I built my pc a couple of months ago (close to a year) and went with a 120gb IDE hard drive. I am looking to reformat soon and buy a set of hard drives, I heard having one for the OS and one for storage/games works best. Any suggestions as to get the most performance out of a set of hard drives? I know I am going with 2 7200 RPM SATA drives, because they fit my budget the best. What configuration(s) do you guys suggest?

Quote: Originally Posted by Rykno I built my pc a couple of months ago (close to a year) and went with a 120gb IDE hard drive. I am looking to reformat soon and buy a set of hard drives, I heard having one for the OS and one for storage/games works best. Any suggestions as to get the most performance out of a set of hard drives? I know I am going with 2 7200 RPM SATA drives, because they fit my budget the best. What configuration(s) do you guys suggest?

RAID 0 will grab you the most speed.

Quote: Originally Posted by Rykno I heard having one for the OS and one for storage/games works best. Any suggestions as to get the most performance out of a set of hard drives?

RAID 0 does give you the most speed, but I think the real thing that need to be looked at first is what does Rykno mean by the most performance out a set of drives? With him saying "one for OS and one for storage", I could take that as meaning he's looking for some redundancy. Having the games and storage on a separate drive in case of problems. He could just reformat the OS drive and the other stuff would still be there on the second drive.

RAID 0 is fastest. But if he's looking for redundancy, you don't have it. If one drive has a problem, it's all gone.
RAID 1 (mirrored) will give you some redundancy, you could create two volumes, one for OS one for storage, and each of the twin drives would always be the same. If one crashes and burns you can work off the other mirror image. But this arrangement is a bit SLOWER.

He's saying two drives. If he could afford three, he could use Raid 0 and then back everything up to the third drive. Just gotta remember to back up.

Then again with the purchase of more than two drives he's got other RAID options. Depending on what he's got for a controller.

Quote: Originally Posted by Rykno I am looking to reformat soon and buy a set of hard drives,

I took this to mean buying two more? I could be wrong it happens . Like Prime said some game don't like the other HD. So I think we need a little more info on what you want

Yeah, Salt Daddy

I wasn't quite sure of how many drives he'll ultimately end up with, what qualities in the array are most important to him, and what arrays his mobo and/or controller can provide him.
Or even if he's talking a RAID at all.....


anywho, here's a good article with easy to understand diagrams for him to look over.
http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html
all the RAID variations.......

If you're running Windows, ALWAYS have OS on a separate drive, unless you have a firewall equal to that of LLNL or low-level runtime anti-virus program running at all times.

It's just too easy for the proliferation of viruses in the Windows environment that at the first sign of trouble - yank the power cord, and physically disconnect the data and power cables to all sequent drives. Is that bad for the system? Yes, but it can handle it, and besides it's Windows - assuming that the virus hasn't eaten it up, it'll "fix" itself.

That should help to stop it from spreading, especially drive-to-drive. I know cuz I had to do that once before. That way, you can also freely wipe your OS drive without worrying about loss of data, unless you installed stuff there to which you don't have the installation disks anymore.

That ALSO implies: NO USER DATA and no ANYTHING other than OS on the OS drive. Cuz time for it to be wiped, it's gone baby!. (The other nice thing about doing that is when you DO go to "reinstall" the programs, really all you're looking for is for it to re-register the program in the Windows registry. (ha ha...try saying that a couple of times real fast.) The actual application (and/or game) hasn't changed.

If the game has user-saved data that isn't in the same location as the main program, (i.e. Documents and Settings/....) make sure that you back that up as well, assuming that it isn't infected. I don't know of too many that look to infect saved games, but I guess that it's possible. Just be careful about that one too.

If you have Norton Antivirus - you either effectively have none OR you have a Madonna.

Recently cleaned another system that had NAV on it and McAfee picked up stuff that NAV completely let slip by. NAV = POS.

