What would be best/fastest for a RAID drive config?

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I can't work out the best way to set my new system up...

Drives will be as follows:

2 x WD 160gb SATA2 drives RAID-0 for system
1 x WD 250gb SATA2 drive for storage

Now, obviously it's a no-brainer to set up XP on the RAID-0 array, but for speed would it be best to install software/games on the same RAID array, or on the 250gb drive? (which I intended and would prefer to use only for file storage)

And what about the Windows virtual memory? Would it be more efficient to move the paging file to the 250gb? Or can I disable it altogether? I have 2gb RAM, rest of system spec as in sig.

I'll primarily be using it for games and the usual day-to-day stuff, but also graphics, sound and video editing, often producing large files.
 
martianrobot said:
And what about the Windows virtual memory? Would it be more efficient to move the paging file to the 250gb? Or can I disable it altogether? I have 2gb RAM, rest of system spec as in sig.

I'll primarily be using it for games and the usual day-to-day stuff, but also graphics, sound and video editing, often producing large files.

Don't disable the paging file, moving it to the single drive is the best idea because of latency.

Don't expect raid 0 to give you any improvement in game loading times or day to day stuff either.
 
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Energize said:
Don't disable the paging file, moving it to the single drive is the best idea because of latency.

Don't expect raid 0 to give you any improvement in game loading times or day to day stuff either.

Does RAID-0 not improve performance? Will it not speed up loading times of software and files, including the OS? I thought that was the whole point! Am I wasting my time (and money!) setting this up then?

With the paging file issue, what about if I'm using a large file thats stored on the single drive as well? If VM kicks in surely that means disk thrashing, loading the fle and memory swapping from the same drive?
 
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Your OS should install faster, because it writes the data across both simultaneously.

Installs will probably be faster, but probably not reads.
 
addylad said:
Your OS should install faster, because it writes the data across both simultaneously.

Installs will probably be faster, but probably not reads.

So ultimately, once I've set up my system and got my apps installed nice and fast, I'll not notice any increase in performance of my system?

Would I be better doing mirroring then? According to the forum FAQ drive reads would be faster:

"RAID-1. This type is also known as mirroring and consists of at least two drives that contain duplicates of your data. There is no striping for extra write performance but read performance is improved since either disk can be read at the same time. At least 2 drives needed."

Or would I be better sacking RAID and installing the OS on one 160gb disk, my apps, games and paging file on the other, and using the 250gb just for files?

Or shall I get a 36GB Raptor for my OS, and some earplugs? :)
 
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addylad said:
Your OS should install faster, because it writes the data across both simultaneously.

Installs will probably be faster, but probably not reads.

Just read this at wikipedia, which suggests reads will be improved:

RAID 0: Striped Set (2 disks minimum) without parity. Provides improved performance and additional storage but no fault tolerance from disk errors or disk failure. Any disk failure destroys the array, which becomes more likely with more disks in the array. The reason a single disk failure destroys the entire array is because when data is written to a RAID 0 drive, the data is broken into fragments. The number of fragments is dictated by the number of disks in the drive. The fragments are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, giving this type of arrangement huge bandwidth. When one sector on one of the disks fails, however, the corresponding sector on every other disk is rendered useless because part of the data is now corrupted. RAID 0 does not implement error checking so any error is unrecoverable. More disks in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss.


Also this is interesting:

RAID 1: Mirrored Set (2 disks minimum) without parity. Provides fault tolerance from disk errors and single disk failure. Increased read performance occurs when using a multi-threaded operating system that supports split seeks, very small performance reduction when writing. Array continues to operate so long as at least one drive is functioning.

Is XP Pro (well, XP MCE2005) considered a multi-threaded OS, and does it support split seeks?
 
Raid 0 (and 1 with the right setup) does improve read speeds. It doubles throughput and raid 1 decreases seek times as well, however when loading games and programs your not just reading data off the disk. The cpu and gpu have to process that data to make a playable game. Even when using a ramdrive you still only shave a few seconds off the raptor loading times.

My advice, get a raptor, seek times seem to affect game loading times rather than throughput.
 
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Energize said:
Raid 0 (and 1 with the right setup) does improve read speeds. It doubles throughput and raid 1 decreases seek times as well, however when loading games and programs your not just reading data off the disk. The cpu and gpu have to process that data to make a playable game. Even when using a ramdrive you still only shave a few seconds off the raptor loading times.

My advice, get a raptor, seek times seem to affect game loading times rather than throughput.

Thanks for your advice. I'm looking at all the various options and reading up on RAID and stuff.

