RAID0 Performance increases?

[xen_]

Hi, I have 2*200GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA and 1 250GB of the same but IDE.

I'm thinking of raid configuring the 2 200GB drives in RAID 0, I'm just wondering what real performance increases (if any) there are? I have googled it but they seem to get mixed reviews, some saying it doesn't really make much of a difference for home use and some saying there is noticeable benefit from it.

I know of the reliability problems of RAID0 and if one drive fails all data on both will be lost, but the 250GB drive is more for storing and backing up important stuff and I would just use the RAID drive for windows, paging file, and other installs like games. So if the data does get lost, it's a pain to replace things but no big deal as it's not important stuff.

Also I would just like to know if the drives I have a good for RAID0 on a Gigabyte DS3.

Cheers ,

 

[xen_]

Thanks for the feedback everyone .

I have just reinstalled windows on RAID0, I will tell you if it's any better after testing it out later or tomorrow.

 

[xen_]

I have noticed a difference actually , installers seem to go faster, and certain load times are improved. They are minor improvements though, no real significant changes. If you have 3 hard drives or more like me I would recommend putting 2 of them in RAID0 and use the 3rd one to back things up. But I wouldn't recommend it if you only have the 2 drives encase one breaks, it's just probably not worth it as performance increases are noticeable but nothing special.

 

[xen_]

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2974&p=5
Game loading difference is only 3% betwwen single drive and RAID 0

I have a RAID 0 setup and the time I notice it most is when moving files around on the drives/partitions.

Yeah I read that article before trying it, but I also read one that did some tests and sort of said that anandtech article wasn't completely true, thats why I said I saw some mixed reviews on the topic .

Still building & waiting for parts myself so have been
Anyway the question is, how can you improve the perfomance yet again on RAID0 would a 3rd drive in RAID0 give a boost to bandwidth yet again?

Hmm I guess it would, but I wouldn't recommend it, I think it would be a waste of the hard drive, the difference from going from 1 HDD to 2 in RAID0 isn't huge, so I doubt having a 3rd in RAID0 would be worth it, you probably wouldn't notice any difference unless you were running a large file server or something.

Overall I am a little disappointed with the speed increase and I will propably go with a single large drive next time.

Good point, getting a single large drive is probably better and cheaper, I don't think it is a good idea to buy 2 drives specifically for RAID. I didn't buy my drives just for RAID, I've had them for a while and just decided to try it. If you already have the drives it's a OK thing to do for the extra performance, but I wouldn't choose to do it as part of a new build.