just waste space?

yes raid1 would be a waste of space!

aaa · Jul 28, 2006

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323433
No idea if it works in XP... might be too much hassle anyways.

lordkosc · Jul 28, 2006

Excellent article on RAID and how to set it up!

Click ME!

bing · Jul 28, 2006

aaa said:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323433
No idea if it works in XP... might be too much hassle anyways.

Natively OS Raid is disabled in XP by Microsoft, only Windows Server version like 2000 or 2003 does.

But, just try Google around, you'll find tons of sites will help you to "enable" it in XP !

-

wyemarn · Jul 28, 2006

I think I am going for another drive. Maybe a 7200.10 250GB or 320GB. I just read Anandtech's review on 320GB 7200.10 and WD3200KS. I regretted for getting 7200.9 few months before release of 7200.10. Should have taken 2500KS earlier and then get a 7200.10.

wyemarn · Aug 2, 2006

Hi guys,

I've just got another drive. 7200.10 250GB. I dont plan to use RAID. Since 7200.10 is the faster drive I plan to use is as OS and programs OS. 7200.9 for torrent. Is there anyway I can maximise the usage for these two drives? Which drive should I place my page files on?

wyemarn · Oct 4, 2006

I have a 250GB 7200.10 and a 300GB 7200.9 now. I planning to reformat soon. 250GB drive will be used for OS and programs. 300GB will be used as storage and torrents. I have a few questions :

1) Should I separate Windows and program files/games into different partitions? If yes, please recommend me the size for windows partition and program files partition. I have a total of 250GB allocated for this.

2) I have read before that allocating my virtual memory/swap files to others drives will speed up boot and loading very much? Is it true? In my case should I allocate my swap files to the 300GB drive(250GB drive for OS/program files)?

3) I didn't enable AHCI in BIOS currently. Im using the legacy SATA mode for both my HDDs now so SATAII mode and NCQ are not supported or enabled. Im planning to enable them for new Windows installation. Im not doing any RAID but does enabling AHCI in RAID destroys all the data in my HDDs? Ive a lot of files in my HDD and dont plan to backup. I can move all my data to the 300GB drive when I want to format the 250GB one.

4) Should I enable NCQ? Im using my PC for games/internet/video audio encoding and torrent.

jiggamanjb · Oct 4, 2006

1) I wouldn't. Just seems to make more problems.

2) Swap should be on your fastest drive, and on the fastest part of that drive. I would make a 4-10GB partition on the first part of the 250 and set that as the swap.

3) Don't know

4) Yes, I believe so.

TimoneX · Oct 4, 2006

wyemarn said:
I have a 250GB 7200.10 and a 300GB 7200.9 now. I planning to reformat soon. 250GB drive will be used for OS and programs. 300GB will be used as storage and torrents. I have a few questions :

1) Should I separate Windows and program files/games into different partitions? If yes, please recommend me the size for windows partition and program files partition. I have a total of 250GB allocated for this.

2) I have read before that allocating my virtual memory/swap files to others drives will speed up boot and loading very much? Is it true? In my case should I allocate my swap files to the 300GB drive(250GB drive for OS/program files)?

3) I didn't enable AHCI in BIOS currently. Im using the legacy SATA mode for both my HDDs now so SATAII mode and NCQ are not supported or enabled. Im planning to enable them for new Windows installation. Im not doing any RAID but does enabling AHCI in RAID destroys all the data in my HDDs? Ive a lot of files in my HDD and dont plan to backup. I can move all my data to the 300GB drive when I want to format the 250GB one.

4) Should I enable NCQ? Im using my PC for games/internet/video audio encoding and torrent.

1) I always seperate windows & programs. Just habit for me now. I allocate 12GBs(12288) for windows and 80GBs for Programs. My boot partition fragments far slower this way and I install Programs to the same folders across multiple OSs. For instance dual booting XP & XP32 and using nero in both should require 2x the HD real estate, but if you install to the same folder on the same partition with the same options then it does not.

2) I always do this too. I dunno if it's any faster but I do it. I allocate 4GBs for this task and use the same swap partition for multiple OSs.

3) There's no substitute for backups IMO. RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 0+1 are all well and good and have their applications, but if you don't backup your important files sooner or later bad things will happen and you won't be prepared.

4) Absolutely.

My RAID 0 array looks like this:

XP32 12GBs || VSTA 30GBs(PIG) || XP64 12GBs || SWAP 4GBs || PROG 80GBs || ARCH(ive) 225GBs || VID(eo) 227GBs

The first two are primary partitions the rest is extended/logical

RAID 0 or another hard drive?

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