[rxtrom]

OK i have a NF7-s
I have some money in my pocket i want to blow on a hard drive configuration thats going to give me the fastest set up

I KNOW I want to do a RAID 0

FIRST Q:
SHOULD I GO SATA or IDE
SIZE 80 - 120(i hear have a 3 yr warantee)

SECOND Q;
WHAT BRAND

LAST Q:
IS IT WORTH THE MONEY
or is it just as nice to get 1 raptor instead of a RAID0
I could get 2 raptors and do RAID0, but im not rich HEHE

[Deathknight]

Well how much capacity do you need? 1 raptor is pretty darn fast, but you would obviously get more capacity out of multiple cheaper drives in raid 0.

[rxtrom]

well say capacity is not an issue, cause one raptor is just as muc has multi drives in raid, so if the raptor is comperable to raid the i would do raptor, you see what im saying? or no? =)

[johan851]

Basically capacity isn't as much of a concern as performance, correct?

The raptor will give you much haster seek times, and is more reliable than two striped drives for a couple reasons:

1. One Raptor has a longer warranty and is probably more reliable than a single 7200RPM drive (due to SCSI influence, and the environemnt it's built to run in...i.e. low end servers)

2. If one drive fails in RAID 0, you lose the whole array...therefore two drives in RAID 0 are half as reliable.

Two drives in RAID 0 will give you faster read/write times, and higher capacity.

It's really your call...if it were me, I'd probably get one Raptor now, then add another to make RAID 0 when you have enough $$$.

[blackhabit]

iwas just going through these same decisions like a week ago and i am ordering my raptor tommorro, then later get another for raid 0 like johan851 mentioned

[CrashOveride]

FIRST Q:
SHOULD I GO SATA or IDE
SATA since NF7-S has a pretty good onboard SATA RAID controller.

SECOND Q;
I like maxtor and WD in that that order, most people like one of those to for their top choice too.

LAST Q:
IS IT WORTH THE MONEY
I would get 2 with raid because of the extra capacity.

[rxtrom]

ok so if i went w/ one raptor now, ,can i still use my ide HD's as backup or mass date storage.
also if i run raid SATA can i still use all ide channels (not in raid of course)
Again i have the NF7-s
You guys are helping alot, thanks, i am leaning toward one raptor now and another later.

[rxtrom]

sorry for the double post, i was doing some reading and if i understand it right then raid 0 the fastest of the raid is reduntand so w/ 2 raptors i am looking at still 36.7 gb of space. RIGHT?

[deathstar13]

2 raptors in raid0 = 73.4gb total
but if one fails you loose everything.but you could back it up on an ide drive.i keep nothing of importance on mine.

raid5 is faster i believe but much more expensive.

for my soon to be famous quote "2 raptors in raid0=silly fast!"

i know i owned them before in my last rig.and have my second one in the mail now.

[johan851]

Raid 5 requires at least 3 drives I believe, as well as a usually expensive RAID 5 card...pretty expensive, but great for certain applications.

Yes, you can use both SATA channels and all of your IDE channels at the same time.

[rxtrom]

GREAT!! I am probably going to get the raptor,
Newegg has one for 110, but im going ot try to find a cheaper one.
Thanks alot

[dgk]

That's the cheapest they've been for a few weeks. I'm going through the same thing with the raptors vs cheaper/bigger/slower drives. What you haven't told us is your primary need. I'm doing a lot of AV stuff. Editing big wav files, compressing and uncompressing 50-150 mb files. Gigs and gigs worth of em. So, while two raptors in raid-0 would be great, I think I need more space. And it is a bit costly.

My understanding is that much of the benefit of the Raptors is very fast seek times. That's real good for server apps but for dealing with large files I think the sustained transfer speed is more important. I don't think that is so much better with the Raptors that it should cost twice as much and leave me pinched for space. But I've flipped back and forth on this quite a bit over the last two weeks.

I'm likely to go with two Sata 7200 120gb drives. Flip a coin for WD, Hitachi, Maxtor. Hmm. Three sided coin needed.

[johan851]

I'm pretty sure that the WD's or Hitachi's will perform better in RAID 0...also look at the 180GXP's and 120GXP's. My personal experience with 120GXP's has been that they are extremely reliable (and fast) drives.