Please define your metric for performance. If you've played Doom 3 on a 10krpm Ultra160 SCSI drive, or Command and Conquer Generals on a 15krpm Ultra320 SCSI drive - WHOLE different meaning of "performance".

Quote: Originally Posted by prime-evil Yeah, Salt Daddy I wasn't quite sure of how many drives he'll ultimately end up with, what qualities in the array are most important to him, and what arrays his mobo and/or controller can provide him. Or even if he's talking a RAID at all..... anywho, here's a good article with easy to understand diagrams for him to look over. http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html all the RAID variations.......

What I consider to be the ultimate in RAID reference guide.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I run a Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR and am looking to put 2 SATA 7200 rpm HDs on it (It has onboard 2x SATA support, 4x with a driver) raid 0 configuration will do what for me with say 2 160gb HDs? I'm just looking for a little more speed (Since SATA is faster than IDE), and more space.

Quote: Originally Posted by Rykno Thanks for all the suggestions. I run a Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR and am looking to put 2 SATA 7200 rpm HDs on it (It has onboard 2x SATA support, 4x with a driver) raid 0 configuration will do what for me with say 2 160gb HDs? I'm just looking for a little more speed (Since SATA is faster than IDE), and more space.

caution: make sure that your system has LBA48 support. (just verify that). Make sure that it's supported both independently and also as a RAID array.

Otherwise, that'll work. It should be pretty easy to set up. If you need help - let me/us know.

(I'm pretty sure that all "modern"/current motherboards have LBA48 support, but it doesn't hurt to be sure.)

I don't know how to check for it, but in other benchmarks of the exact same motherboard they have it running in RAID configs. Anyone mind linking or explaining how do I setup the RAID 0 once I have the two drives in my hands?

http://www.soltek.com.tw/soltek/prod...2FSL-K8AN2E-GR

http://www.soltek.com.tw/soltek/down...2FSL-K8AN2E-GR

the driver for the Promise 20579 RAID and manual are here. it will take you step by step.

chap 5 & 6

Quote: Originally Posted by Rykno I don't know how to check for it, but in other benchmarks of the exact same motherboard they have it running in RAID configs. Anyone mind linking or explaining how do I setup the RAID 0 once I have the two drives in my hands?

If on the manufacturer's website, it does not explicitly say that it supports LBA48 or hard drives larger than 137 GB (or 128 GiB), look around on the net to see if people's done it before already. Worse case scenario (and the fail-safe method) email their support department and they SHOULD be able ot tell you with 99% certainty.

Like I said, most current motherboards WILL have it. Doesn't hurt to be 100% sure though. (Cuz I know some of my mobos do not support LBA48 natively and require an additional controller card).

Why do I see a 160gb 7200 rpm hd SATA150, for $97, and a 250gb 7200 rpm hd SATA150 for $99, same specs and everything, same manufacturer (WDigital) ?

Quote: Originally Posted by Rykno Why do I see a 160gb 7200 rpm hd SATA150, for $97, and a 250gb 7200 rpm hd SATA150 for $99, same specs and everything, same manufacturer (WDigital) ?

supply and demand I suppose. welcome to econ101.

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_con...ookie%5Ftest=1
Still wouldn't pass up an extra 90GB storage space for $2 though.

Ok, these are the hard drives I'm considering getting 2 of, any comments?

How many hard drives do you plan to have total?

If you go with 4 you can have one RAID 0 array and one RAID 1 array. A RAID 1 array is cheaper than having a professional service reclaim one of a kind data off of a damaged drive.

You should notice that every good article on RAID shows that RAID 0 can leave your computer open to an unlikely, but total, failure due to 1 of the drives in the array crapping out.

RAID 0 also doesn't really improve most games except MMORPGs. I'm not sure how much of an impact it has on other applications like graphical editing or movie making.

