RAID whats that?

--- Z ---

--- Z ---

--- Z ---

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907
Location
Andover, Hampshire
Ok, not quite as the title says but I do have a problem. Just ordered my new rig and its arriving today, going to install everything tonight:
Q6600
Asus P5K premium
2x2GB OCZ reaper RAM
8800 GTX
2x500GB Seagates 32MB cashe

Was going to put the 2 hdd's ina raid set up, RAID0 i belive is the fastest - as im after fast loading time on applications like Photoshop CS3 etc. But i have a couple of questions:
1) will this speed increase be noticable over just installing the OS on a single drive and having the other drive as storage? (i have 3 other 500gb drices as well as storage which i will add in later to this rig)

2) what happens if something goes wrong on on of the drives? do i loose data on both the drives?

3)Do applicatoins still get saved to the "C" drive - and are they easy to find if i need to acess the directories?

4) Am i right in thinking that to install a RAID0 array - when installing OS (vista ultimate 64) i choose to set up the array, specify raid0 then format both drives as a normal windows instalation?


Would really appreciate your help in this people. And if you know of a fool-proof guide to installing a raid setup please can you point me in the right direction. I have searched on the forums but couldnt find anything - could be me though.

many thanks in advance
 
Take a look at the FAQ at the top of this forum. It describes RAID principles very well and answers most of your questions. If you want more detailed info, check out raid on Wikipedia.
 
--- Z --- said:
Ok, not quite as the title says but I do have a problem. Just ordered my new rig and its arriving today, going to install everything tonight:
Q6600
Asus P5K premium
2x2GB OCZ reaper RAM
8800 GTX
2x500GB Seagates 32MB cashe

Was going to put the 2 hdd's ina raid set up, RAID0 i belive is the fastest - as im after fast loading time on applications like Photoshop CS3 etc. But i have a couple of questions:
1) will this speed increase be noticable over just installing the OS on a single drive and having the other drive as storage? (i have 3 other 500gb drices as well as storage which i will add in later to this rig)

2) what happens if something goes wrong on on of the drives? do i loose data on both the drives?

3)Do applicatoins still get saved to the "C" drive - and are they easy to find if i need to acess the directories?

4) Am i right in thinking that to install a RAID0 array - when installing OS (vista ultimate 64) i choose to set up the array, specify raid0 then format both drives as a normal windows instalation?


Would really appreciate your help in this people. And if you know of a fool-proof guide to installing a raid setup please can you point me in the right direction. I have searched on the forums but couldnt find anything - could be me though.

many thanks in advance
Click to expand...

1) raid 0, should be faster than a single drive, but many people debate this, take a look around the forum for treads like "to raid or not to raid"

2)I a disc fails in a raid 0 array, you are screwed, you will lose all your data. I don't believe there is any way to get it back, without a backup.

3)when you install anything, you can choose where to install it, but they should run faster on the raid 0, and they are only programs, as for documents you can change XP/vista settings to move things around.

4)you set the array up in the raid bios, its ctrl+I on my board (it should be the same on yours), or the install sees a load of discs.
 
:DBUG SPRAY HAHA I am liking that LMAO
product_rfik.jpg
 
Hey I've got another question to add to this - I currently have 2 160gb's in RAID0 with my OS and programs stored on it, and a seperate 400GB for data like photos etc.

How easy would it be to add in another identical 160gb HD and change the array to RAID5? Would it require an OS reinstall and would it impact the performance?
 
Rhodri2311 said:
How easy would it be to add in another identical 160gb HD and change the array to RAID5? Would it require an OS reinstall and would it impact the performance?
Click to expand...
Whether you could migrate to RAID5 is dependent on your RAID controller supporting RAID level migration, some do, some don't.

Performance wise it will probably be a fair downgrade. A three disk RAID5 array will have a read performance similar to a two disk RAID0 array but the write performance will be very poor unless you have a decent hardware RAID controller. If you have the swapfile on the array then it will be especially painfull.

Small scale RAID5 doesn't buy you very much, all it provides is availability in the event of a disk failure. There is still a need for a proper backup as well.
 
Well I make it a point to not keep anything on the RAID array that I couldn't bare to lose, so if it did fail guess I'd just have to go through a complete reinstall. RAID5 doesn't sound worth it for my needs really - and RAID0+1 seems like overkill, thanks for the help.
 
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