To RAID or not to RAID

Saxon

Saxon

Saxon

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Joined
10 Jan 2007
Posts
134
I was just wondering when I get my rig up and running whether or not to configure my HDs for RAID?

I'll be using 2 Raptor x 150Gig Drives.

A couple of points I'll make are:

1. I'll be playing games
2. I'll be using Cinema 4D 10 / Photoshop CS2 etc a lot
3. I have encrypted partitions for work

I plan on sticking with my current format of C: (windows only partition) D: (Programs only Partition) E: All my .Zip and .Rar archives for installation and F: will be the encrypted partiton for work.

Raptor Disk 1 will have C: and D: on it
Raptor Disk 2 will have E: and F:

Now will RAID be worth it, or will my performance be fine as normal?

Also, what is the difference between Raid 0 / 1 / 5 etc as I can do either.

Cheers!
 
imho partioning a raid drive especially raid 0 is hardly worth it! especially if you are running apps from one and loading/saving files from another partition.

Raid 0 is built for speed and partitioning it can cause it to slow down if all accessed at the same time.

Raid 0 = fast with no redundancy (total storage 300Gb)
raid 1 = the same information store on both drives so if one fails you have a backup (total storage 150GB)
Raid 5 = you need 3 disk minimum for this. it strips the data over the drives but unlike raid 0 you can retrieve your data if a disk fails.
 
Cheers for that, I'm assuming it will still be fast with my non-RAID setup with the 2 Raptors in?

I was only thinking about RAID as it seems everyone is using it nowadays.

Maybe I could get 3 drives, use RAID 0 on the first 2 (windows and programs) and use the third disc as a separate for my backups etc. But if there's not going to be that much of a noticeable speed increase I think I'll just leave it.
 
If you've got three drives then my inclination would be to use one for OS & programs and the other two in a RAID1 for the data. Ask yourself what on the PC really matters if it's lost. I'm not sure there's any real benefit in separating OS and programs if they're still on the same physical disk but there's certainly no harm in it. I like to keep things simple so my standard setup is two large drives in a RAID1.

Jonathan
 
My current setup is one disk split into 3 partitions (C, D, E) with an external backup drive.

I have C for Windows only which has about 3 gig spare at all times (seeing as windows grows in size with junk) - The reason I have windows separate is for defrag purposes (doesn't take as long to just defrag Windows if thats all that is needed). If Windows fails, I just format C and reinstall.

D has my programs on. Again I can just defrag this partition if I've installed a large game etc. If windows fails, I leave D alone and then simply reinstall my programs over their original folders. This is basically so I don't have to set up my preferences on some of them again.

E has all my zip and rar files to install programs from (no cd's needed etc), as well as my encrypted passwords and saved files such as photoshop files etc.

My external drive has a backup of E.
 
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