[Koolduude]

Is Riad the way to go for gaming. If so what size HD's should be used and do they have to be the same size and brand? I have an 8 and a 14 now and have never filled them up, but they are old so I would like to get a new faster one, thinking of two 40's or one 60 or 80. I am trying to figure out what hardware to get in my quest to build a new system. Right now I have a PII 350 (. Looking at building around an AMD 1900xp and a MSI KT3 ultra-aru, have not bought them yet, just doing my homework.
Thx for any help

[RnPgrosz]

With RAID your write performance will increase, read performance will also increase. When setting up RAID you should always use the same make and model hard drive, this is very important because you are likely to have many problems with the setup if you don't. I would get an XP1800+ and an Epox 8k3A+. You will also have to choose between RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10.

[paulc87]

i agree with mpgrosz on the mobo/processor setup and i would run raid 0 (performance) 1 is just for security

[parkan]

I recommend raid 10 (1+0) where ya got both striping and mirroring, i.e. you get a performance increase as well as redundancy and data security.

[rpckvv]

uhh raid 10 and raid 0+1 are both different things and both require at least 4 (four) HDD's....the only thing you can do w/ 2 drives is raid 1 and raid 0...

0 being the striping of both drives (they act like one big fast hd)
1 being simply backup (one drive mirrors the second, no real increase)

-peter

[rpckvv]

see http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html for all your RAID needs...

-peter

[RnPgrosz]

Originally posted by parkan
I recommend raid 10 (1+0) where ya got both striping and mirroring, i.e. you get a performance increase as well as redundancy and data security.

But then you would need 4 hard drives. I think RAID 0 would be best for 2 hard drives.

[rpckvv]

yeah...for gaming or even multimedia, RAID 0 is best w/ only 2 hdd's....raid 1 is only good if you're running a server or something like that...

-peter

[Wega!]

Originally posted by Koolduude
Is Riad the way to go for gaming. If so what size HD's should be used and do they have to be the same size and brand? I have an 8 and a 14 now and have never filled them up, but they are old so I would like to get a new faster one, thinking of two 40's or one 60 or 80. I am trying to figure out what hardware to get in my quest to build a new system. Right now I have a PII 350 (. Looking at building around an AMD 1900xp and a MSI KT3 ultra-aru, have not bought them yet, just doing my homework.
Thx for any help

If you will be using the rig for gameing, I woulden't go with RAID. I would get a fast single drive, like the GXP120 serie's from IBM. They should be faster for gaming than RAID.

[parkan]

Originally posted by rpckvv
uhh raid 10 and raid 0+1 are both different things and both require at least 4 (four) HDD's....the only thing you can do w/ 2 drives is raid 1 and raid 0...

0 being the striping of both drives (they act like one big fast hd)
1 being simply backup (one drive mirrors the second, no real increase)

-peter

My sources tell me that 1+0=10. Strange.

[parkan]

Originally posted by Walter:-)


If you will be using the rig for gameing, I woulden't go with RAID. I would get a fast single drive, like the GXP120 serie's from IBM. They should be faster for gaming than RAID.

Two of those puppies in a raid 0 will be significantly faster. Even if you go jbod (Just a bunch of disks, spanning volumes) it will be somewhat faster (if you are playing music from hda1 and loading a game from hdb1, for example).

[parkan]

rpckvv, apperently this is a common misconception. Thanks for pointing that out. Even O'reilly got it wrong. http://safari.oreilly.com/main.asp?b...nsnas&snode=79

[Koolduude]

Thx for the interest everyone. Still confused though. What is going to be faster and more stable, 2x40gig non Raid, 2x40gig Raid, or an 80gig? Next ? would be is this gonna be enough harddrive, mostly for gaming but will download some video and music files. Think I understand Raid now, just not sure if it will help with gaming, or playback of music and video.

