Which is faster: RAID O OR RAID 1?

[chobers]

I am interested in installing two SATA drives in order to use a RAID array. I will probably install a hardware RAID contoller, too.

I don't care about losing data: I only want to make the system go faster for gaming, video, etc.

RAID 0 is for systems which need more bandwidth, while RAID 1 claims to be for more "availability."

I want speed. Which should I get?

Thanks,

Steve
NH

 

[XT]

raid 0. Raid 1 will probably give u more stabablity.

 

[D4RK GR4YL3N]

raid 0 combines the two drives into "one" big drive.
raid 1 mirrors the data from one drive onto the second, giving you half the space of raid 0. raid 0 is faster overall

 

[Inaris]

Correct, although a little off. RAID 0 will in therory double the drive speed since the data is split to two different controllers going to two different drives. You will ussually see a 150% speed increase in writing and pulling data from the array, although standard use won't be that visable. The best place to see the difference is with moving really large files, +1gb.
RAID 1 is a mirror, meaning an exact duplicate of the data on the other drive. This is sending all of the data to both drives instead of splitting it out. It isn't a slow down, but there is no speed increase to RAID 1. It's only for data protection.

 

[ekÆsine]

RAID won't speed up your games, they do not use the hard disk that much. for faster games get a better video card

 

[Bleep]

Yep. Better gaming = better vid. card and a good amount of quality, brand name ram.

 

[D4RK GR4YL3N]

i would get a 10,000 rpm sata drive for your os and get a slower larger driver for your other stuff. that is if your interested in speed and have some extra bucks lying around. better vid card is a good idea to

 

[Target]

RAID 0 will help in some games. If you put your swap disk on the RAID drive, it will be able to load anything in virtual memory faster.... so you wont see as much stutter when virtual memory is being accessed.
Of course there is no substitute for more RAM and a better video card.
-Target