RAID, why?

[soulfly1448]

Someone give me some real world insight.

I've never been able to understand why, exactly, a home user (even an OC'er) needs to go with a RAID set up. Don't see the point other than braggin' rights.

Yes, I've seen the stats, SATA drives vs. IDE drives. A few seconds loading a game aren't worth it.

So, why RAID? What does it actually do that is so great? Two IDE drives works friggin great! One with the OS and core progs and the second for mass storage and games.

I need some actual input on this, please.

 

[CalicoDreams]

My opinion:

In regards to SATA or IDE, i think that it just comes down to there being a general shift towards the newer technology. Moreover, the price difference isn't that much of an issue, particularly if you are an enthusist. This coupled with the improvement in real world performance (it is noticable) make me choose SATA over IDE everytime.

RAID 0 however i have no positive comments about for a desktop user, even if you are a geek. The only real world effect on productivity that RAID 0 will have is on multimedia development/production. Where time is money, opening VERY large files is required on a daily basis if not more often and this is your living, your means of income.

RAID 1 however is useful as it simplifies backup, which people do not do enough, especially non-geeks. It saves time (in the grand scheme of things).

Just my thoughts

 

[Enablingwolf]

I use RAID1 on my machine for my storage drive. I value the data on in that area. I do regular backups and take care of the drives in side my machine. The RAID1 drives also hold the backups for my OS drive. I just want the secuirty of knowing if one drive fails, I still can get the data and be usable.

If you mean RAID0 in your querry. Well it does boost large file transfers. I had the same drives in RAID0 and it sped up large file moves. The seeks times suffered. Loading games seem to be large chunks of data being moved, so it does help in that area.

http://www.acnc.com/04_00.html

Good link to show the different levels of RAID

 

[Albaholic]

Real raid has tons of applications for a home user and people like us. Like fault tolerance and the preservation of data. I personally dont like raid 1 because you loose so much space to a mirror. I plan on setting up a raid 5 of 320gb drives within the next week or so.

 

[Snugglebear]

RAID0 in a single user environment using IDE/ATA drives is pretty pointless. Gains in contiguous throughput are offset by the increased seek times and risk of failure inherent in use of a stripeset.

RAID1 at least buys you a degree of insurance against single drive failure, but understand that a mirror is not a backup. I've seen far too many people over the years kick and scream because they accidentally deleted, or had a virus/kid brother/big sister/girlfriend/angry parrot wipe out their data. Mirrors do just that, so if something commands the controller to wipe out the data, the controller will be more than happy to oblige and eliminate both copies, sending one unhappy user into the drama that is low-level data recovery. Many controllers in consumer-level hardware are also pretty cheap, and in all honesty I've seen more people with controller errors (arrays erroneously marked as failed/broken, flaky drivers, etc.) than those with a failed drive in their mirror. Lastly, consumer-level controllers are also disappointing in that they generally do not support independent read ops from drives in mirrors, and thus give no read speed boost.

 

[Galt]

A few seconds loading a game aren't worth it.

This gives me the distinct impression that you're one of the many people who have unfortunately come to equate RAID with RAID 0. If that's the case, it's a real shame because RAID 0 has nothing on 'real' RAID. I can assure you, a well thought out RAID 5 is much better than the two PATA system (I assume you mean PATA when you say IDE).

 

[Enablingwolf]

RAID does not shine until you give every drive its own channel also. Most just plug all the drives into one channel. I made sure my RAID1 had each drive on its own channel. It does make for more cable/ribbon. To be able to get independant read/writes makes a difference.

 

[Snugglebear]

RAID does not shine until you give every drive its own channel also. Most just plug all the drives into one channel. I made sure my RAID1 had each drive on its own channel. It does make for more cable/ribbon. To be able to get independant read/writes makes a difference.

Drives are still barely using more than half of what a PATA channel makes available during sustained transfers. Placing two drives on channel does not have much of a negative impact. SATA makes the issues moot, and while SCSI channels can still be bottlenecked, it's hard to find chassis with backplanes that will put more than 4-6 drives on a single chain (8 is the max I've seen most often for a single backplane). Amusingly, the old Promise Fasttrak 100 cards have a bug in the controller that is covered up by their drivers, so if you use Linux/BSD with a RAID1 mirror and the drives are on separate channels, write speed crashes to 2MB/s. Placing both drives on the same channel allows writes to return to normal speeds.

