RAID 0 or Not to RAID 0 -- That is the Question

seidell23231 · Apr 14, 2008

I have the opportunity to setup a RAID 0 array on my PC. I have 2 matching 500GB HD's @ 7200RPM. I am using my PC for work in the Office 2007 area and of course to play games, such as COD 4, Oblivion Shivering Isles, NWN2 MOTB, Morrowind with 2 addons, The Battle for Middle-Earth 2 with Battle against the Witch....

Will the gains be significent to load up RAID, or are the possible issues out weigh it???

Joey

geezer10 · Apr 14, 2008

If your HDs are the WD "raid enhanced" drives then maybe it would be a good idea to set up a slave array while booting from a single hd. your games would load 1.5x faster if they have not already been cached into dram by superfetch. And media production would benefit.

Otherwise no, a thousand times no! especially with critical Office data.

RAID provides minimal benefit for considerable instability. Separate drives can even be faster than a raid array (up to 2x). And you can transport data between computers more easily.

If your drives are not raid enhanced, then the aggressive error recovery techniques used in standard HDs can cause the array to lose synch, ie: all data.

raid benefits the hd manufacturers only. It is pure hype IMHO. But I stand alone on this one.

Simon

joel406 · Apr 14, 2008

Your not alone geezer10.

I agree 110%!

In other words...

What he said.

hkancyr · Apr 14, 2008

Go get one more drive and use it for a backup and set up some auto backup program. The speed difference is well worth it for games and general OS operation. Just back up whatever you need in office frequently. I have thousands of photos and documents, Office personal folders, passwords installers and other things backed up. It can get a bit tedious but I do it for the speed, and it's worth it. I wouldn't worry too much about raid enhanced, but if they are that's nice too.
You can look around here and check to see if you have a reliable controller or not. The Marvel controller on my board is frequently complained about but I have had no trouble at all with it and RAIDs. I have noticed that a mirrored RAID (RAID1) on mine didn't like crashes too much, it rebuilt after every crash and it really slowed down the computer while doing it and it took hours.
Bottom line: DO IT! You will notice the speed increase while loading the system into it.
BUT-if there is no backup, I would go with answer number 1.

sidewinder · Apr 14, 2008

A proper RAID 0 (striping) array is going to be faster than any single drive of the same type. So there is going to be a performance benefit. However, how many of us actually would benefit for that extra performance? Not many is my bet.

Reliability is a whole different issue. Having two drives in a RAID 0 array versus one drive with no RAID, doubles the likelihood of a drive related failure. That doesn't take into account any issues with the RAID controller used.

With drive prices the way they are today, I would be doing RAID 1 (mirroring) before I did RAID 0. Also, I would make sure that you have a good backup plan....

S-

sidewinder · Apr 14, 2008

geezer10 said:
If your drives are not raid enhanced, then the aggressive error recovery techniques used in standard HDs can cause the array to lose synch, ie: all data.

raid benefits the hd manufacturers only. It is pure hype IMHO. But I stand alone on this one.

Simon,

This wrong and makes no sense at all. I use RAID all the time (and have for years) with "standard HDs". What you say is simply wrong. I run my companies data center and RAID is an integral part of any "High Availability" strategy. What are these error recovery techniques that allegedly cause an array to lose all data or "degrade" an array?

S-

geezer10 · Apr 14, 2008

sidewinder said:
This wrong and makes no sense at all. I use RAID all the time (and have for years) with "standard HDs". What you say is simply wrong. I run my companies data center and RAID is an integral part of any "High Availability" strategy. What are these error recovery techniques that allegedly cause an array to lose all data or "degrade" an array?

what you're talking about is RAID 1 (or better) not RAID 0.

read this: http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2879-001119.pdf

you know I have just got the feeling WD has withdrawn the RE series..

seidell23231 · Apr 14, 2008

The Hard Drives in question are:Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS

Reviewe: This 500GB Barracuda 7200.10SATA 3Gbps internal hard drive provides a speedy 11ms average access time at a 7200rpm spindle speed. Its 3Gbps transfer rate via its SATA interface will knock your socks off. Its Native Command Queuing provides higher system performance in demanding applications, reduced drive wear and tear, and easier system integration. Plus, this super-quiet drive is almost inaudible. The difference between idle and seek can hardly be detected by human ear, making drive operation almost silent.

So this would do well in a RAID 0 environment, especially with the great warranty!

Thoughts?? Joey

sidewinder · Apr 14, 2008

Simon,

I've read the marketing fluff that WD puts out regarding time-limited error recovery (TLER). It solves a problem that just isn't really a problem. Instead, you should look in every data center in the world and tell me what market share Western Digital has compared to Seagate. Hint: Seagate has the MUCH larger share.

The "the aggressive error recovery techniques" (remapping bad sectors) you decry have no bearing on RAID 0 arrays since the conflict that can be caused only comes into play with RAID levels higher than 0. RAID level 0 does not care how long the remapping takes since all RAID level 0 does is stripe data. There is no mirroring or parity involved.

So, if you want, bust my chops for talking about RAID levels higher than RAID 0 when the OP was talking about RAID 0. But at least bring up a "problem" that relates to RAID 0 in the first place......

S-

Dwarf · Apr 15, 2008

I have used a RAID0 setup on my PC for several years now. I used to use it when I had XP, both the Home and Professional versions (all kept up to date whilst I was using them), and now with Vista SP1. In all cases, my system has been essentially the same with the same hard drives installed (although I have upgraded my RAM, graphics card, processor and optical drives). The most important thing to remember when setting up a RAID array is to use IDENTICAL hard drives. This means capacity, rotational speed, buffer size and interface type. It is best to obtain drives from the same manufacturer, if at all possible, and to acquire them at the same time. To date, I have not had a single problem with my setup, and my system works flawlessly. I am using the same RAID driver that I used to install Vista originally, and this is causing no problems at all. My advice with drivers is 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
Dwarf

MonsterMaxx · Apr 16, 2008

Raid 0 is for performance. It is not for data security.

