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Extending my RAID 0 array

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xbonez

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Location
Philly, PA (US)
System Specs
System Name Winter
Processor AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE @ 4.0Ghz
Motherboard MSI 790FX-GD70
Cooling Corsair H50 Liquid Cooling
Memory 2 x 2Gb Gskill Ripjaws 1600Mhz (7-7-7-24@1.6V)
Video Card(s) Asus GTX 470 @ Stock (Zalman VF3000 cooler)
Storage 2 x Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB (RAID 0)
Display(s) Hanns G 28" @ 1920x1200
Case Antec 1200
Audio Device(s) Onboard -- TosLink --> Z5500
Power Supply Corsair 850TX 850W PSU
Software Win 7 64-bit Ultimate
I currently have 2 x Samsung Spinpoint F3s in a RAID 0 setup in my desktop (on-board southbridge controller).

Will I see a performance improvement if I add two more disks to make it a 4-disk array? I know I should not expect a perfect doubling of performance, but will I see a reasonable increase, or is a 4-drive RAID 0 array only suitable for a dedicated HW RAID card?
 
Yes, you will see a performance increase, but with 4 drives I would go for a RAID 5 array instead of a 4xRAID0
 
You will definitely see a performance improvement. IIRC when I was running four Seagate 7200.10 drives, I had reads between 300-400 MB/s on the Intel ICH9. I can't say how good the AMD SB chipsets are though, as it's been years since I used one (NF4).

Just remember that raid 0 provides no data redundancy. Raid 5 will give you performance close to raid 0, but provides redundancy if one drive fails.
 
If you just plain out need storage space, I suggest leaving them single drives and not doing RAID 0, if 1 drive fails it's ALL gone. If you need a much faster read speeds with a touch faster writes then go raid 5 with 3 drives along with a single useable drive as storage or manual backups(this will be near failsafe).
 
I don't really need the space. I just need the speed. I have an external 2x1TB TB backup solution, as well as a dropbox with all my documents. So, I don't care too much if I lost all data. I'll probably just go for RAID 0 and see how it goes. I've been running the 2 disk RAID 0 array for about an year now without any problems. I know a 4-drive array theoretically makes the MTBF of the array one-fourth the MTBF of an individual drive, but I'm willing to take my chacnes.
 
xbonez said:
I don't really need the space. I just need the speed.
Click to expand...

Flat out both read and writes? Just for OS? Go with an SSD instead and break your existing RAID 0 after a backup. That will leave you with the storage space but with the useable read/writes of the SSD for OS and everyday programs. I know everyone's uses are different, but seriously consider RAID 5 when using large drives(750GB+).
 
I did spend quite some time considering SSDs but the prohibitive cost of them would limit me to maybe 60Gb max forcing me to only place my OS on the SSD. I want to be able to place all my apps, games etc. on a faster drive and for that reason, RAID seems to be my best solution.
 
Just raid the SSD's like me :pimp:
 
That would mean, I'd have to get atleast 2 SSDs which kinda goes out of my budget, considering any decent SSD (40gb or 60gb) would run me around $100 or more
 
Just kidding. It's not easy for everybody to drop $450 on SSD's. I had to sell off my 980X for mine.
 
I was looking at a total cost of $100, coz I'm also putting together a dedicated rig for folding, as well as water cooling my main rig.
 
more HDD in raid 0 mean more data risky, raid 5 is an option other wise SSD lead the way in speed
 
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