First raid setup advice

JeffyB

JeffyB

JeffyB

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I have decided that I would like to give raid a go. Looking to buy 2 or 3 wd 250/320gb RE3's and run them in raid 0. I have read a few good articles on raid and think I will be fine getting it set up, i am however wondering what is the best stripe size for an array that is primarily used for the os and games. Thanks for any help and advice you give.
 
Gets asked often here, 16KB-32KB (more so 32KB today as Windows+Apps are bigger).

You do lots of Video work then 64+ upwards.

You want massive E-Peen and need defag daily then 4KB. :p
 
JeffyB said:
Defragging daily with 4kb sounds a bit of a chore how often would a 32kb setup need to be defragged?
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Obv I am exaggerating but it will fragment more frequently. :p

I cant answer that Q as it depends how often you Change (Add/Delete) files to/from the HDD.

If your files remain unchanged for long periods of times the HDD will not need Defragged as much.
 
JeffyB said:
I have decided that I would like to give raid a go. Looking to buy 2 or 3 wd 250/320gb RE3's and run them in raid 0. I have read a few good articles on raid and think I will be fine getting it set up, i am however wondering what is the best stripe size for an array that is primarily used for the os and games. Thanks for any help and advice you give.
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In my personal opinion, I would do this:

1. Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

2. Treat your first setup as disposable and go and have a play with RAID setups and Hard Drive benchmark programs (HDTach, HD Tune, ATTO, etc) :)

3. Come back and ask us questions :)
 
Thanks i had already read that and the 3 articles or raid on tomshardware. Once i have it all set up im sure i'll be back for some more of your expertise,
 
Bought 3x250 re3's looking forward to an adventure, is 32k my best striping option for os and games?

I have both intel files ( 8.6.0.1007 10/23/2008 ) can anyone point me in the right direction for installation i have a floppy drive but its never seemed to want to work on my mobo can i use flash media?

Any help is greatly apreciated i have searched and would like some specific help, thanks all :)
 
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If you are using Vista then you should not need an additional drive to get it to boot and load, it has a simple one built in. It is however worthwhile loading the latest Intel one as soon as Vista is loaded. IF you are using XP then you will need the floppy drive, unless you 'slipstream' the drivers
 
From my experience you will need the floppy drive for XP, you may be able to use a usb floppy though, if you can borrow one.
 
Sure i can sort the floppy drive out, on another note looking in the maximus formula manual it only refers to 2 drives for raid 0 will i definately be able to use 3?
 
I'm a bit lost at the mo, i have the "32-bit Floppy Configuration Utility" but cannot for the life of me find F6flp32.exe that the read me says i need. Also i am not sure what to do with the "Intel Matrix Storage Manager" there are 2 files do i need both. If anyone could help wouold be appreciated i have searched but its not that clear to me and my drives are arriving tomorrow :)
 
JeffyB said:
Sure i can sort the floppy drive out, on another note looking in the maximus formula manual it only refers to 2 drives for raid 0 will i definately be able to use 3?
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If it was me, I'd use raid 5 with 3 drives. Gives you both benefits of speed and redundancy ie you won't lose everything is one of the drives dies.

Only downside is losing the equivalent of 1 drive capacity for parity data
 
JeffyB said:
I have considered raid 5 and like the idea of the added security, is it as fast as raid 0?
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Reads are as fast as RAID0 with one disk less in array.
Writing is slower because it involves first calculating parity data and then writing also it. Writing smaller files than summed stripe size in array is much slower because of additional read operations needed before parity can be calculated.
 
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