Personally I'd only use a Raid 0 if I were doing some sort of vid compression and ran into a disk bottleneck.
And I for sure would copy the file to someplace else when I was done.

Raid 0 is very fragile, the slightest problem and your data is GONE. Strongly discourage Raid 0 for system, or any files you care about.

Been there, done that, lost the data.

Now, I run a Mirror for any system drives and my data is on a Raid5 and is backed up.

Raid 0 is very dangerous.

sidewinder · Apr 16, 2008

MonsterMaxx said:
Raid 0 is very fragile, the slightest problem and your data is GONE.

MonsterMaxx,

Let's not go overboard here. RAID 0 isn't all that fragile. Even with software RAID 0, the main reason it is more fragile than using a single hard drive is that using two or more hard drives increases the chance for failure by the number of drives used in the array. But that's not any different than having a 500GB drive versus two 250GB drives.

RAID 0 works just fine is reliable.

S-

hkancyr · Apr 16, 2008

It's only fragile if a disaster occurs, barring that, it is awesome.

Me, I'm betting it will be running for a long time.

Chillin' · Apr 17, 2008

seidell23231 said:
I have the opportunity to setup a RAID 0 array on my PC. I have 2 matching 500GB HD's @ 7200RPM. I am using my PC for work in the Office 2007 area and of course to play games, such as COD 4, Oblivion Shivering Isles, NWN2 MOTB, Morrowind with 2 addons, The Battle for Middle-Earth 2 with Battle against the Witch....

Will the gains be significent to load up RAID, or are the possible issues out weigh it???

Joey

As other people have said, the only real issue is the loss of all your data when one of the drives fails. The risk of this happening isn't all that high (well, obviously all HDDs will eventually die of old age if used long enough), but I'd recommend using a separate HDD for storage of important data like mails and documents.

To do this, you'd need 3 HDD's. Two of these need to be identical and will be used in the RAID0 config. The third can be any HDD (doesn't need to be identical or anything, since it won't be used in RAID).

Create a RAID0 partition, and install Windows on it. After installation, change the default location of the Documents folder to anywhere on the third (non-RAID) HDD, e.g. to D:\Documents (assuming the D:\ partition is on the third HDD). Outlook and Thunderbird (and probably most other e-mail clients) also have the possibility to change the storage location of your e-mail to another folder, e.g. D:\Mail.

This way, if something goes wrong you'll 'only' lose Windows and installed programs. Obviously Windows and programs can be installed again, so the long-term damage will be minimal. Just don't go storing too many important files on your desktop

.

Moreover, you will have much less data to back up before formatting your Windows drive (which I tend to do at least once a year), since it doesn't contain critical data.

splosher · Apr 17, 2008

As Chillin' as said above, always back-up your important stuff to a 3rd HD off your RAID set-up and you've nothing to worry about if the RAID goes down the pan.

I have used RAID 0 since 2002 and will never go back to a single drive due to the speed increase for gaming, video editing, DVD burning, etc. In all that time - 6 years - i have never had a RAID set-up go wrong and that's through IDE drives to SATA & SATA ll drives, but i've always found going with smaller matching drives can be the key to a healthy RAID set-up.
I currently run 2 x 160Gb (320GB total) Samsung NCQ SATA ll drives on an Asus P5N32-E SLI in RAID 0 and i know if there's a bottleneck anywhere, it's not going to be from the drives accessing data when its needed.

The only problem with running RAID is having a fear of something going wrong, but if you've built the machine and set-up the RAID then it's nothing you can't handle if it does go wrong.

Dwarf · Apr 17, 2008

I agree. That is the purpose of my external USB hard disk - for data backups. The most important thing to remember for successful RAID setups of whatever type is to use IDENTICAL hard disks. Even the slightest difference (such as buffer size) between the drives can cause problems, and that is why I recommend that you obtain them all from the same manufacturer at the same time.
Dwarf

sidewinder · Apr 17, 2008

Dwarf said:
The most important thing to remember for successful RAID setups of whatever type is to use IDENTICAL hard disks. Even the slightest difference (such as buffer size) between the drives can cause problems, and that is why I recommend that you obtain them all from the same manufacturer at the same time.

Dwarf,

While I will agree with the idea that it is a good idea to use identical drives in a RAID array for capacity efficiency, it is by no means a requirement. You have to remember that each drive in the array in accessed individually so difference in specs don't matter. Buffer sizes affect drive performance but do not affect RAID compatibility.

Let's look at RAID 0 first. If you use two different size drives with most RAID controllers, the array size is double the size of the smallest drive. With RAID 1, the the array size will match the smallest drive. With RAID 5, the array capacity would be the total number of drives minus 1 times the capacity of the smallest drive in the array. JBOD wouldn't care since all it does is link the drives together.

In my data center I had a 160GB SATA drive fail in a RAID 1 setup a few weeks ago. I stuffed a 500GB SATA drive in its place until Seagate got a refurbished 160GB drive back to me. Then I replaced the 500GB with the 160GB and all was just fine as it should have been.

RAID is a lot more flexible that you guys seem to think....

S-

RAID 0 or Not to RAID 0 -- That is the Question

New Member

My Computer

Engineer

My Computer

Senior Member

My Computer

Master of my Universe

My Computer

My Computer

My Computer

Engineer

My Computer

New Member

My Computer

My Computer

The Contemplator

My Computer

My Computer

My Computer

Master of my Universe

My Computer

New Member

My Computer

My Computer

The Contemplator

My Computer

My Computer