Performance difference under raid-0 vs normal (and Intel Matrix raid?)

[qpan]

I assume a few of you use raid configs in your setups?

Now that HD prices are so low, i was thinking of going raid-0 (160GB sataII hdd's only £35! maxtor tho...).

Did you guys notice much difference in things such as windows boot time when switching to raid (from single disk)?

Also, would there be much diff in sataI raid or sataII raid? (my mobo only supports sata1).

Something for the future - how's intel matrix raid? It seems like the best of both worlds and from what i can see performance seems up to scratch too!

What is reliability like? Do they need to be rebuilt if e.g. i have to forefully switch off my PC and how long does it take?

Cheers!

Qi

 

[Phnom_Penh]

Firstly, what'd you mean by Raid0 or normal Raid? I've always considered Raid0 to be normal raid .

Secondly, Sata II will be a lot faster, (as long as you have Sata II drives).

 

[qpan]

Firstly, what'd you mean by Raid0 or normal Raid? I've always considered Raid0 to be normal raid .

Secondly, Sata II will be a lot faster, (as long as you have Sata II drives).

Lol - sorry, probably badly worded - by normal i mean single drive!

 

[FragTek]

RAID 0 can greatly increase your load time performance of just about anything. I noticed a considerable jump going from a single Raptor to dual Raptors, especially in MMO's where there are quite a few zone loads, etc. I would always be the first to zone in and such, same goes for game loads with CS:S and the likes. Windows load times improved as well. RAID really is a wonderful thing. I highly suggest you go with a SATA 3gb/s RAID setup if you're going to do it, it's throughput is much higher and will give you just that much more performance when RAIDed.

 

[Pyr0]

hehe, the Intel Martix RAID is really clever and performs very well if you configure it to use 2 arrays on the same drives, but it can give some crazy burst results in HDTach

The results below were from 2x80GB Hitachi Deskstar SATA2 drives, running with 2x80GB RAID0 volumes

It's also possible to mix the types of RAID, such as RAID0 and RAID1 volumes on the same array.

or with enough hard drives, something like RAID0 for boot and RAID 5 for security and storage

Writeback Cache ON



Writeback Cache OFF



http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/cs-020681.htm

 

[qpan]

Cool - thanks for the info! I've got a new 160GB sataI hdd, so just went and bought a sataII one (same make, slightly different interface) as i couldn't find a matching sata I drive. Hopefully they will work OK together - my motherboard only supports sataI raid (has 2 sataI ports and 1 sata2 port) so i'll have to take a small performance hit.

Hopefully it'll all be ok!

Bought an Arctic Cooling AMD freezer 64 cooler for my CPU and an ATI silencer for my radeon just to keep my system quiet until i upgrade my entire system in say half a year or so.

Including delivery and a 3.5" external sata to usb enclosure, only cost £80 all together!