Raptor or RAID ?

[Talal Itani]

Dear Friends,

I wanted to install a Raptor drive, for speed. Yet the computer salesman
suggested that is better and cheaper to install two 7000RPM drives in Raid.
Do you agree?

Thank you,
Talal Itani

 

[Ken Maltby]

Dear Friends,

I wanted to install a Raptor drive, for speed. Yet the computer salesman
suggested that is better and cheaper to install two 7000RPM drives in
Raid. Do you agree?

Thank you,
Talal Itani

No

Luck;
Ken

 

[John McGaw]

Dear Friends,

I wanted to install a Raptor drive, for speed. Yet the computer salesman
suggested that is better and cheaper to install two 7000RPM drives in Raid.
Do you agree?

Thank you,
Talal Itani

Read this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/12/cheap_raid_ravages_wd_raptor/

and see what _you_ think.

The results suggest to me that RAID 0 is the way to go. Of course you
are almost certainly making it a bit less reliable (2 drives have 2
times more chance of failing) but if you don't store you data on the
RAID 0 then it probably means very little. If you are really serious
about it, put your system and applications and swap on a RAID 0 pair and
put your data on a RAID 1 pair and have the best of both worlds.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Read this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/12/cheap_raid_ravages_wd_raptor/

and see what _you_ think.

The results suggest to me that RAID 0 is the way to go. Of course you are
almost certainly making it a bit less reliable (2 drives have 2 times more
chance of failing) but if you don't store you data on the RAID 0 then it
probably means very little. If you are really serious about it, put your
system and applications and swap on a RAID 0 pair and put your data on a
RAID 1 pair and have the best of both worlds.

Yes, read it very carefully, and consider that Newegg has the
74GB 10k Raptor on sale for $140 with rebate. They can often
be found refurbished for even less. They have the 36GB Raptor
for $100. You can have two Raptor drives with the OS drive and
a second drive for the swapfile, providing a major performance
boost. I use a 74GB as my System Drive and a 36GB as my
"Capture" drive. I also use removable 250GB drives and my NAS
for data storage.

Luck;
Ken

 

[Talal Itani]

Thanks for the info. But, please, what is a swap drive? what is a capture
drive? what is NAS? Thanks.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Thanks for the info. But, please, what is a swap drive? what is a
capture drive? what is NAS? Thanks.

The swap file is an integral part of the Windows
Operating System (OS). Both the OS and many other
programs were written by their programmers to make use
of the swap file. (Running without a swap file and using
a large block of RAM, sounds like a great idea but isn't
for the most part.)

Having the swap file on a drive other than the drive with
the OS, improves processing throughput. (For the greatest
benefit both drive must be "Master" in their configuration.
With the SATA interface you will have all the onboard
connections as "Master". With IDE you will normally only
have two "Master" drives available.)

I have labeled the two Raptors as "System", (for the drive
with the OS (XP pro) and the installed programs) and
"Capture" for what is essentially a data drive for the OS and
the installed programs. It gets its name from the fact that I
use it for video captures as well. ( A quality capture, with no
dropped frames, is dependent of a consistent throughput, so
it's best to avoid system generated disk operations during the
capture.)

The basic principal that having two fast drives supports well;
is having it so you have a source drive and a destination drive
for each file operation a program conducts. (Not input and
output to the same drive, at the same time.) Program code for
file operations actually runs in memory, so you can have data
from one drive feed a process then have the process output to
a different drive, this provides for the best timing and the least
conflicts. If you get into the habit of ping-ponging your data
between two drives, you should see improved performance
and fewer problems. ( This is especially true for those who
work with video files.)

A NAS is a "Network Attached Storage" device. In my
case a Buffalo Terastation. But for this discussion consider
it as just another "External Drive", there are USB drives that
serve much the same function. You can get a USB2 drive
enclosure for ~$20 and add a large drive for the undemanding
job of just storing data.

Luck;
Ken

 

[GT]

Dear Friends,

I wanted to install a Raptor drive, for speed. Yet the computer salesman
suggested that is better and cheaper to install two 7000RPM drives in
Raid. Do you agree?

There's more to it than just speed. How interested are you in cost, noise
and heat?

 

[kony]

Dear Friends,

I wanted to install a Raptor drive, for speed. Yet the computer salesman
suggested that is better and cheaper to install two 7000RPM drives in Raid.
Do you agree?

