Do Raid setups really make a difference?

[McSeven]

I have been reading around the Internet and it seems that a 10% to 15% gain is possible. But as you add drives to the Raid setup, because of the added delay in rotation time for the added disk(s) the gain decreases.

Does anyone have some real stats on using Raid setups?

Is it worth using SSD's in a Raid setup?

 

[chev65]

People will tell you that RAID 0 isn't worth it, don't listen to them. Just because they had bad luck with it doesn't mean that you too.

SSD's really shine when you RAID them together although most onboard controllers will not keep up once you add more than 3 drives. For more than three drives you really do need an onboard PCI Raid controller.

I've been running RAID 0 for over three years now without any problems at all.

 

[pparks1]

A RAID 0 can be useful in some circumstances. For example, if you are always copying and moving around very large files (1GB+), the increased write speeds are very beneficial.

However, for running the operating system...where small read/writes are the majority of your use....they don't make that big of a difference.

Now, with RAID 0 you always have to be willing to tolerate data loss....because if you lose 1 of the drives..you will lose all of the data. You have to evaluate your backup practices and whether the gains are worth this extra risk.

Now, SSD's make a huge difference because there is such a reduced amount of access times. These things are less than 1/10 of a millisecond....That blows away any mechanical drive and outperforms any RAID configuration as well. This is a huge benefit to running an OS as it's small reads/writes that happen randomly.

I've found the best bang for me is an SSD for the OS and a 1TB WD Black for my storage drive.