RAID 0 or Raptor (150 $ budget)

[jakebrick]

I have about 150 dollars to spend on new storage, and I want to know which option will make my MS windows loading, and map loading in games (CS:S, etc..) the fastest. I need a decent amount of space (300+ gigs hopefully) so my options are:

1. 36 gig raptor (for OS and games), combined with any 250 gig 7200rpm HD.

OR

2. Two (2) 80 gig 7200's in RAID O, combined with any 250 gig 7200rpm HD.

Obviously, the second option is cheaper and offers much more capacity, but I don't know which will be faster for loading maps and the OS, the 10,000 rpm or the RAID 0. If anyone has other ideas for my 150 $ budget, I am open to suggestions. I just want 300 gigs total (roughly), and at least some of it to be as fast as possible.

Edit: I am not concerned with the threat of HD failure possiblility with RAID 0 because I will back the important stuff up onto the larger, slower HD. So I want some of the storage to not be in RAID.

 

[Ronnie]

im not a big fan of raid really i dont think the performance increase is noticable at all but thats just my opinion
option 2 is the beter option
but if i were you i would just get 2 250gb sata hard drives and not raid them

 

[jakebrick]

So, for loading times the RAID or the Raptor wouldn't make a noticeable difference? I just feel like my HD now is slowing the rest of my computer down.

 

[b1gapl]

Well if I'm correct, the hard drive is the slowest component of a computer? I've heard that somewhere.

Anyway, if you have very important files, I wouldn't suggest RAID 0. But if you don't have anything critical to worry about, then I'd say, go RAID 0. Just have a backup drive to have a copy of your important data. But IMO, RAID 0 or a 10k rpm is only like 5-10 seconds faster. Which isn't much for the price. If it was me though. I would RAID 0 two Seagate 7200.10 320GBs. And have another hard drive to back them up.

 

[kobe24]

option 3 get 2 seagate 320gb 16mb cache 7200.10rpm and raid 0 them

 

[jakebrick]

I was thinking about just getting two large HD's and raiding them, but I would also so like some of my storage to not be in RAID so that I can have a little more security with the important stuff. I don't really mind any price as long as it's under $150.

 

[TheMajor]

Using HD Tune I get an average read speed of 91MB/s on my RAID0 array (2x 80GB Maxtor 7200).

In real life, the difference is not that big because you will be doing random access most of the time.

Maybe somebody with a Raptor can do a HD Tune benchmark.