RAID WD 500GB SE16

shaneosborne · 20 Jan 2008 at 12:32

I have 2 SATA WD 500GB SE16 HDDs, I was wondering if a RAID setup would be beneficial or faster? If yes, what RAID setup would be the best for my system?

Many thanks all in advance

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schumi84 · 20 Jan 2008 at 12:41

It really depends whether you want faster read/write speed or some fault tolerence.

If it is speed that you want, go for RAID-0 but if one drive fails then you lose the data saved the disks, as it is striped across both. If you're after fault tolerence then go for RAID-1, as if one drive fails you can replace the failed disk and recreate the mirror, as the data is mirrored from one drive to the other.

Speed wise, i find that i get about a 50% speed increase from using 1 disk to using 2 disks in RAID-0. This is in benchmark tests, the only big difference i find in real world use is with loading times of games, esp Doom3.

Pandobear · 20 Jan 2008 at 12:41

It really depends on how you use your system, both are striping and mirroring are likely to be faster, however mirroring will half your storage space but provide protection to your data, while striping will retain your storage space but double your chance of data loss. Striping is almost twice as fast for read/writes than a signel dirve, mirroring can be the same speed, or upto double the speed for reads than a single drive, depending on how efficent the raid controller is.

I hope that this helps you decide.

shaneosborne · 20 Jan 2008 at 13:29

Would you recommend using the Intel Raid Controller or the Gigabyte? I am going to go for RAID0 and make regular backups to a USB Storage Device I have.

Can you recommend any Wireless Storage Devices where I can set windows to make regular backups in the background or overnight?

Thanks schumi84 and Pandobear

schumi84 · 20 Jan 2008 at 20:25

I have just moved over from the gigabyte raid to the intel raid and havent noticed a difference really in either real world performance or benchmarking.

When i had my 965 DS3 i think i only had the option for gigabyte raid, now with my ds4 i have 4 sata ports with the intel raid so can modify if needs be.

With regards to the wireless storage, i think you can get wireless NAS drives which you can add to the network and then either use windows own back up program or get something like Symantec Backup Exec, and schedule it to backup.

Hope this helps.