New drive(s) Question

Right now i'm running 2 60 gig Maxtors, 2mb version, not in raid anymore due to write cache problems. I have a IC7-G mobo here. I play lots of games, also run 3D Applications like 3D Max and Maya. From that I also do some video editing to recombining the rendered pictures into a movie file using Adobe Premire.

Now my question I got is which should I go with for harddrives. I plan on upgrading nov/early dec. Now I run into a couple questions here for the drives. Raid or not to Raid that is the question.

I was originally looking at 2 36.7gig Raptors, but now that I'm looking at it people been saying that sometimes it slows preformance then with an actual single raid setup in some cases. Then I was just thinking about a single large 76gig Raptor that will be coming out shortly.

Has anyone seen a dramatic increase in preformance from going with say a 36.7gig to a raid setup?? If so please speak up. I know when I ran my 60 gigs they ran great until I started having the write cache problem. I just wanted to know for everyday use, gaming, 3d appilications, and video editing would it be worth the upgrade to the raid setup? Thx

Bumpy Bumpy

When I orignally bought my Raptors I went straight to RAID 0 with them. After two months, I got bored and set one up alone to see how much of a performance hit I'd get and maybe sell one off. The difference was way noticeable and so went back to my RAID feeling good about it. So from one two is definately an improvement.

Thats what I figured. I know I miss my raid setup but with all this saying that 2 drives can be slower and all I thought I would ask a bit.

What type of things do you do on your computer?? I would like to know so I can get a general view idea if that type of setup would be good for me. Also what type of strip are you running 32 or 16?

I run a 16K stripe and cluster, which benched best in the ATTO benchmark with my files. I'm sure you know most recommend 16K unless you work with large files like video type stuff. I also tried 8 and 32, not as good. I play online games, manage my music collection, web surf obviously, burn cds and run Microsoft Office apps for schoolwork. Not a lot that takes a big advantage of RAID, but everything loads noticeably quicker and damn can I install a program fast as hell.

Oh yea another question I got, how much power do these drives take?? Is it like a normal IDE drive? Talking about the 36.7GB raptors. I'm really at the limit of the PSU right now and only can upgrade one thing at a time.

I'm not certain to say, I would think they are the same as most other drives, never heard anyone say anything about power consuption being an issue.

Well mine is . Got a nice 430 watt antec true power supply and I'm at its limit for power. If I bump my voltage up for ram bam i get harddrive power downs regularly mainly my D drive which I run my games off of. So thats why I was wondering if it was using less power to run them. If not at least the same amount of power would be just fine too.

Thanks for the info.

using pricewatch, I found out that Fujitsu MAM series 36GB, 15k rpm SCSI drives are selling for around $110 a piece.

might be of interest to you, as these should be quite a lot faster than the Raptors.

Damn that would be a great option just to bad it cost a nice arm and a leg for a controller.