not installing properly, one HDD may not be recognized properly

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  1.    #11

    If you want speed I'd get an SSD. RAID confers no advantages I know of. At least try single HD to see for yourself.

    You may be able to get RAID to install Win7 if you wipe the array with Diskpart Clean Command first.
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  2. Posts : 48
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    Thread Starter
       #12

    roger that.

    yea i use RAID 0 (double the read/write and volume) it's a little risky as there is not way to secure the drive if info is lost its all gone but i back everything up over night.

    during the day the double speeds really do come in handy when working with 200-300 mb SolidWorks CAD files. saving them takes many minutes and the advantage over single HD is very noticable.

    i may use my 60gb SSD to be a boot drive and just RAID 0 the other two as a secondary drive if i still cant get it to work but that is a pain in the butt changing all the default install locations everytime something gets installed
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  3.    #13

    Where did you get the idea that RAID0 doubles read/write speeds?

    Have you used WIn7 without the dated, unnecessary and risky RAID?

    What else would you use an SSD for except your OS drive where it counts?
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  4. Posts : 48
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    Thread Starter
       #14

    raid 0 stripes the data into data blocks and when files are larger... such as my CAD files that reach into the 300mb per file area that single file is split up into 64kb chunks and the chunks alternate on which physical drive they are saved on. chunk a gets written on drive 1 at the SAME TIME that chunk b gets written on drive 2

    this means when saving a 300 mb file each physical drive only saves 150mb of it when in RAID 0 and doing them at the same time cuts the write time in half.

    here is a video with slightly better description: skip to 2:15 or so for RAID 0 description
    CompTIA A+ 220-601 (3.1), 220-602 (3.1) - Configuring RAID - YouTube

    same thing applies for reading the data

    i have a total of 400gb of cad files so they suck up a lot of space hence the RAID 0 instead of RAID 1

    these have always been the advantages of RAID 0 and 1, great for boosting performance with the addition of a little risk of data loss hence the use of my 1tb nightly back up drive.


    my SSD is used for games where data is actively loaded such as ARMA 2, this decreases game stutter and lag tremendously
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  5.    #15

    I'd heard the RAID is best for handling large video files for editing, so perhaps this is similar.
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  6. Posts : 48
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    Thread Starter
       #16

    Raid is good for any multi HD setup really there are great advantages to each type of raid available, just depends what your looking for
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  7. Posts : 2,171
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       #17

    CovertDeath said:
    ... these have always been the advantages of RAID 0 and 1, great for boosting performance with the addition of a little risk of data loss hence the use of my 1tb nightly back up drive...
    Just curious, is it true hardware based RAID0 you're using? Meaning no offloading of processing outside of the RAID hardware itself. That's the only way I've noticed where you can get close to double speed reads/writes.

    I note you've already given this some consideration, but you could think of RAID0 as being prone to double the chance of total data loss compared to a single drive, as failure of either drive blows it all away. I realize that's still fairly low risk, just mention it as something to think about.

    RAID1 on the other hand would be half or less the risk (but no speed benefits for reads/writes). Half or less the risk meaning you would have to lose both drives before losing any data.

    Then there are more possible points of failure if you consider the hardware/software complexities used to manage the arrays.
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  8. Posts : 48
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    Thread Starter
       #18

    currently yes i'm using hardware raid setup off an old RAID card from a friend, with this i'm seeing roughly %90 improvements for read and write.

    software RAID wasn't all that bad on my setup though, it showed %75-%80 improvement for read write speeds.

    and yes raid 0 is conceptually double the chance of data loss compared to single drive and raid 1 is half the chance. although with raid 1 as you mentioned WRITE speed is the same as single drive speeds since both disks are copies, but READ speed is doubled when in raid 1, the controller reads striped data from both drives, alternating information so you get it twice as fast. this is the true advantage of raid 1.

    although i am thinking of switching to a RAID 5 setup sometime in the future if i get another 500gb HDD

    this is truly the advantages of both worlds, no data is lost until TWO drives of the three fail. you get the capacity of 2 of three drives and you get double read/write speeds basically its raid 0 but you add another HDD in there for data security


    on another note looks like i need to update my PC hardware lol, specs are a lil dated
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  9. Posts : 2,171
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       #19

    I gotcha. Just wanted to raise awareness of the increased chances of failure. Obviously you've done your homework on it, and set things up as you see fit. I've seen folks who wanted RAID setups, had RAID setups, oftentimes because of all the good stuff they've heard about RAID without seriously taking into account it's disadvantages. In most situations the benefits they achieve with it are not even being realized because of the way they use their machines. Some seem to think mirroring qualifies as backup. And then there's management of the array that sometimes goes awry.

    I mentioned the RAID1 read/write performance as no improvement as some RAID systems do not take advantage of the ability to do simultaneous reads. I'm pretty sure those were all software based RAIDs though.

    I've not messed with many software based RAID0's but I'm surprised to hear of the level of performance you've observed. I've never done any "benchmarking", but it seems about the best I've estimated was somewhat less than 50%. 75 - 80% is really pretty darn good.
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