WD 2x160 SATA vs. WD 2x74 Raptor (RAID 0)

mikieboyblue · Jul 14, 2004

Ok,

I've looked on these forums with no real opinion made clear...

I'm looking at the following...

2x160 WD SATA in RAID 0 (~$220)
or....
2x74 WD SATA Raptor RAID 0 (~$350).

I will be running RAID 0 because I do see a preformance increase.

What are your thoughts on this setup for best preformance/price?

Sonny · Jul 14, 2004

What do you want, speed or storage?

JoT · Jul 14, 2004

Have a look at today's article:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles1063/

You can save some cash and still have a lot of speed with a single Raptor. I use one and love it.

I.M.O.G. · Jul 14, 2004

I would go with a single 36GB raptor, and buy some inexpensive IDE drives for mass data storage. The speed you see in most applications/usage patterns will be virtually identical.

The access times of the raptor, for the price of only the 36GB is tough to beat. You can pick one up in our classifieds for $90, they go on sale all the time.

A couple 160GB 7200/8MB IDE (I use Diamondmax 9's in RAID0) drives should only cost another $200, and you will have yourself a great storage solution.

mikieboyblue · Jul 14, 2004

Sonny said:
What do you want, speed or storage?

Mostly speed, the storage from 2x74 would be enough because I plan to keep around at least one of my WD 60 PATA.

mikieboyblue · Jul 14, 2004

JoT said:
Have a look at today's article:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles1063/

You can save some cash and still have a lot of speed with a single Raptor. I use one and love it.

Yeah I read that article....that's why I was questioning it. On the board I'll either need to run sata raid or no. Since one 36 would not be enough and I'll have opt. drives taking up the IDE ports it would be hard to do a work around without having a bunch of drives. I enjoy RAID because of the fact that you make a seamless single drive out of two. Much like just using JOB (spelling)?

Vio1 · Jul 14, 2004

you can use partition magic 8 to make 2 drives into 1 partition... i think...

Id go for 1 74gb drive and 1 storage drive... and thats exactly what I did after writing the article...I sold both my 36GB raptors and purchased a 74gb raptor... while I use a second hdd for storage.

t_biggs · Jul 14, 2004

Windows XP Pro can make 2 physical drives into 1 virtual drive, too. I forget how. However, Windows itself can't be installed on it. You can have Windows on a plain old paritition of Drive A, and then use a 2nd parition on Drive A and combine it with Drive B, though.

I'm not sure where you can do this, I think its under Computer Management.

I.M.O.G. · Jul 14, 2004

You can do that under diskmgmt.msc:

Windows+r>diskmgmt.msc>enter

(Disk management is a component of Microsoft management console, inside of the computer management umbrella of components)

Sonny · Jul 15, 2004

mikieboyblue said:
Mostly speed, the storage from 2x74 would be enough because I plan to keep around at least one of my WD 60 PATA.

Now we have that out of the way. What will you be using it for that requires the speed boost? RAID0 is only beneficial to certain requirements & we need to know what they are. Will these requirements be the majority of the said computer's tasks?

Mr.Guvernment · Jul 15, 2004

dont forget going radi 0 you just double the chance of drive failure upto i think like a
%10 chance?

Thermo · Jul 15, 2004

no basically you just half the mean time between drive failure.

mikieboyblue · Jul 15, 2004

Sonny said:
Now we have that out of the way. What will you be using it for that requires the speed boost? RAID0 is only beneficial to certain requirements & we need to know what they are. Will these requirements be the majority of the said computer's tasks?

Yeah I know about the reasons to use RAID0, I've been using it with the 4 60s tor 3 years (on three different motherboards) and I've never had a problem whether it be Linux or Windows. The machine is used for a large number of tasks. Often as a server (FTP,SSH,HTTP) (which RAID0 will help with the random requests) as well as image and the every-now-and-then video editing. On top of that your other normal gaming and school related taskes.

Mr.Guvernment said:
dont forget going radi 0 you just double the chance of drive failure upto i think like a %10 chance?

I've been on RAID0 for years, as I mentioned, without a hitch.

WD 2x160 SATA vs. WD 2x74 Raptor (RAID 0)

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