Can you install software raid 0 for c:?

[Brink]

Nice choice Billy.

I agree Parks. The low access times really help with the seek times.

 

[billybowden]

Yeah I think it will be a good choice in terms of performance not so great for the pocket in terms of dollars per Gig. I noticed the the Westurn Digital Cavier 1TB is now selling for $100 that is sweet value.

Wouldn't buy a seagate no matter how cheap it was, my seagate barracuda 7200.11 is so loud when it does something you just about need ear muffs on.

 

[cowpatty]

performance gains from RAID 0

Thanks Brink so it sounds like you are saying that if your motherboard does not support hardware raid then you can use a dedicated raid controller and this will work, would you expect to configure the raid in the bios after installing the device?

I am wanting to do it for performance not redundancy.

What kind of performance gains have you seen with RAID before?

I am seeing a lot of good information about RAID 0. This body of information seems to be getting a "little sticky" depending up the job you need to do, HHD or SSD, selection of PCI board, etc. I am a new member to seven-forums, but there seems to be a spirit of experimenting [at seven-forum] our self on your own work benches. This experimenting our self can, determine how to spec out our new build. Am I correct? Cowpatty

 

[pparks1]

RAID0 with spinning hard drives can make a significant performance increase. However, since you have 2 drives, you have twice the chance of failure and will lose all of your data.

Personally, I think RAID0 works great in a situation where you need a very fast drive subsystem to store data files. AND you have a solid backup system in place to recover in the event that one of your drives dies. Working with large video files and photoshop files can benefit greatly as the raw throughput increases significantly since you have multiple drives servicing the request. So, being able to copy a file from one folder to another is much, much faster.

However, in the event of an operating system...I think the performance gains are best had by extremely low access times...versus high throughput. The OS is far more active with small reads and writes than it is with large continuous reads/writes. So, the real benefit of an SSD drive is the very low access time.

So, why not RAID0 two SSD drives? Because that doesn't improve access times..and while it does increase raw throughput...if you aren't using the drives for storage...what's the point of being able to right so fast?? Unless you want to completely fill your SSD drives in less than 2 minutes.

 

[cowpatty]

Thank you for sharing the results of your experiments with the new members. This is when Forums, not unlike in real life are at their best. cowpatty

 

[madtownidiot]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using RAID 0 on spinning HDDs. I've built several computers that use RAID 0 for the OS. They've been no less reliable than any other computer and they're quite a bit faster in than the same hardware would be in a non-RAID setup. Most of the problems I've seen with RAID were a direct result of trying to set it up on hardware that wasn't designed for it, using cheap HDDs & add-on RAID controllers. "You get what you pay for" is just as applicable to computer hardware as anything else. If you want higher performance that's reliable, you have to pay for it. There are limitations with SSDs. They have a shorter lifespan than spinning HDDs, and usually have much more asymmetrical R/W speeds than spinning HDDs. Also, the cost per GB for a SSD is still a lot higher than with enterprise class HDDs. I wouldn't recommend setting up RAID on anything less.

 

[cowpatty]

Dear madtownidiot; THANK YOU for sharing your direct experience. Could you please elaborate on the last sentence. "I wouldn't recommend setting up RAID on anything less" are you recommending going with Enterprise class HDDs?] Cowpatty