RAID 0

Malakie Torsade · 10-20-2005, 05:03 PM

I was going to get a 300 HD and was told I should consider getting 2 150 gig drives and then run a RAID 0. I'm hearing different things from different people, but my understanding is that it should significantly increase performance and should not seriously cut into the amount of space available. Anyone have experience with this? Is it worth the extra hasslel? Also, would it be possible to ghost an exsisting drive onto a RAID 0 array?

Eomer · 10-20-2005, 05:11 PM

Absolutely not worth the hassle, nor the doubled risk of losing data. At least, if your primary concern is gaming load times. It may well boot Windows faster, or make some computing tasks a bit faster, but Anandtech did a great article on it awhile back:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/sho...px?i=2101&p=10

Sanchek · 10-20-2005, 05:13 PM

It depends on the RAID controller you use. All of the benchmarking I've seen shows that the controllers built into desktop motherboards are worthless. As in a 0-5% increase, at best.

You double your chances of failure also. If either disk fails, all the data you stored on that logical drive is gone.

Another thing to consider is that depending on what drives you're choosing between, the 300gb could very possibly be faster than the 150s.

It has its place definitely, but low cache IDE solutions are nothing but a gimmick.

Eomer · 10-20-2005, 05:16 PM

Theoretical and synthetic benchmarks DO benefit from RAID 0, or other forms of RAID. There's no question of that. My RAID 5 setup at home is significantly faster at reads than a single drive, about 50% faster.

But in the vast majority of real world apps it's pointless.

Vorph · 10-20-2005, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malakie Torsade

I was going to get a 300 HD and was told I should consider getting 2 150 gig drives and then run a RAID 0. I'm hearing different things from different people, but my understanding is that it should significantly increase performance and should not seriously cut into the amount of space available. Anyone have experience with this? Is it worth the extra hasslel? Also, would it be possible to ghost an exsisting drive onto a RAID 0 array?

On top of what Eomer has already said, getting drives less than 250GB means that you're stuck with an 8MB cache rather than a 16MB one. The performance gained from going up to 16MB cache on the newest drives is significantly higher than anything you'll ever get from a onboard RAID 0 controller.

I used RAID 0 for years, and just recently broke the stripe up. It was never worth the hassle or risk of data loss, and is definitely not something I'll do again in my gaming or work machines. Possibly for something like Eomer did in a machine built just for storage... but I'd use an PCI controller for that, and probably SCSI.

EnigmaticParadigm · 10-20-2005, 08:37 PM

That settles it.

Vorph and Eomer are going to help me build my next computer <3.

Phoenix · 10-20-2005, 08:40 PM

Lol @ raid zero.

I recently tested a raid 0 setup to a single HD using fraps ingame video recording.

My computer; A64 2350mhz, 1gig of 230mhz 2-3-2-6 memory, 6800GT, Seagate 120GB HD. Used WoW max details @ 1680x1050 with 8xAF. I got 20fps while recording.

Friends computer; A64 2200mhz 1mb L2cache(san diego core), 1gig of 200mhz 2-2-2-5 memory, 6800GT x2, 74GB raptors x4! in Raid 0. Used WoW max details @ 1240x1024. He got 20fps.

Ronne · 10-20-2005, 09:50 PM

How is it possibly to get 20fps in WoW? I can't get below 40 no matter how high I set it.

Blaezenfury · 10-20-2005, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix

Lol @ raid zero.

I recently tested a raid 0 setup to a single HD using fraps ingame video recording.

My computer; A64 2350mhz, 1gig of 230mhz 2-3-2-6 memory, 6800GT, Seagate 120GB HD. Used WoW max details @ 1680x1050 with 8xAF. I got 20fps while recording.

Friends computer; A64 2200mhz 1mb L2cache(san diego core), 1gig of 200mhz 2-2-2-5 memory, 6800GT x2, 74GB raptors x4! in Raid 0. Used WoW max details @ 1240x1024. He got 20fps.

what the hell is 2-3-2-6 memory?

yeah pretty awesome comp though.

Phoenix · 10-20-2005, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobTheMoron

How is it possibly to get 20fps in WoW? I can't get below 40 no matter how high I set it.

Didnt you read the part where I said I was recording video directly to my harddrive?

Sanchek · 10-20-2005, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix

Didnt you read the part where I said I was recording video directly to my harddrive?

That's still awfully low.

When I'm running 1280x1024 fraps recordings with sound, I get 30.

Kallian · 10-20-2005, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blaezenfury

what the hell is 2-3-2-6 memory?

yeah pretty awesome comp though.

http://www.dewassoc.com/performance/...as_latency.htm

^^ might be too academic.

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

of course, even that is "deep."

Vorph · 10-20-2005, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blaezenfury

what the hell is 2-3-2-6 memory?

In the hopes that this will make your head explode --

The numbers are, in order:

CAS (Column Access Strobe) Latency Time = 2, 2.5, 3
RAS# (Row Access Strobe) to CAS# Delay = 2, 3, 4
RAS# Precharge = 2, 3, 4
Act to Precharge Time = 5, 6, 7, 8

They're delays, so lower is always better. Your BIOS may have slightly different names for each one. I'm not even going to attempt to explain what each one does exactly.