 

[Sjaak]

Search the forums theres been a good deal of word about this already.

It comes down to ''its faster''.

 

[Enablingwolf]

I used my old Fasttrak 100 card as a victim in the hardware distruction thread. It performed flawless for that usage.

 

[damarble]

Can't we just agree to disagree? It looks like the people for/against RAID (specifically 0) are split right down the middle.

The subject has been beat to death, hashed and re-hashed. Old reviews indicated RAID 0 was worthless, recent reviews have shown it to be a huge performance increase w/little negative side affects.

Instead of listening to the constant arguing on here, put your drives in RAID and compare the "feel" to what you have now. If you don't like it put it back the way it is.

 

[stunt]

.

Instead of listening to the constant arguing on here, put your drives in RAID and compare the "feel" to what you have now. If you don't like it put it back the way it is.

I agree 100%. I tried 3 different raid systems and no raid using seven drives on my main rig until I settled on raid 10. Instead of listening to all the differing opinions, try it and see whats best for you.

It takes 1 1/2 hours to build a system and a month of evenings and weekends to get the system the way I want it on my personal rig. I just clone a OS and apps drive so I can keep tyring different setups until I find what I like. But when its done its done.........At least for a few months.

 

[greenmaji]

how are seaks harmed by Raid0.. in theory? sounds like a hardware problem to me.

 

[Maviryk]

Well, for you a few seconds faster load time in games may not be important, but for power-gamers such as myself, it matters. A lot can happen in a few seconds mind you .

Yes, it is pointless to put PATA drives in RAID0. RAID1 for backup, sure, if data is important for you.

Personally I've never had a drive fail on me unexpectedly. So I've no need for RAID1.

To each his own, YMMV.

 

[boris_37]

Well, for you a few seconds faster load time in games may not be important, but for power-gamers such as myself, it matters. A lot can happen in a few seconds mind you .

Yes, it is pointless to put PATA drives in RAID0. RAID1 for backup, sure, if data is important for you.

Personally I've never had a drive fail on me unexpectedly. So I've no need for RAID1.

To each his own, YMMV.

yup and as time goes on risk of drive failure is going to happen less. We can even see it in cpu's now, if you used to run them forever before they could get problems. Now however they are built to run forever...

I'll get RAID0 soon and see. I garuntee it will help, after all i transfer alot of big files between hard drives recently and i hate having to wait over 30 minutes... lol

 

[stunt]

As far as seek times go, I always had about the same seek times on my seagates as the drive was rated for in raid 0 and 1, according to HD Tach. Untill raid 10. Now my seek times are down to 9.8 from 12.5 -13.

 

[Snugglebear]

how are seaks harmed by Raid0.. in theory? sounds like a hardware problem to me.

The drive platters are not spin-syncrhonized, nor are the read/write heads, ATA units do not necessarily map the same logical address to the same physical blocks, and they have enough intelligence to need to do overhead tasks occasionally. Since data on a stripeset isn't useful until you have the blocks from each stripe to assemble into the whole, if the data is out of position (platters in different points of rotation, heads in wrong place because one drive may be recalibrating, remapping blocks, etc.) you have to wait.

 

[soulfly1448]

I can dig. Still sounds like most are using for bragging rights really. I am aware of how RAID works. I don't know all of the different iterations, I've only heard of 0, 1 and 3. The fact that in RAID 1 you are essentially only getting half of the total hard drive space available across the two drives is unacceptable to me.

I'll take damarble's advice and give a RAID set up a try and see what all the hubbub is about.

Thanks, guys.

 

[Sjaak]

The fact that in RAID 1 you are essentially only getting half of the total hard drive space available across the two drives is unacceptable to me.

Half the space - double the security and better read times.


Raid 0: better read & write, half the security

 

[Enablingwolf]

I use RAID1. When I was setup for zero. I thought about costs and other factors. I would rather have part of my setup secure and ready in case of a possible failure. Drives do fail. It is a matter of when. Sometimes a drive can last for longer then you want the data. Sometimes not. I have data from earlier than 1995, due to protecting it.

My particular board can support up to 12 devices onboard. The cost of adding another drive is so cheap. I thought losing the storage was acceptable for the security of having an extra layer with the RAID1. I have 4 SATA ready for newer drives later on and another 4 PATA. So it is about if I need the room or not.