Is 2 HDDs better than 1

[Monster]

won't you end up with a total of 80gigs if you get 2 80gigs for your raid
instead of 160gig if you only got one? more reliability, half the space?

 

[Stephen Austin]

won't you end up with a total of 80gigs if you get 2 80gigs for your
raid
instead of 160gig if you only got one? more reliability, half the space?

It depends on whether you mirror the two drives (half the space, more
reliability), or stripe the drives (less reliable but more speed and no
loss of space)

 

[Adam S]

won't you end up with a total of 80gigs if you get 2 80gigs for your raid
instead of 160gig if you only got one? more reliability, half the space?

You are thinking of raid 1 not 0.

Raid 0 = Striping data across all disks.
Slightly quicker reading and writing to the disks than if a single disk was
used.
BUT if one disk dies then ALL data is lost.
2x 80GB disks = 160GB storage

Raid 1 = Mirroring - data copied to both disks.
Slightly quicker in reading as can access both disks at the same time.
Same speed for writing as a single disk as all the data has to be written to
both disks as if they were single disks.
If one disk dies then all data is on the other disk, so no loss of data
2x 80GB disks = 80GB storage

Personally I would go for a single disk and make back-ups on CD or DVD of
important data.

Adam S

 

[me!!]

Im going to replace my IDE hdds with serial ata drives. My motherboard
supports serial ATA RAID so am i better off getting one big 160Gb
drive ( cheaper option ) or getting 2 seperate 80Gb drives and running
them in raid 0?

Will it be any quicker with the raid 0 setup?

Thanks

Paul

 

[Mac Cool]

Will it be any quicker with the raid 0 setup?

One of the hardware sites posted an article on this recently and I've read
much discussion on usenet, the general consensus is that single user PCs
do not gain any speed benefit from raid.

 

[me!!]

Thanks all,

if i do get just one drive will i be able to partition it? And can i
still retain my ide drives for backup?

thanks

 

[Scotoma]

Thanks all,

if i do get just one drive will i be able to partition it?

Yes. You can partition all the drives on your system how you like.
If it's one 160GB HD though, you may run into problems in getting the full
160GB recognised by the Operating System at setup, depending on your
OS/updates. You could use a bootable copy of partition magic or the like
(drive manufacturers utilities, look online) to partition the drive(s) with
partitions smaller than 137GB (XP) before installing the OS. eg. Make 1
primary active partition for the OS and then as many logical drives as you
want within an extended partition. The full size of the drive will then be
recognised. If you are using XP, then make a slipsteamed SP1 CD. Then XP
will recognise the full size of the drive at setup, and you can partition it
as you like there and then.
Make sure the full speed of the drive is recognised by your OS.

info.
http://support.octek.com.au/FAQ/faq_0113.htm HD limit.
Slipstreaming SP1 XP.
http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/winxp-sp1-bootcd.html

Google for more info should you disagree with the links.

And can i

still retain my ide drives for backup?

Yes, but put your OS on the new fast drive.

thanks

You're welcome.

 

[John R Weiss]

Im going to replace my IDE hdds with serial ata drives. My motherboard
supports serial ATA RAID so am i better off getting one big 160Gb
drive ( cheaper option ) or getting 2 seperate 80Gb drives and running
them in raid 0?

Depends on your budget. Do you want performance or price?

Will it be any quicker with the raid 0 setup?

RAID 0 will be faster than a single drive of identical specs; every hardware
review I've read confirms this. However, a single FAST SATA HD like the WD
Raptor will likely be faster than a RAID 0 array of slow (IDE-based
hardware, 7200 RPM) SATA HDs.

You will have to carefully evaluate the individual drive choices.