RAID or Raptor?

[metro]

Should I buy another 160GB Drive and go RAID 0 with my current 160GB HDD or buy a WD Raptor and use my current HDD as a backup?

I have a feeling you'll all said go RAID 0, so my follow up question: Do HDDs have to be identical for RAID arrays to work?

 

[Maj.Emish]

i used a raptor with a backup drive for a couple years and it worked well. raid would prolly be the way to go and yes i believe they need to be identical drives

 

[Deimos]

Depends on what's faster I guess, Raid 0 will typically be faster (80% faster then a normal drive), but I'm not sure about how fast raptors read, compared with your hard drive(s) in Raid 0. And yes, they need to be identical drives.

What I would do if I were you is back up all your stuff, then get a Raptor, put all your programs on your Raptor, and all your smaller files on your current hard drive, that way your programs open quick, and your smaller files wont bog down your hard drive read speeds

 

[OODA Loop]

Do HDDs have to be identical for RAID arrays to work?

yes, unless you combine JBOD (just a bunch of disks) with your raid option
exp: (500 gig + 250gig in JBOD) + (250 gig + 250 gig + 250 gig in JBOD) in raid zero
it all depends on your raid card's capabilities.

i'd say go with the single hard drive, they are fast. Plus if you care about failure rate:

.05% failure rate < single

.05% failure rate * 2 = twice the failure rate < two in raid 0

 

[xKodiakx]

I would say go raptor and storage.. you will benifit more from the response time then the read speed.

Unless your planning on handling large several GB files...

average HDD reads at say... 90Mb/s... raid 0 might say... 120 Mb/s? unless you move a file over the max read speed of your HDD you won't notice a difference... that's why I went with an SSD and storage drive in my current build, I've had RAID 0 for different OS's and never made a difference besides taking more time and effort to install windows..

 

[Idol]

Do both. I'm running 2 150g 10k Raptors in a Raid 0.

To be honest I didn't plan it that way. When I built my system I wanted one Raptor for the OS and a 250g for data. The Raptor had some problems so I sent it back. The retailer wouldn't cross-ship on my RMA so I put it in as a refund request and bought a replacement the same day. Well, they determined my 1st Raptor was a factory defect so they sent it back as warranty work and denied the refund. Plus they wouldn't let me return the 2nd Raptor because there was nothing wrong with it. I considered fighting them but dropped that idea as the whole thing was fueled by my impatience. And that's how I ended up with a Raptor Raid.

Vista 64bit runs like buttah! Of course that could be due to the 8g of RAM, but that's another story.

 

[DragonD]

I have a raptor as my primary, and "normal" drive as my storage. I have no complaints with it...

 

[FreakingHell]

They do NOT have to be identical to run RAID. Ideally you want them to be the exact same for best performance, however they do not have to be. But if you try to use a 200GB and a 150GB in RAID 0, only 150 of the 200 drive will be usable.

 

[.[BORN]2kill]

They do NOT have to be identical to run RAID. Ideally you want them to be the exact same for best performance, however they do not have to be. But if you try to use a 200GB and a 150GB in RAID 0, only 150 of the 200 drive will be usable.

+1

 

[metro]

Ok, now for some clarification on identical. You guys have just been talking about size. I would buy another drive the same size, but it would have a 16MB Cache instead of the 8MB I have now It would also have a shorter average seek time. My guess is that this would work, except it would downgrade the specs to the slower HDD. Is that right?

 

[.[BORN]2kill]

Ok, now for some clarification on identical. You guys have just been talking about size. I would buy another drive the same size, but it would have a 16MB Cache instead of the 8MB I have now It would also have a shorter average seek time. My guess is that this would work, except it would downgrade the specs to the slower HDD. Is that right?

Correct. RAID is only looking at the size of the drive.

 

[metro]

Cool. Thanks a lot guys.

 

[Lance]

Thanks from me too, I didn't know much about RAID so this told me quite a bit

 

[blizbiggy]

hmm if i was you i would just get a TB drive and store stuff on it.

I have a 150gb raptor as my primary and a 1TB for storage (ie. movies, music, large games, steam lol)

 

[Maj.Emish]

yeah i had been running a 35gig raptor as primary and a 250 as storage and that drive was really fast i want to get another one for this comp but eh i'm ok with just the 250 now cuz i sold the comp that had the raptor in it

 

[metro]

A 1TB HDD would be way overkill for my use. I am hard pressed to fill my 160GB as all I have is music, games and CAD files. Right now I'm thinking that I might just get 2 decent (16MB cache, ~8ms seek time, 7200RPM) 160GB drives and just transfer all my data onto them. That should be faster and would definitely be cheaper than a WD Raptor.

RAID vs. Raptor
2*$75=$150 vs. $290
2*160GB=320GB vs. 300GB

And the RAID array should* have a faster read time.

*Correct me if I'm wrong

 

[Havegooda {A|R}]

They do NOT have to be identical to run RAID. Ideally you want them to be the exact same for best performance, however they do not have to be. But if you try to use a 200GB and a 150GB in RAID 0, only 150 of the 200 drive will be usable.

Close. Only 150GB of the array would be usable in RAID1. RAID0 can have any combination of drives. It'll just add them up, in this case 350GB.

~Gooda~

 

[KrzyMoke]

Do a raid with VelociRaptors. They can always move up to your next comp and are very fast. But as always check the reviews. Couple good places to start.

www.tomshardware.com
www.storagereview.com