To RAID 0 or not?

[M31]

I've finally decided I can lose XP pro 32 from my dual boot system and use only Vista 64 SP1.

I had both OS's on two separate 150 GB 10k Raptors, this gave me the benefit of putting each OS's swap file on the other one and also each OS's games/sims on the other one.

I'm fully aware that if one drive fails than I lose everything, but have the other drives in my sig for back up purposes.

I've used RAID 0 years ago and remember slight benefits in the OS only, hard drives have come a long way since then though, so my question is, is RAID 0 on my two Raptors worthwhile?

[ExodusC]

I've finally decided I can lose XP pro 32 from my dual boot system and use only Vista 64 SP1.

I had both OS's on two separate 150 GB 10k Raptors, this gave me the benefit of putting each OS's swap file on the other one and also each OS's games/sims on the other one.

I'm fully aware that if one drive fails than I lose everything, but have the other drives in my sig for back up purposes.

I've used RAID 0 years ago and remember slight benefits in the OS only, hard drives have come a long way since then though, so my question is, is RAID 0 on my two Raptors worthwhile?
You'll see some benefit in the OS depending on what you're doing.

What I would suggest is to create two RAID 0 arrays on the two drives, a small one (50GB or so) for Vista, and then another using the rest of the space for your games/sims. In general, the games will see much more of a benefit from the higher read speeds.

[XS Janus]

If I were you I would do my own testing.
Install a clean OS on just one drive and then time (stopwatch) the duration of installs from your needed apps (from a disk image preferably), and then time their load times and game level load times.
Also do some file copy tests on that setup and time how long it takes for it to finish.
After that do that on the RAID0 setup and then decide if it's worth it.

And just to add to your dilemma: I heard running dedicated drives, as in 1 drive for OS and 1 drive for apps/games, in most cases, could be better for a desktop user than RAID0.
You would get high props from me and others probably if you would test all 3 scenarios using the same tests. :) :D

[STi489]

Yes!

[Nasgul]

I've used the exact same two drives since August of 2006, first WinXP and now Vista.

One thing is for sure, I ain't never going back to single drive, two cheap HDD for RAID 0 and my main drive is on.

[M31]

Food for thought. I'll have a think about it, am thinking of getting rid of the oldest 7200 HD in my sig and adding a Velociraptor 300 GB, would this drive be quicker than 2 x 150 Raptors in RAID 0?.

Thanks.

[ExodusC]

Food for thought. I'll have a think about it, am thinking of getting rid of the oldest 7200 HD in my sig and adding a Velociraptor 300 GB, would this drive be quicker than 2 x 150 Raptors in RAID 0?.

Thanks.
No, I do believe two Raptors will outperform a Velociraptor.

[Doctor Freak]

No, I do believe two Raptors will outperform a Velociraptor.

You are right ;)

[M31]

Thanks, so 2 x 150 raptors in RAID 0 ) for Vista 64 OS and less intensive games, on a separate partition on the RAID array and with swap file and FSX on the Velociraptor ... right?

[Doctor Freak]

yeah man :)

[M31]

yeah man :)

Thanks Man :)

[tiro_uspsss]

Thanks, so 2 x 150 raptors in RAID 0 ) for Vista 64 OS and less intensive games, on a separate partition on the RAID array and with swap file and FSX on the Velociraptor ... right?

to add to that (tho I dunno how HDD intensive FSX is) - I'd make a partition so that FSX is right @ the edge of the platter (fastest speed) & then ur swap further in :up:

[16floz470ml]

Here is a pic of my hdtune run of 2 x 150 raptors raid 0 on vista 64. I have been happy with this setup.

I would not buy the velociraptor. While it is the best drive, you can buy 3 or 4 of the 32mb cache drives for the same price. If you were to buy those instead you could raid 0 them and have a really great array and have a ton of hd space. I just did this with my new core i7 build. I get over a 300mb/sec transfer rate with 3 samsung spinpoints.

[JayG30]

And just to add to your dilemma: I heard running dedicated drives, as in 1 drive for OS and 1 drive for apps/games, in most cases, could be better for a desktop user than RAID0.
You would get high props from me and others probably if you would test all 3 scenarios using the same tests. :) :D

I have to ask/say this as it is something I've tried before and either I'm not smart enough to figure out a solution or there just isn't one. When you install an OS on one drive (or partition, it doesn't matter) and than install apps/games/etc. on the other drive (or partition) there seems to be a TON of cases where data is written to the primary OS drive. For instance, something 99% of the population uses, MS Office (doesn't matter which version) creates folder in C:\Documents and Settings\*User*\Application Data on XP. Note this is a hidden folder. This is just one example, Adobe would be another popular one. There are other areas stuff is written such as common folder, temp folders, etc.. Also all programs install differently. Some install like this and others don't. Some just create folders in other locations on the primary drive. This is stuff that even if you use a custom installer for the software can NOT be changed. Some of this can be adverted if you go into the software and go through a lot of settings to redirect folder locations, but lots of times this can cause issues or the options aren't available. A rather annoying one I ran into when doing this setup was with Outlook. This person would receive several hundred emails in a given day and saves ALL past emails. This data gets stored to the primary drive when you install MS Office no matter what you do. Only after 3 days of menu diving did I find a workaround to point Outlook to look for and store email data to a different folder which I had to create (note outlook stores stuff in large files with extensions like .pst or .ost and such). If I hadn't found a way to do this there would be files from outlook storing all this data the size of 10GB+. Clearly this could cause a problem especially for a OS partition.

So am I just stupid or is this something others have experienced? Is there a solution to such issues other than use different software and make the OS partition of a large enough size you don't have to worry? I think if that was the only solution than the idea of separating OS from Apps is rather useless. If you ever have to wipe your OS than you will still most likely have to reinstall programs since files (and in some cases personally data) will be wiped out as well and it doesn't allow a relatively stable install size, which are the two primary benefits I see to this type of setup.

As far as installing OS/Apps on one drive and using the other drive to store personally files like movies, documents, pictures, etc. that aren't tied into a larger installation, than I can see this working perfectly fine and plenty of people do that.

[XS Janus]

Hmmm.... You do raise some interesting points about dedicated drives setup.
You are right setting it up as efficiently as possible could be quite an annoyance compared to regular setups.

I think maybe you should make a new thread on this subject as it will get more deserved attention and get the attention of more hdd gurus willing to pitch in their expertise.
I would also like to hear more input from who know this more first hand.

[Caparroz]

JayG30, I don't know if every app ever programmed can read/write from/to a folder other than the systems defaults, but sure, it can be done. The thing is, you'll be editing the registry till the end of your life. :yepp:

[xtrempinoy]

i had raid 0 back in the day, the only thing i hate about it is when you change motherboards, you run into problems... now ive had my motherboard for the past 2 years, and my raid config recently crashed on me.. and it was a huge hassel trying to get my files back (which i ended up loosing 90% of my data) now im running on 1hard drive and in retro spec, i don't notice much of a difference (even in game loading) but keep in mind, i have a fairly faster hard drive then the harddrives i had before... so maybe that helped?