I realise that when it comes to gaming (and other stuff) its more about CPU/GPU processing, but the biggest bottleneck in a PC is its storage media, and games and stuff are using greater amounts of data, so trying to optimise the transfer of that is pretty key I think.

I might go for a Raptor, but am concerned about the noise they are alleged to produce - though I've got an Antec Sonata III on its way so hopefully that might help.

Cheers
 
You might want to overclock your cpu more as well. Just overclocking my cpu from 2.0 to 2.4 shaved 4 seconds off game loading times.
 
Raid increases seek times. That matters for lots of small files because it will be slower but anything big its definetly better.
Right click on whatever folder of the program you are hoping to improve performance of and work out the average filesize.
Thats only a guess because you dont know which files will be used each time but it seems a fair estimate to me.

I found raid increased bf2 map loading times by about 20%

Offically it has an average file size of 2.64meg but it actually references thousands of tiny 100k files stored together in a compressed rar, I guess thats what slows it down.
Take those into account and its 120k average file size roughly

My steam directory shows roughly half a meg average file size which is borderline?

My Xp Pro directory is showing an average of only 215k so not really worth it.

I dont use my pagefile much but since its so massive in theory it should benefit from being on a raid drive..
 
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Energize said:
You might want to overclock your cpu more as well. Just overclocking my cpu from 2.0 to 2.4 shaved 4 seconds off game loading times.

I think at 3.01ghz I've pushed it as far as I can within the realms of my hardware stability and my OCing know how! I'm pretty happy with a 65% overclock!
 
silversurfer said:
Raid increases seek times.

Wouldn't it actually increase transfer times?

I mean, when looking for a file, it's still going to take one (or both) drives the same amount of time to "seek" to the chunk of data they want.

Surely you would see big improvements when transferring files - as both drives can call data off at once.

Or am I wrong here? :o
 
It would be a bigger increase in transfer speeds because it already has a higher transfer rate.

If you want max transfer rates though. You'd probably be better off buying 4 normal drives in raid 0.
 
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Raid 0 has a depreciating return from the number of drives though and MTBF falls
every time you add another link in the chain.


Most of the time you are better off with two drives, with bigger files then raid can increase the transfer speed but generally just aim to read from one drive and write to the other and you will be doing well
 
Sorry to pipe in, it all seems a little overpriced for the sort of performance returns you see. If you dont have a top spec machine wouldnt if be a far better choice to spend the money on another aspect of the machine as you would see a better return for performance?
It seems like wenever people discuss raid it is a case of "well you get this with a raid array BUT!"
i was thinking about raid wich is why i ask im not just poping in to be negative, so thanks for listning.
 
Energize said:
...Don't expect raid 0 to give you any improvement in game loading times...

Depending on what types of games you play it can give a noticeable (though not massive) improvement, at least in my experience (BF2142 for example.)
 
If your talking price performance then raid is one of the easiest ways to see a dramatic increase just dont expect it to be better for everything.
You only need two normal drives and any cheap controller so its not just for elite users with raptors and 300 quid controller cards. I advise always keeping a main (single) drive though.

Things Ive noticed are much better are fraps movies recording, gigantic half a gig files are recorded much more easily onto a raid during a game which is nice :D
Also unpacking a rar can work out well too. Ive put the downloads directory on the raid then it reads off nice and fast and all the little files extracted for whatever program, etc are written to a normal fast seek single drive.
Seems to improve speeds noticably anyway
 
Well, I set XP up on my RAID-0 array with the 2 x WD 160gb, and my 250gb for files.

I couldn't believe how quickly XP installed after my last user interaction in the wizard - I went off to make a cuppa and choose a CD to listen to on my hifi, and when I came back about 5 mins later it was at the screen saying "your display is set to a low resolution etc..."

My general experience is that everything definitely feels that much more nippier (though I know part of this is down to having a fresh install of XP), but writes and installs are very very fast, especially with stuff I've downloaded or copied onto the RAID disk, e.g. .Net, AVG, drivers etc

I've set Oblivion up, but that didn't seem to install that much quicker - DVD bottleneck I guess. Loading times seem a bit quicker, but not hugely so.

I could imagine that the writing and processing of large video and other media files on this drive would be a lot quicker - perhaps I should have a second RAID-0 array for that, and use my 250gb for backup. That might stress my 500w Earthwatts PSU a bit though!

I guess I'll have to experiment and carry on using for a while to see how it pans out, but I do feel that the piddling extra expense of £31 for a second drive to make a RAID array was worth it :)

Thanks for all your advice / knowledge / comments folks
 
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