To RAID or not to RAID..

b.cummins

b.cummins

b.cummins

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23 Mar 2006
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Guildford, Surrey
After cruising various sites, reading the epic flame wars and various FAQs.. I'm in fact 100% less certain what to do than I was before I started to investigate!

I'm after some good input really. As in reasons why to do whatever option. So without further ado ->

ATM - my hard drive array is 2x 74gb raptors, in RAID 0, with 1x 250gb storage drive.

ok so this is basically 2 different changes i may or may not make; first of all im giving my 250gb drive to my gf since I require more storage and I'm nice lol.

i wanna keep to raptors for my boot drive, and saddle up half a terrabyte of storage space.
1st dilemma - thinking of selling the 2 drives and replacing them with 1 150gb raptor - i hear the performance difference is negligible and there's the bonus of less hassle with 1 drive and no raid load on boot up - some places even say 1 big raptor outperforms 2 in RAID 0 but who knows?! do you?

second thing is - im considering a hitachi desktar TK500 500gb drive - given its the second best performer according to SR - and pretty much everywhere else. Alas im hearing its a wee bit delicate and not sturdy like the old WD's. so do i go for the WD 500gb drive - or should i consider raiding 2x 250gb drives? choices, choices!

so im down to several possibilities -

1. 2xraptor 74gb RAID 0 & 1 x desktar 500gb
2. 2xraptor 74gb RAID 0 & 2 x WD RE 16mb 250gb RAID 0
3. 2xraptor 74gb RAID 0 & 1 x WD RE 16mb 500gb
4. 1xraptor 150gb & 1 x desktar 500gb
5. 1xraptor 150gb & 1 x WD RE 16mb 250gb RAID 0
6. 1xraptor 150gb & 1 x WD RE 16mb 500gb

Frankly I'd say it boils down to a dual raid set up or 2 bigger drives.. id be really grateful to finally get on the right track! thanks for ** time!
 
For me, it'd be:

6. 1xraptor 150gb & 1 x WD RE 16mb 500gb

A single raptor is more than enough for most people; and the WD provides enough space for more permanent storage. You might want to get 2 and put them in RAID1 (or 3 in RAID5 if the controller supports it) to make backups a bit eaisier.
 
yeah that's the configuration i'd like to go for myself tbh - you know how much performance loss there is between 2x 74gb RAID i got now changing to a 150gb single?
 
so does anyone else have an opinion on this cos i'm getting next to no input! tho thanks to the guy who posted. Seriously I've tried everywhere!
 
I've read somewhere that 2x74gb raptor on Raid 0 does not provide a lot of performance gain.

I'm currently running a single 74gb raptor and a 320gb seagate for storage.

Just some food for thought. And i've been planning for a long time for a file server. And i'm planning I'll be using my Pentium M setup and store all my spare hdds and add SATA controllers when i get more hdds, connect it to my router and act as a file/printer/download server. Then my main rig running only a single 74gb raptor will then access the shared files on the server. Therefore, if you have a spare rig lying around, you might wanna consider this option.
 
b.cummins said:
some places even say 1 big raptor outperforms 2 in RAID 0 but who knows?! do you?
Click to expand...

from the reviews i read when i was looking at getting a raptor they all showed the 74gb 16mb cache raptor ever so slightly faster that the 150gb raptor
 
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