Raid on Windows 7

[Abarbarian]

Here are some results from my adventurous raiding exploits. It is how I spend my time I am a barbarian after all.

The drives I used were Samsung F3 500 Gb split into two partitions 100 GB for the os and the rest left unformated. I short stroked the drives down to 120 GB using the entire drive for the os .for some of the tests. In some of the results you will see that I have the drive short stroked to 100 GB so that will posibly skew the results slightly. I ain't going to redo the tests it is just step too far.

A bare install of 7 was performed with no up dates , no internet connection established and no other programs installed apart from the testing programs.

Firstly the standard 500 GB drive in single use mode.

Short stroked to 120 GB in single use mode.

 

[Abarbarian]

Raid 0

Raid 0 results. In setting up your raid array you can set your bit size as 32 KB, 64 KB or 128 KB.

64 KB 500GB

64 KB Stroked 120 GB

128 KB stroked 120GB

 

[Abarbarian]

Raid 0 + 1

32 KB stroked 120 GB

64 KB stroked 120GB

128 KB 500 GB

128 KB stroked 120 GB

Finally a compact view of some of the results.

An interesting set of results overall. Now which of those configurations is best for gaming ? Although I am looking for the best set up for gaming I am willing to sacrifice a bit of speed for the reassurance that Raid 0 +1 gives but which bit size to go for. The results have baffled me at the moment. So if anyone can offer some advice it would be appreciated.

 

[Alf]

I aint gonna lye... I dunno wot u jurst said. :0

 

[Abarbarian]

I aint gonna lye... I dunno wot u jurst said. :0

I don't understand why you don't understand

 

[V_R]

I dont understand why people bother shot stroking drives...

'Buy a 500 GB drive, but only use a 5th of it' :/

Do you honestly notice a difference in real world usage?

Also, what the hell did you do to those screenshots! lol

 

[muckshifter]

very impressive set of pictures, they tell me nothing

you are more likely to loose your "RAID", and therefore your data, than me using my single drive

the "RAID" you are probable going to use is called "software" RAID, err, you wan't the real thing, go buy the hardware.

RAID arrays are sensitive beasts. RAID was designed for a server environment where any software that is installed on the system is ...

A) generally server grade software and validated for use on that configuration.

and

B) installed by professional IT personnel.

RAID is not tolerant of user error, and it is far from tolerant enough to take the kind of software/game/freeware software abuse hurled at the average home PC.

 

[Abarbarian]

What is up with the pictures thems is easy to read

Have just run the benchmarks so have no experience of real world usage. Wanted to see if short stroking or raid made a big enough difference to warrant its use.
If you do not try things out you never ever learn.

So you two guys don't think it is worth raiding or short stroking for the home user.

I did the tests out of interest with the aim of obtaining the best gaming experience on my lowly set up. Was fun trying anyway.

 

[V_R]

You didn't answer my question.

 

[floppybootstomp]

If you do not try things out you never ever learn.

Quite so, quite so.

Don't pay any attention to Mr Mucks and the vanilla Flavoured one, they are nasty, mean, vicious and spiteful

Now just take two desertspoons of this and you'll be right as rain

I've been using a RAID 0 as the primary drive on my primary computer for about ten years now. A gen-u-wine hardware RAID 0, that is.

And it is faster than a single drive in everyday use. Otherwise I wouldn't bother.

In all that time I've had one of the pair of RAID disks crash on me and I lost all of drive C. Still, one disk in ten years or so is probably about the same odds as a single disk for a primary drive.

And, er, just out of interest, just how did you capture those screen pix?

 

[V_R]

Hey!

I aint got anything against RAID, its the short stroking i dont get...

 

[Abarbarian]

A gen-u-wine hardware RAID 0, that is.

Which card are you using for the raid ?

What the ******* is it with the pictures thing.

Faststone Capture on 7 , then resized to 800x600 and rewhatever to less than 200kb in Gwenview on Mandy and posted here.

The short stroking made a feelable difference in my XP tests and hdd's are cheap as chips so why not