A final note is that having more than 2 hard disks will require more energy than usual and will require a more sophisticated case design to manage the excess heat produced.

thats where raid 10 gets interduced... you have four hard drives, drive a,b,c,d,

you mirror drives a +b and c +d then you take the mirrors and you stripe them togther... then you get the best of both worlds...

but if you are worried about your data i would back the info up... what good is a mirror when you have courrpted data? if the data is bad on one hdd, well the second hdd is just an exact copy.. and that data will be messed up to!!!

Quote: Originally Posted by Hibiki How many hard drives do you plan to have total? If you go with 4 you can have one RAID 0 array and one RAID 1 array. A RAID 1 array is cheaper than having a professional service reclaim one of a kind data off of a damaged drive. You should notice that every good article on RAID shows that RAID 0 can leave your computer open to an unlikely, but total, failure due to 1 of the drives in the array crapping out. RAID 0 also doesn't really improve most games except MMORPGs. I'm not sure how much of an impact it has on other applications like graphical editing or movie making. A final note is that having more than 2 hard disks will require more energy than usual and will require a more sophisticated case design to manage the excess heat produced.

most systems can handle the additional heat with ease. It doesn't require a sophisticated case design unless you're trying to it into a ammo box or a briefcase. (Both of which have been done.)

From what I have seen, FPS also will benefit from a RAID0 array, especially on level loads. While initially it may time some time for it to come up, it does help somewhat in the long run.

As for other applications - it depends on the access patterns and the size of files/blocks/stripe size/etc etc etc....that will determine whether it will help it, or worse, hurt it.

If you have large contiguous files (read or write), RAID0 will have you with STR on both.

If you have a highly fragmented FS, regardless of FStype, it won't matter whether you have RAID or not.

If you work with a lot of small files (i.e. webpage design), going with a single, non-RAID faster hard drive (10krpm+) will help more.

For most people though, ATA drives usually won't benefit significantlly from being in a RAID0 array in practical use.

You actually won't really notice much in the way of "difference" until you have 6 drives, in RAID50, and also presumes that your OS/OE has a FStype that is known to have excellent fragmentation control (such as Ext3, ZFS, or Solaris FS of < 1%).

I've also found that while it takes longer for Windows to boot up on SCSI (RAID or not), for pratical usage, it ends up having the upper hand, something that ATA drives cannot compete against.

Quote: Originally Posted by THRiLL KiLL thats where raid 10 gets interduced... you have four hard drives, drive a,b,c,d, you mirror drives a +b and c +d then you take the mirrors and you stripe them togther... then you get the best of both worlds... but if you are worried about your data i would back the info up... what good is a mirror when you have courrpted data? if the data is bad on one hdd, well the second hdd is just an exact copy.. and that data will be messed up to!!!

If you're worried about backup - you shouldn't even be considering RAID0. RAID levels 0 and 1 aren't truly "RAID" levels. RAID3 would be MY minimum recommendation if you're worried about data integrity, (which has been superceeded by RAID4, 5, and 6).

For what Rynko is looking for, I would leave them separate (i.e. non-RAID/JBOD). I think that would serve his purpose better.

Data loss isn't really an issue, as I always backup something up (if it's important) the minute I save it as a file. I'm just looking to have alot of hard drive space for saving lots of Fraps footage and whatnot. I play almost exclusively MMOs (With the exception of 1-2 shooters when a friend wants to come over and play 'em) I save all of my important data on an external hard drive.

Just to recap I have an AMD64 3400, Soltek K8AN2E-GR, WinXP Home SP2, X-Connect 500w PSU, Western Digital 120gb IDE, 1gb DDR pc3200, Gigabyte 6800 GT in a Thermaltake SVA4000 "Viking" case. My plans are to put some AS5 and a Zalman CNPS7000b to replace my stock HS, and put in 2 Maxtor DiamondMax 200gb HDs in so I have alot more space for Frapsing hours of footage for my MMO movies. Thanks for all the input so far btw, I love this site a whole lot.