What most people don't realize is that CAS latency no longer matters all that much, which goes contrary to the fact that when you do a search at, say, newegg, you can only look up DIMMs by CAS. It's the middle two numbers you need to worry about most. In other words, if you have CAS 2 RAM and can only get it stable at 2-3-2-6, then you should try increasing CAS to 2.5 (or 3 if that doesn't work) and decreasing RAS# to CAS# to 2 for an overall performance gain. Same goes for el cheapo 3-4-4-8 RAM, if you're checking to see if you got lucky and they gave you a better than average batch, try 3-3-4-8 and 3-3-3-8 first.

Phoenix · 10-21-2005, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sanchek

That's still awfully low.

When I'm running 1280x1024 fraps recordings with sound, I get 30.

Yeah im pretty sure if I dropped it down to 1280x1024 and turn off 8xAF I could probably get 30fps, but Im doing 1680x1050 with 8xAF while recording. That is a huge difference and it shows.

Btw, games look so badass in widescreen!

Eomer · 10-21-2005, 09:58 AM

Yeah, my RAID5 setup is for dedicated storage only. I had originally planned on installing the OS and everythign else on it, and in fact I had, but I soon discovered that RAID5 writes are stupidly slow. We're talking 1/4 as fast as a single drive. And from doing some searching around, it's not really the controller that's the problem (Silicon Image 3114 I think). There was a review somewhere that compared my controller (which is software, not hardware controlled) to very expensive, dedicated controller cards. And it performed as good or better than them in most situations. RAID 5 just sucks dick for writes, I guess.

Once I discovered that, I just bought a 5th hard drive and use that for the OS and games, and the 1tb RAID5 array is used strictly for pr0n storage. Will also rip all my DVDs to it, the second I find a reasonably easy way to do that (holy fuck, I used Gordian Knot a weekend ago and my head nearly exploded, and it took 7 hours to do the decoding/encoding for a 90 minute DVD). Come to think of it, I think I'll start a thread on that.

10-20-2005, 05:03 PM	#1 (permalink)
Malakie Torsade Genocide Engineer Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Georgia Posts: 1,551 +4 Internets	RAID 0 I was going to get a 300 HD and was told I should consider getting 2 150 gig drives and then run a RAID 0. I'm hearing different things from different people, but my understanding is that it should significantly increase performance and should not seriously cut into the amount of space available. Anyone have experience with this? Is it worth the extra hasslel? Also, would it be possible to ghost an exsisting drive onto a RAID 0 array? __________________

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes	Rate This Thread
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode	Rate This Thread:

10-20-2005, 05:11 PM	#2 (permalink)
Eomer You mean I can change this? Neat! Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 10,202 +39 Internets	Absolutely not worth the hassle, nor the doubled risk of losing data. At least, if your primary concern is gaming load times. It may well boot Windows faster, or make some computing tasks a bit faster, but Anandtech did a great article on it awhile back: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/sho...px?i=2101&p=10

10-20-2005, 05:13 PM	#3 (permalink)
Sanchek Registered User Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Atlanta Posts: 266 +0 Internets	It depends on the RAID controller you use. All of the benchmarking I've seen shows that the controllers built into desktop motherboards are worthless. As in a 0-5% increase, at best. You double your chances of failure also. If either disk fails, all the data you stored on that logical drive is gone. Another thing to consider is that depending on what drives you're choosing between, the 300gb could very possibly be faster than the 150s. It has its place definitely, but low cache IDE solutions are nothing but a gimmick.

10-20-2005, 05:16 PM	#4 (permalink)
Eomer You mean I can change this? Neat! Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 10,202 +39 Internets	Theoretical and synthetic benchmarks DO benefit from RAID 0, or other forms of RAID. There's no question of that. My RAID 5 setup at home is significantly faster at reads than a single drive, about 50% faster. But in the vast majority of real world apps it's pointless.

10-20-2005, 08:37 PM	#6 (permalink)
EnigmaticParadigm Is Kermit gunna have to make a bitch go "GLARRRRGH?!" Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Pre World War III America Posts: 2,491 +53 Internets	That settles it. Vorph and Eomer are going to help me build my next computer <3.

10-20-2005, 09:50 PM	#8 (permalink)
Ronne King for a night Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Harvard IL Posts: 4,204 +0 Internets	How is it possibly to get 20fps in WoW? I can't get below 40 no matter how high I set it.

10-21-2005, 09:58 AM	#15 (permalink)
Eomer You mean I can change this? Neat! Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 10,202 +39 Internets	Yeah, my RAID5 setup is for dedicated storage only. I had originally planned on installing the OS and everythign else on it, and in fact I had, but I soon discovered that RAID5 writes are stupidly slow. We're talking 1/4 as fast as a single drive. And from doing some searching around, it's not really the controller that's the problem (Silicon Image 3114 I think). There was a review somewhere that compared my controller (which is software, not hardware controlled) to very expensive, dedicated controller cards. And it performed as good or better than them in most situations. RAID 5 just sucks dick for writes, I guess. Once I discovered that, I just bought a 5th hard drive and use that for the OS and games, and the 1tb RAID5 array is used strictly for pr0n storage. Will also rip all my DVDs to it, the second I find a reasonably easy way to do that (holy fuck, I used Gordian Knot a weekend ago and my head nearly exploded, and it took 7 hours to do the decoding/encoding for a 90 minute DVD). Come to think of it, I think I'll start a thread on that.