Thank you,
Talal Itani

What was wrong with the info you received on your last post?

Here is the summary:

A single Raptor is the fastest medium cost alternative for
placement of the operating system.

Two RAIDed drives is second fastest, might be best for
single applications with very large files.

Two separate, non-raided drives are best for multiple
applications with either smaller or larger files.

Unless the system is only for minimal multitasking (a
special purpose workstation, not a general windows PC), get
at least two hard drives for it. The first with OS is the
Raptor and the 2nd depends on the use. The 2nd could even
be a 2nd logical volume comprised of two RAIDed (0) drives.

So the choice is simple - for OS, get the Raptor. If the
budget stretches enough to get two Raptors and RAID them, do
that.

I suggest you avoid salesmen, their interest is selling.

 

[Talal Itani]

Thank you for all the input you gave me. For the sake of simplicity, and
since I virtually know nothing about setting up a Raid PC, and repairing a
Raid PC, I am leaning now towards the Raptor solution.

 

[Boba & Ilinka]

Do not worry about setting raid. On the motherboard manual there is step by
step instruction. Also you could consider raid 10 that gives you security
and speed. If one drive brake you just replace it and data are safe.

boba vankufer

 

[Trimble]

Is no Bunny going to mention SCSI to the O/P ???
Used to be the very best thing in these matters.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

 

[Talal Itani]

Thank you. I will look into Raid 10. In a previous message, someone told
me about installing special drivers for Raid. I guess this holds true. And
Raid mother boards are surely supplied with the required Raid drivers.

 

[CBFalconer]

Thank you. I will look into Raid 10. In a previous message,
someone told me about installing special drivers for Raid. I
guess this holds true. And Raid mother boards are surely
supplied with the required Raid drivers.

Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
irrelevant material. See the following links:

--
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/> (taming google)
<http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/> (newusers)

 

[Boba & Ilinka]

So you will copy drivers to the floppy from Mother CD, than format HDs. When
you start to instal windows in one moment you will be asked to press F6 for
additional HD software that you had prepared. Than you will be asked for
type of raid and so on. For raid 10 you will need 4 HDs. If the smallest HD
is 70 GB capacity of HD "c" will be 2 times 70 (140 GB). So speed will be as
a raid 0 and the security of data as a raid 1.
Good lack.

Boba Vankufer

 

[Talal Itani]

Currently, without Raids, I backup to an external hard disk drive. With
Raid 10, do you think I can do without backups? How do people in general
handle this? Thanks.

 

[kony]

So you will copy drivers to the floppy from Mother CD, than format HDs. When
you start to instal windows in one moment you will be asked to press F6 for
additional HD software that you had prepared. Than you will be asked for
type of raid and so on.

???

Generally not, the raid type is preset by the user in the
raid bios before ever trying to install windows, then at the
point of installing windows, windows knows nothing about it
being a raid - it only sees the (single, if only one is set
up) logical volume comprised of the RAIDed drives, but since
it may be a non-supported drive controller type, it will
need a supplimental driver supplied to boot windows
thereafter.

 

[Boba & Ilinka]

Kony, you are right, for my MB when the system boot you press "ctrl shift i"
to access raid settings, than you go to windows installation. I did it 2
years ago!

Regarding back up: If you use raid 10 there are mirror image of each drive
on the other three. So if one drive fails you could replace it without
loosing data. I think that probability that two drives fail at the same time
is minor.

Boba Vankufer

 

[kony]

Kony, you are right, for my MB when the system boot you press "ctrl shift i"
to access raid settings, than you go to windows installation. I did it 2
years ago!

Regarding back up: If you use raid 10 there are mirror image of each drive
on the other three. So if one drive fails you could replace it without
loosing data. I think that probability that two drives fail at the same time
is minor.

Boba Vankufer

Yes if one failed you still retain redundancy, but I think
RAID10 is not used very often unless it's all the controller
would support beyond RAID1 (or 0), because it requires 4
drives. RAID5 has higher capacity with same 4 drives and
still survives a drive failure, or could use only 3 drives.

IMO, the performance advantage may not be much using RAID10
compared to two separate RAID1 volumes in many uses, because
with the two separate volumes you have the *2nd* volume
free for separate concurrent I/O. Depends on the use.