RAID advice needed

[MoNkeE]

My mate had some problems recently with his computer - it's a Dell (Dimension 9150) with a RAID controller built into the motherboard, giving him the option of RAID 0 or RAID 1. It was initially set on RAID 0 when he received the computer, but after it corrupt a few days he decided to set it up on RAID 1. He says he's getting some decreased performance, but I don't know about RAID controllers.

Basically, does anyone know if RAID 1 decreases the performace of the computer significantly, such as startup speed?

-RaZ

 

[rpstewart]

RAID 1 will appear to be slower than RAID 0 simply due to the way the data is laid out on the disks.

With RAID 0 the data is split between each disk so each physical drive only supplies half the file - hence it arrives quicker.

RAID 1 on the other hand duplicates the data on both disks so to retrieve a file it comes off one or other, not both - hence is slower than RAID 0


In summary RAID 0 gives space and performance at the expense of reliability (one drive dies all data is lost). RAID 1 compromises space and performance for reliability (2 drives used but only space equivalent to one available).

 

[Jimi]

Tell him to get rid of RAID and just use JBOD. RAID offers little to no performance increase over JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) when used in home / gaming computer use and as previously stated, RAID 0 is less reliable.

Show your mate this article AnandTech did.