How do I tell?

[Karl Meissner]

This is likely a dumb question to all you hardware exprerts...

I want to put RAID 0 on my 3 year old Althelon, Windows 2000 box. I
want a really fast hard drive access times. I know that there is
ATA, Ultra ATA, Serial ATA etc.

1) do I really need an internal drives for fast speed?
Or is there a simple cheap (<$1000 ) external raid system that is
really fast that I can just plug into a port? Is there way to check
for compatibility without buy the hardware?

2) If I need a internal system, is there a complete kit with card and
drives that should look at? I was considering the Western digital
10000 rpm Raptor series.

3) How do I find out what the heck kind of RAID 0 controller card is
compatible with my computer. Is there a place in Windows that tells
you? In the BIOS? Or do you have to open the box and look. How do
you tell? Is there a label or what.


Hardware newbie

 

[Peter]

Maybe you should start by explaining what do you mean by "fast hard drive
access times". Or even what do you want your disk subsystem to do. There are
different designs for database, different for backup storage, data streaming
etc.
Going by definition, you can get the best "access time" using Fujitsu
MAS3735 SCSI Drive (3.3ms).
That is for data, which is accessed directly from the drive (without cache).
What do you need speed for?

 

[Toshi1873]

Maybe you should start by explaining what do you mean by "fast hard drive
access times". Or even what do you want your disk subsystem to do. There are
different designs for database, different for backup storage, data streaming
etc.
Going by definition, you can get the best "access time" using Fujitsu
MAS3735 SCSI Drive (3.3ms).
That is for data, which is accessed directly from the drive (without cache).
What do you need speed for?

Agreed, different needs require different solutions.

(And RAID0 may or may not give you a speed boost...)