So why is RAID-0 good for my video files?

pilsburypie

pilsburypie

pilsburypie

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Thanks to all for explaining RAID to me but this has put a few extra thoughts in my head. My HDDs will be used for storing my large photo and video files on. As I'm purchasing a high spec fast machine, I'm after all parts being as fast as possible, hence the thought of RAID-0 for the HDD storage.

I'm aware RAID-0 writes little bits to each disk, but how is this helped on large continuous files? Wouldn't it take more time and effort to split them up into little bits rather than continuous files all in the same place?

Thoughts appreciated as you can probably tell my technical knowledge is lacking:p
 
what happens is a hard drive has a maximum throughput, say 100MBps

now if we put them into R0 and copy data to them, each one gets each alternate bit, so i effect we are transferring the data at 200MBps

it not like the computer has to chop up the files before transfer, it all happens on the fly - but beware if one drive fails, youve potentially lost ALL of your data because each drive only has half the bits
 
Oh yeah, I'm aware of the fail risk..... but how often do drives fail? (where I now hear all the horror stories). Back up is my friend.

Thanks for your explanation
 
How long is a piece of string, sometimes a drive can fail really fast and some drives last until they are long obselete. How big are these picture files and do you plan on viewing them regulary? and also are you planning on editing the video with this machine? if not then having a fast HD subsystem for storage is a waste.
 
Last edited:
DIABLO said:
How long is a piece of string, sometimes a drive can fail really fast and some drives last until they are long obselete.
Click to expand...

Sure thing. As I said, I am almost doubling my chance of loosing data spread over the 2 HDDs, but if I backup (as I always have with 1 HDD) there is no risk......
 
Raid 0 is not only dependant on the drives themselves not failing, sometimes software/drivers for the controllers can mess it up just as bad and a controller can fail too, end result is the same. Also i think you're confusing video editing/capturing with actually storing the files, for storage and playback RAID 0 won't make much difference.
 
Yes because when you're editing a file it all has to be loaded into memory all at once hence the faster the harddrive the faster the video or what ever can be loaded into memory. If you're looking at picture sure it has to be loaded all at once but pictures generally arn't very big but if you're just watching a video the video is streamed from the harddrive as you watch it and even the slowest single drive can keep up fine with that.
 
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