Does RAID 1 Offer a Performance increase?

mattfinch

mattfinch

mattfinch

Associate
Joined
30 Aug 2008
Posts
183
Location
Bristol
Now I know that RAID0 is supposed to bring massive performance increases over a single drive, but does RAID1 offer any such performance increase?
 
Read speeds can be quicker if the controller supports split seeks but that tends to only help random accesses rather than sustained transfers.

I used to run RAID1 on an NF4 board and the writes weren't great compared to a single drive so it didn't last long before I went back to RAID0.
 
bledd. said:
i might be totally wrong as i read this on here..

read speeds can be quicker? or is that bs..
Click to expand...

As rpstewart says they can be quicker if the controller supports it but it tends to be higher end products that do, onboard chips aren't likely to.

I'd also point out that Raid0 doesn't necessarily create a massive performance increase, it very much depends on the uses the drive(s) will be put to whether it is worthwhile. If you're dealing with large contiguous blocks of files (photo/video/audio editing etc) then it is much more likely to be of benefit than if you were running an ordinary office PC say.
 
Although RAID 1 can offer quick reads, write speed is reduced.
Not a major problem as the majority of your work will be reading and its only in rare conditions you actually "need" fast writes.
However the difference isn't going to be "night & day" - in fact you'll probably not even notice it, even more so if you're simply using the onboard RAID controllers found on all motherboards these days.

Use these RAID solutions to give yourself some kind of redundency, but if you want the best performing RAID arrays you need to splash out on dedicated cards etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom