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Best bang for my buck raid setup

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RAID 0 is like pissing against the wind while running.

lol... wtf are you talking about?... its usually a double increase in speed (for 2 drivesetup) if done correctly (look at the image in the post above you... 200MB/sec from a sata 2 HDD setup) standard on one of those would be around 80-100Mb/sec

exactely how is that pissing against the wind?
 
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If you can afford it, go with two more 500GB drives in raid 0 for speed or raid 5 for speed and security. Of course, it all depends on what you can afford to spend. I have three OCZ Summits and they run quite nicely in Raid 0:

http://img.techpowerup.org/091019/3xssd.png

dude that is seriously sick!!! :D
man id love to have that setup with 3 SSD's in Raid 0.... also your avg read is 0.2ms... must be a very responsive rig right there!
 
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Blues are just as fast as blacks for all general purpose..

I use blacks because the 5yr warranty and sometimes I have up to 3-4 devices accessing them at once, which is where the extra cache and processor really take off.

If you want on the cheap and it's only you, the Blue 640's are the way to go, otherwise the 7200.12 500s, depending on what you prefer, I think the 7200.12s are a bit faster.

I am about to re-setup with windows 7, with 2x 640s in raid 0 and a 1tb as a backup.
 
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Blues are just as fast as blacks for all general purpose..

I use blacks because the 5yr warranty and sometimes I have up to 3-4 devices accessing them at once, which is where the extra cache and processor really take off.

If you want on the cheap and it's only you, the Blue 640's are the way to go, otherwise the 7200.12 500s, depending on what you prefer, I think the 7200.12s are a bit faster.

I am about to re-setup with windows 7, with 2x 640s in raid 0 and a 1tb as a backup.

that's what i was thinking about doing. Now I just need the money haha.
 
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that's what i was thinking about doing. Now I just need the money haha.

Well that's what I would recommend :)

Nice screaming speeds for use and you have a backup ready to go just in case.
Beats trying to run raid5, which I also did with the 640's.
 
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lol... wtf are you talking about?... its usually a double increase in speed (for 2 drivesetup) if done correctly (look at the image in the post above you... 200MB/sec from a sata 2 HDD setup) standard on one of those would be around 80-100Mb/sec

exactely how is that pissing against the wind?

Your data will come back in your face and be smeared all over you. Bye bye pretty files.
 
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any difference in running 3 or 4 drives in Raid 0?
I run 2X200G seagate drives in Raid 0 now, but in a future build I am thinking about running 3-4...
Would you see any significant speed increase?
Thanks
 
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Yes, the more drives in RAID 0 the greater the risk of losing data. When you benchmark you'd probably see an increase but you'd never notice during actual use. Either way more disks > diminishing returns. Don't use RAID 0 for storage, just for data you can afford to lose.
 

trickson

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RAID 0 is like pissing against the wind while running.

Your data will come back in your face and be smeared all over you. Bye bye pretty files.

LOL !
Well for me RAID 0 is great as long as you know your data can get lost back up your system and all will be fine .
I have had very little issues with this .
The only real down side to RAID is you need a floppy drive for the driver software . The speed increase is totally worth it .
 
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The only real down side to RAID is you need a floppy drive for the driver software . The speed increase is totally worth it .
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/9356/hddtest2.jpg

That's of course a silly statement. Needing a floppy drive has nothing to do with RAID. Plenty of RAID controllers are supported in XP (and even in an OS as old as NT4), just not those cheap onboard things. You can still add those drivers to your install CD though.
 
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thats probably true as the 640gb has 2 320gb platters while the 750gb has 3 250gb platters and the 1tb has 4 250gb. The less platter the better
I don't know the status of the 750GB drive. But I do know that the 1TB drive only has 3 platters. If it had 4 250GB platters, it would be pretty slow. So definately 3 platters, and WD may have already switched to using 2 500GB platters on the 1TB Black. The 500GB Black uses 1 platter, but there are several versions floating around. (Some of which have 2 platters)

Yes, the more drives in RAID 0 the greater the risk of losing data. When you benchmark you'd probably see an increase but you'd never notice during actual use. Either way more disks > diminishing returns. Don't use RAID 0 for storage, just for data you can afford to lose.
QFT.