Thx again for the help

[rpckvv]

Originally posted by Koolduude
Thx for the interest everyone. Still confused though. What is going to be faster and more stable, 2x40gig non Raid, 2x40gig Raid, or an 80gig? Next ? would be is this gonna be enough harddrive, mostly for gaming but will download some video and music files. Think I understand Raid now, just not sure if it will help with gaming, or playback of music and video.

Thx again for the help

faster: the two 40's in RAID 0


more stable: it's really a toss-up...statistically, the drives in RAID 0 have a higher chance of corrupting, since they're acting as one instead of two independent drives, but do not be confused...putting drives in RAID does not increase their chance of disk failure, per se...instead of a 1/100 chance of disk failure (only an example), you'll have a 2/100 chance since you have 2 drives sharing the same data...if one of those drives fails, then both fail...one remedy is to get some sort of backup software, but unfortunately i dont know alot about those (might want to search the forums)

80gigs either way will definately be enough though, but then again, things may change...remember when we all thought one gig was MORE than enough??

anyway, raid is a good idea really for audio/video/multimedia editing in which one uses large files, but for gaming it's not really ideal...

i've read that in raid while the writing is faster, the reading is slower, but only marginally, so i guess it's really your call....

if two 40's is what you want, go with them, as they will be faster (markedly) than the one 80 in writing data (as far as i know)

i'm gonna do 2 WD 80gig special editions in RAID 0 (of course after investing in some backup software), but simply because i have the money to do this and it is not much more expensive than for me to get one 120gb special editon (im buying all this stuff from directron, which is about 20 minutes away)

anyway, hope i've been of help...

rpckvv, apperently this is a common misconception. Thanks for pointing that out. Even O'reilly got it wrong. http://safari.oreilly.com/main.asp?...ansnas&snode=79

no prob, parkan...i try to read up completely on a subject before answering anything...its not like i'm the expert per se on RAID, but i know enough about it...i do understand, however, how one may become confused between RAID 10 and 0+1...

just for the record:
RAID 10 : 4 drives--a&b mirror (a la raid 1) and c&d stripe that data

RAID 0+1: 4 drives as well--a&b stripe data (a la raid 0) and c&d mirror the striping, much unlike raid 10...

so you could say that raid 0+1 is like a raid 0 array with raid 1 characteristics

and raid 10 is like a raid 1 array with a raid 0 extension

-peter

[nikhsub1]

Originally posted by rpckvv
more stable: it's really a toss-up...statistically, the drives in RAID 0 have a higher chance of corrupting...

I believe you mean failing - the chance of CORRUPTING is no different than a single drive.

Originally posted by rpckvv
i've read that in raid while the writing is faster, the reading is slower, but only marginally, so i guess it's really your call....

Reading and writing is faster in raid0, seek times are somewhat slower though, sustained transfer rates are much faster and peak transfer rates are almost twice as fast.

[rpckvv]

sorry--yeah i meant failing but either way i think he caught my drift...

anyway, have fun w/ raid

-peter

[Wega!]

Originally posted by parkan


Two of those puppies in a raid 0 will be significantly faster. Even if you go jbod (Just a bunch of disks, spanning volumes) it will be somewhat faster (if you are playing music from hda1 and loading a game from hdb1, for example).

That was not what I was told here.

[Ice_Gargoylle]

na, no raid for gaming. If I was you, i would get one of the maxtors that every1 likes around here in a 20 gig flavor. You dont seem to use that much space so why spend money for something your not gonna use(big hdd) and will not benefit from(raid0). Save your money and get somethin else.

i always have thought that the peripherials are always the best investment becuase they really dont wear out like system components do physically or technologically. Get a big monitor or really kik arse speakers, thats the way to go bro

[arabarabian]

I would recomend two 60gb IBM drives. YOu would get about 110 gigs of space was formatted and what not.

[parkan]

Originally posted by Walter:-)


That was not what I was told here.

From my research, RAID0 write performance is NOT decreased. That is, however, a characteristic of RAID 4.