Is RAID 0 worth it?

fire_munki · 6 Mar 2010 at 21:01

I've been given two 80Gb 7200rpm discs.
My new mainboard ( Gigaybyte GA-EP45-UD3LR) now has RAID. For normal everyday use would I see any boosts running my windows install in a RAID 0 format over these discs?
One disc is a Maxtor and the other a Barracuda.
Also silly question how difficult is it to set up RAID if you've never used it?

cmndr_andi · 6 Mar 2010 at 21:06

I'm pretty sure you want to be using the exact same disks when making a RAID array. I don't think combining a maxtor and a barracuda will work.

Also, what interface do these disks use, IDE or SATA.

And finally, what is your current system disk?

fire_munki · 6 Mar 2010 at 21:17

Both SATA drives. Currently on a Maxtor 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm with 32MB Cache.
I'd be installing windows Vista HP 64.

cmndr_andi · 6 Mar 2010 at 21:22

Ah, cool. In that case I would certainly stick with the single 500GB drive. It will have a much higher density platters and more cache than the 80GBs, so even if you could get the 80GBs to RAID 0 - the 500GB would still be faster. Also, a system with a single OS disk boots up faster than one using an OS RAID array.

jagga · 7 Mar 2010 at 01:40

raid0 on ssd pwns of course its worth it

Tweaker · 7 Mar 2010 at 03:57

RAID 0 on mechanical hard drives is not going to give a huge boost. The main reason the WD sold the Raptor series was to increase boot time over conventional HDDs, 2 normal 7200RPM drives is not going to benefit you enough for the potential hassle if one fails.

kevlar · 7 Mar 2010 at 13:52

4 X SAMSUNG F3 500GIG...WRITE CACHE ENABLED

mast3r · 8 Mar 2010 at 12:35

i have always used the rule of never have the same disks in an array, Well same brand disks.

Never had any issues, but using that rule i have never exp. with two drives of the same flavour.