Raptor RAID 0 card choice, HELP!!!

[djlst]

Hey there guys,
This is my 2nd ever post in a computer forum and I'm still semi newbie so please be nice!!!
I have done heaps of searching and basically have become more confused so I'm after some help setting up the HDD's for my gaming rig.

System -
CPU AMD Athlon 5600
MB MSI K9n platinum
RAM 4gb Corsair 6400 C4
Graphics MSI 8800GT OC (512mb)
Sound Creative Fatal1ty
HDD internal 3 36gb WD raptors
HDD Storage 400gb Samsung

Until yesterday I was running two of the raptors in RAID 0 using the mb's raid controller.
All was working fine but recently I have been having regular problems with file corruptions on the drives.
Research tells me this is a common problem with the Nvidia drivers so I went a purchased a 250gb 16mb cache Seagate HDD (so much slower lol) to keep me going while I sort it all out and figure out which raid card/controller to go for...

Like I said I'm new so I would also appriciate help with HDD configuration.
Which option would be best for gaming and overall system performance.

3 Raptors RAID 0 (OS, games, apps)
1 Raptor (OS) 2 Raptors RAID 0 (page file, apps, games)
Or some other setup???

And onto controllers.....

Help!!!!! lol

Everyone says hardware cards are better than software based cards, fair enough, but im not operating 20 drives or a server or anything. My raid will be a max of 3 raptors.
The reviews on cheaper cards like the Silicon image SiI3114 are great and I was wondering how much CPU performance I could expect to loose using one of these cards???

I realize that 4 raptors in raid 0 with one of these is useless because the PCI slot cant handle such a large data transfer rate, but at most I'd plan on a RAID of 3 which would be pretty much optimal.

If CPU performance would really lag that much, I have also been looking at this card

LSI 8344ELP
Specs

# Eight SAS / SATA ports
# One SAS SFF8087 x4 internal connector
# One SAS SFF8470 x4 external connector
# 3 Gb/s throughput per port
# Greater than 2TB array support
# Intel IOP333 I/O Processor
# PCI Express, x4 lane width
# 128MB DDR Cache
# RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10 and 50
# Auto-resume on array rebuild and reconstruction
# Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)
# Online RAID Level Migration (RLM)

Seems great but are at least 6 times the price!!! And for the 36GB raptors I dont need the SATAII capability....

Please help me decide!!!!

Thanks for any help or tips guys!!!
(and don't worry, the AMD cpu and MB are probably next to go)

Thanks again!!!

 

[djlst]

Short and sweet version,

1. Is the benefit worth the cost to get a pci express hardware RAID card compared to a cheap PCI software based card for RAID 0??? Using 2 max 3 HDD in the RAID setup.

2. Should I use all 3 raptors in raid 0 or a different set up???
eg RAID 0 2 raptors for windows and games
Use extra raptor for apps, pagefile, maybe sound and graphics drivers?

Cheers in advance guys.

 

[Caviman2201]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried running the WD Data Lifeguard tools just to make sure its not the drives?

 

[djlst]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried running the WD Data Lifeguard tools just to make sure its not the drives?

Actually no.....
However I did run the check for errors thing that Vista has and it showed no problems.

I am downloading the WD Data lifeguard tools now just to be sure....

Any advice on a new raid 0 setup would still be great.

Thanks Caviman

 

[tuskenraider]

You don't need a seperate card for RAID0 as there just isn't much going on in the background for it to provide much of an improvement, if any, over an onboard one.

 

[djlst]

Thanks tuskenraider
The raptors all seem fine.
I've done what I can with the Vista HDD error checker, WD Data LIfeguard, and HD tune pro.
None show errors on the driver so I'm putting it down to a problem with the onboard RAID controller.
Research tells me, its a common problem with the Nvidia drivers and my Mb.

So I'm going for a silicone image card with the SiI3114 chip...

What do you guys think about the HDD config??

Should I RAID 0 all 3 raptors or some other setup???

Cheers again

 

[orion456]

You don't see much performance boost over mobo RAID unless the card has onboard memory and is PCIx4. Since you bought 3 raptors it only seems appropriate to give them a decent card. I like the RocketRaid 3510: 256mb, PCIx8, 4 Sata II channels and does Raid 5 almost as fast as Raid 0. Newegg has them, but you have to spend around $300 for this kind of card. Less than that and you will be disappointed.