@OP
I would get 2 640GB Blacks in Raid 0. But how much space do you need? IMO a 60GB SSD and a 320GB/500GB HDD is a better option.
 

trickson

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That's of course a silly statement. Needing a floppy drive has nothing to do with RAID. Plenty of RAID controllers are supported in XP (and even in an OS as old as NT4), just not those cheap onboard things. You can still add those drivers to your install CD though.

It maybe silly for you but for me it is not . I need to install the drivers for raid from the floppy drive . I still have to this day find ANY os that has them built right in not to mention the fact that when installing XP it asks you to install the drivers calling for DRIVE "A" .
Any way I digress . RAID 0 is for speed . And with 2 Barracuda 500gb HDD's this puppy is fast . :rockout:
 
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It maybe silly for you but for me it is not . I need to install the drivers for raid from the floppy drive . I still have to this day find ANY os that has them built right in not to mention the fact that when installing XP it asks you to install the drivers calling for DRIVE "A" .
Any way I digress . RAID 0 is for speed . And with 2 Barracuda 500gb HDD's this puppy is fast . :rockout:

So because your modern controller is not supported out of the box by an 8 year old OS you blame RAID as a whole? Vista accepts drivers from other storage media (and supports more out of the box), and windows 7 supports even more. And like I said, you can integrate the driver in your CD (be it XP, Vista, 7) so you won't need a diskette.
 

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So because your modern controller is not supported out of the box by an 8 year old OS you blame RAID as a whole? Vista accepts drivers from other storage media (and supports more out of the box), and windows 7 supports even more. And like I said, you can integrate the driver in your CD (be it XP, Vista, 7) so you won't need a diskette.

OK HOW? as I have never been able to set up a raid configuration with out the floppy disk .
 

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install the drivers calling for DRIVE "A" .
:

I bet you don't need to hit F6 when you have an Intel controller whether it be on-board or add on.....that ole F6 thing is becoming a thing of the past like us ole dinosaurs!;)
 

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dude that is seriously sick!!! :D
man id love to have that setup with 3 SSD's in Raid 0.... also your avg read is 0.2ms... must be a very responsive rig right there!

Yes, the response and load times arefar greater than even the four HDD setup I had. And yes, I notice it all the time. I hate going back to working on a PC with a single drive. And unfortunately, that's what I do at work :(
 
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Yes, the response and load times arefar greater than even the four HDD setup I had. And yes, I notice it all the time. I hate going back to working on a PC with a single drive. And unfortunately, that's what I do at work :(

That is the downside... Once you are spoiled by a fast stripe, or 10/15k drives, it's hard to go back.... Just so snappy.

On the raid driver thing, as said above, integrate the drivers for your board if setting up is something you do too often, usb floppy drives work fine and Vista/7 will use usb drives for the drivers and a lot of times are not even needed, doesn't mean all the time.

It's a small price to pay for the speed or up time in which ever case it be that you are using it.

Stripes are dangerous... There is no doubt about that... I know people that have run them for years without issue, I know others that have seriously bit the bullet on the other end, sometimes with things like years worth of accounting for a business....

If it is important, keep an extra copy.
 

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Benchmark Scores I should run some of these sometime...
I have a couple raptors in fake intel raid 0 and the benchmarks show improved speed. But for regular use, there doesn't seem to be much improvement. If you have your OS backed up all the time via WHS (or whatever else you use), then it isn't so bad to reimage when a drive goes bad.

I think if you really want a speed increase with raid you'll need to pay the big bucks on a real raid controller, and some SSDs.
 

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I don't really know the difference, but here's how mine perform:

http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr246/Meatwad_CP/640aalsraid.jpg

Surely not minutes, nor even 5 seconds. The 2x 500GB would be really close to if not faster than the 640GB's. In a 2x 750GB array, the access time would definitely be higher, say 20ms, and the avg. read rate a little lower. The 2x 1TB array would be even slower, that's more of something for storage, I wouldn't really recommend that for a main array.

Seems kind of weak speed wise...

Two Seagate 5900RPM LP drives in RAID0...
 
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Your data will come back in your face and be smeared all over you. Bye bye pretty files.

lol... I have yet to have that happen to myself... and my home pc which i use for gaming, surfing the net & porn isnt exactly mission critical should i get a hardrive failure :)
 
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