Please help me decide on a HD configuration

[NeezyDeezy]

This is my boot drive:

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB Hard Drive
(Serial ATA II, 7200 RPM, 16MB)

And I have a 300gig Seagate ultra ATA/100 7200rpm 16mb cache drive for data.

I am thinking of selling the Seagate in order to buy one of the following:

74 gig raptor

OR

another Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB Hard Drive
to run in RAID 0 on the nVraid on my ultra-d with the one I have now

I don't particularly need the extra 250 gigabytes that comes with the WD now, so I'm having a hard time deciding which to buy. The Raptor is cheaper and would just hold my OS and all of my apps... How much faster would the single raptor be compared to the caviars in raid?

Which would you opt for? Or maybe suggest a 3rd option? Thanks!

[nn_step]

I vote sell the WD and get Two 36GB raptors and raid0 them

[NeezyDeezy]

Yeah, that's an option. Have my OS on one and my APPs on the other. In comparing 2 36 gig raptors in raid0 versus 1 74gb, do those benchmarks exist? I might prefer to have my OS and all apps on one drive though.

[nn_step]

2 36Gb raptors in Raid0 will Perform better than 1 74Gb Raptor

[NeezyDeezy]

Cool. I just looked them up, and it seems that 2 36gb is significantly more $ than a single 74gb though... Speaking of which why is a 36gb $100 when a 74gb is only $125... Used I can find the 36ers for about $80 a piece, but it looks like 2 36s are out of my budget.

[nn_step]

4 40Gb SATA Drives should be around $160
Would that be out of your budget?

[NeezyDeezy]

No, but would they perform significantly better than 2 320gb WD caviar 16MB Sata2 drives in RAID0? A few people on anandtech told me that if I bought another WD caviar and ran raid0 it would be as fast as 2 32gb raptors. Thanks for helping me with this nn-step.

[nn_step]

Yes they would because the 320GB WDs have a Burst of only 120MB/S and A sustained of 60Mb/s
While the 40Gbs have a Burst of 100MB/S and a sustained of 55MB/s
the two WD's would have a net of 240Mb/s Burst and 120Mb/s Sustained
the 4 Cheap would have a net of 400Mb/s Burst and 220MB/s sustained
and here is a link to them
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144238

[NeezyDeezy]

Would these be better?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...2754&CatId=139

[nn_step]

They should be Perfectly fine... any 4 Drives will out perform 2 Raptors

[NeezyDeezy]

Awesome! Why don't more people opt for 4 drives in Raid0?? I guess the main concern is that it uses up all their slots so they max out their system at 150gb. Would these 4 drives outperform a single 150gb raptor?

[nn_step]

Because They can set up a Raid5 which isn't quite as Good as Raid0 but it can stand one Broken Drive..
and if you have the money get a Raid Controller that supports Raid6 and get a 5th drive and you will have the absolute best raid set up for performance and reliablity

[NeezyDeezy]

I thought you could do RAID6 with 4 drives. EDIT - I guess the 5th drive would help with speeds.

[nn_step]

Well Raid6 with for drives is kind of like Raid 10
it has the same performance as Two Raid0s put in raid 1
Which isn't as good as raid5 or Raid0
I suggest no less than 5 drives for Raid6
and You just need 3 for raid5

Edit:Scratch the Raid6 it isn't required for you needs.. just use Raid5

[NeezyDeezy]

Hmm, I keep reading more and more reviews and benchmarks that argue how little a difference RAID 0 makes in most areas of desktop use. I think I'm going to opt for the 74gb raptor.

[nn_step]

I personally disagree but it is your money..

[NeezyDeezy]

Well, I haven't found any reviews that show numbers in which RAID 0 make a difference in anything but system boot times and benchmarking programs.

[nn_step]

Actually the reason I choose SATA is because currently Onboard SATA Raid is better than IDE raid

[NeezyDeezy]

My fault, I meant RAID 0... not sure why I put SATA.

Thanks NN_step. I ended up going with 4 WD400JDs 8mb Sata 150 drives for $160 shipped... We'll see how these 4 in RAID 0 work out. The only problem I can foresee is getting HD errors and having to reinstall windows often. In that case I may opt for RAID 5.

[nn_step]

Raid5 is alot better option than a large Raid0
Because if one of the disks break you can replace it and rebuild the array with no lost data
if one of the disks break in Raid0 you are SOL

[NeezyDeezy]

Yeah, Raid 5 is definitely preferable. Wouldn't I need a controller then? I've heard software raid 5 is garbage.

[nn_step]

Your DFI has Hardware Support for Raid5

[NeezyDeezy]

Can't believe I missed that, thanks a lot nn_step. Can't wait for em to get here

[nn_step]

Don't forget to post pics of you new Benchmarks..
and best of luck with your upgrade

[Justintoxicated]

Personaly I own a rocket raid 404 with 3 HD's on their own channels in raid-0.

Raid perfomarmance on a PCI Raid card exceeds onboard raid perfomarnce IMO. I have used both and the card is the way to go. Not to mention the fact that you can plug the card into another PC and transfer your data off it since the card works off drivers and is not integrated with the MB which typicaly means you have to re-format and re stripe the card...

If you MB dies, or needs to be upgraded to something else, Bye Bye data!

However the seek times get killed a bit with a raid setup and get worse the more drives you add. What makes the raptors so fast is their seek times. I can load things like the levels in BF2 much quicker than if I had a single drive, but going waiting for windows explorer and seeking files (shot bursts of HD usage) after inside a game is slower with the raid-0 setup. So loading large contigious files raid-0 will be much faster, but loading small files, and especialy small files that are not ocntigious raid-0 will be slower, and noticably so.

I'm in the same situation you are in and I'm hearing great things about the 150 gig raptor. I probably should settle for something cheaper but I'm very tempted to get one anyways and save up for a 250 gig storage drive later.

I need a HD soon and I can't make up my mind!