Here's a review that begins with, "If you’re willing to spend the extra dough, the best discrete RAID controllers punish the competition to satisfyingly bloody results."

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/raid_controllers_compared?page=0,3

If you regularly back up to a alternate drive, then Raid 0 will be the most fun; otherwise Raid 5 for safer data.

 

[djlst]

Thanks orion!!!
I actually just purchased another raptor from ebay (Australia) lol. So now there is 4.

If its going to be the RocketRaid 3510 I'm going to have to start saving. It's $500AU here and will cost me around $410-440AU to get it from the US!!!

Orion456 - I don't want to be disappointed, but that is heaps to part with. Is there anything you would recommend that comes close for slightly less???
Maybe something 128mb, PCI-E 4???
The chart on the link you sent makes me think, no, but worth asking because there may be another good one not on the chart.

Thanks!!!

 

[djlst]

Well what do you know,
I was bored and thought I would test all my raptors again with HD tune individually, and even thought all were working fine yesterday, one stopped 1/2 way through testing.
Restarted HD showed in bios and was gone by the time I got to windows.
Turned off, pulled out, burning smell, RMA and back to WD (still got 2 yrs wty)

So maybe it wasn't the onboard raid/drivers after all.
I will set up a raid0 again in the next few days with the 2 raptors I have left, i'm keen to benchmark my onboards vs those charts now. The results will probably convince me to get the 3510.
I will post the results as I increase the array and if/when I get the RAID card.

Quick question, can I simply plug an extra hd into a raid0 and as long as the hd is enabled in bios and added in the array setup, the array will reorganize for me?? Or do I have to re-install every time???

Cheers guys

 

[orion456]

You can't just plug an additional drive in without recreating the array and wiping out your data.

You really need a good reason to go for a dedicated card because they are on the pricey side; especially when you are talking $500. The mobo Raid works pretty well so make sure you can need that higher performance.

 

[Maverick0984]

Welcome to the forums!

Ok, having read this thread it looks like 2 conversations are going on. Let me try and provide some insight if I may.

djlst: You do not need hardware raid for raid0. This has been said already, but you thought your problem was the chipset. A few of the answers from people didn't address this and they blindly told you to use the same chipset.

The card that orion456 linked is extreme overkill if you intend to use raid0.

If you still think the chipset can be an issue. The Sil chipset will be fine, but don't ever run anything other than raid0 or raid1 on it. It isn't a great chipset, but would be fine for what you are doing.

If you decide to do raid 5,6,10,etc...something more elaborate, then you should start investigating hardware raid. Because of your question about having to "reinstall" on raid 0 every time something goes wrong, I want to direct you to a link that explains the different levels of raid, their differences, similarities, pluses, and minuses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

For your purposes, you can ignore raid levels 2,3,4, and 6 most likely. Just concentrate on learning the differences between 0,1, and 5. The article refers to them as Nested levels, but a combination of raid 0 and 1, which can be referred to as RAID10 or RAID 1+0 is also a good option.

Please report back with questions/concerns/etc.

 

[djlst]

Thanks Maverick0984, That was very very helpful!!!
I am going to wait until I have all 4 raptors before I try the onboard chipset again. The raptor that died was the one that was showing errors in Nvidia Media shield so I think its pretty likely it was the harddrive trying to live and not a chipset problem.

I do have a couple of other quick typically noob questions though..... Sorry guys.

I have been doing lots of forum reading and need a little more advice.
I'm currently running Vista and want to also run XP pro because I hear it generally gets better frame rate/performance in gaming....
I also hear multiple partitions will slow the raid 0 down....
Will I still get good performance running xp from another single HDD and installing games apps and vista on the raid0 setup???
Or should I maybe install XP aps games etc on the raid0 and get another HDD for Vista???
Thanks guys!!!

 

[jason4207]

I ran 4 640GB HDD's in RAID10, and partitioned off the 1st 150GB for XP, the 2nd 150GB for Vista, and left the remainder for data.