raid 1+0 on raptors

elfy · 8 May 2007 at 11:35

raid 1+0(raid 5?) on raptors

hi there, was thinking of getting a pair of 36gb and a 74gb raptors in a raid 1+0 array and wanted peoples thoughts on the matter

i've already got a large drive for storage and woud just be using these for windows. would the performance actually be any better than just mirroring a pair of 36/74gb raptors?

edit: or possibly raid5?

Dist · 8 May 2007 at 12:08

if this is not for storage and is just windows + apps, then why do you need raid 1? if there was data that you needed backed up i could understand, but a windows/apps drive isnt realy critical and anything that is lost could easily be installed again.

so maybe just use raid 0 if you want to raid, because itll be cheaper as yourll only need 2 drives instead of 4 for raid 10. also, if you use different size drives in a raid 10 array then the larger size drives will only hold up to the small size drive, ie a 74gb raptor would only hold 36gb if used in a array with a 36gb raptor.

rpstewart · 8 May 2007 at 13:06

elfy said:
hi there, was thinking of getting a pair of 36gb and a 74gb raptors in a raid 1+0 array and wanted peoples thoughts on the matter i've already got a large drive for storage and woud just be using these for windows. would the performance actually be any better than just mirroring a pair of 36/74gb raptors?

edit: or possibly raid5?

To do RAID1+0 you need 4 identical disks, you can't mirror a RAID0 array onto a single drive. If you already have a storage drive then as suggested above just go for RAID0 and backup regularly to the other disk.

RAID5 again you'll need at least 3 identical disks. Unless you're considering spending £300 on a decent controller card don't consider it for a boot drive, the write speeds are woeful with onboard controllers due to the lack of dedicated parity calculation hardware.

elfy · 8 May 2007 at 17:46

well that all sounds like a spanking brilliant advice. if i went raid 0 with a pair of raptors for doze mainly what kind of strip size would i want? 32K since my games storage and scratch disks etc would be on the seperate disk?

lay-z-boy · 8 May 2007 at 23:49

Stick with a 64k size, best all round general performance.

elfy · 9 May 2007 at 08:37

silly question probably, but can stripe size be changed without having to rebuild/reinstall the array/windows?

rpstewart · 9 May 2007 at 09:22

elfy said:
silly question probably, but can stripe size be changed without having to rebuild/reinstall the array/windows?

Changing the stripe size will wipe the contents of the array but you can use Arconis True Image or the like to create an image of the array, change the stripe size and then restore the image back again rather than having to reinstall.

elfy · 9 May 2007 at 15:36

awesome, you get the elvish thumbs up for helpfullness