Raid 0; Your Opinions, Please...

[Zeion]

I'd just like to hear people's personal experiences with RAID 0. I'm doing my first build, ordered two 80Gb HDDs with the intention of RAID 0, but the more I read about benchmarked and tested performance of this type of array, the more I see reviewers saying that RAID 0 offers no real performance gain over a single drive for gaming.

I know the synthetic benchmarks and I/O testing results of RAID 0 versus a single drive. What I would like to hear are your experiences from actually playing games with RAID 0 and without, to help me decide whether to bother setting it up.

Thanks ahead of time for the info.

 

[cedjunior]

I don't have any experience with actually having a RAID 0 setup, but during game play you're not going to see any gains in performance. As long as you have enough memory, the hard drive is barely used once a game loads.

 

[BColes]

When loading a map in a game like BF2 your times will faster but once playing the game it will be the same as any normal harddrive.

 

[003]

There is a huge difference when loading things.

 

[aj2003]

i noticed a nice difference when starting windows and when loading up games. Ive got 2 raid0 arrays and swear by them.

 

[gaara]

I made the switch from a single 7200RPM drive to two Raptors in RAID 0 for my applications and OS a few years ago and the response time is simply night and day...I can't specifically comment on how much of the difference was from the faster RPM and how much was from the array, but I will tell you I look back again

Having the fastest responding PC possible was a high priority to me which is why I selected that configuration, and yes it is true that actual system processes aren't altered in the slightest, but my load times are cut in half and when I'm installing anything the difference is certainly noticable

 

[Mr_Threepwood]

I've got 2 36 gb raptors and ive been thinking about putting htem in RAID 0. If I do that I have a few questions

1. Is RAID at all taxing on the CPU, does the processor have to do more to split the data up?

2. If the computer crashes what happens, will files be corrupt or will I end up having to totally wipe the HDs.

 

[HAVOC]

The only way I use RAID 0 is for Additional Storage. I wanted at least 500GIG's for various media files. But a 500GIG HDD is Over $300.

So I bought (2) 250 GIGers put hem in RAID 0, for $215.00

 

[Zeion]

The only way I use RAID 0 is for Additional Storage. I wanted at least 500GIG's for various media files. But a 500GIG HDD is Over $300.

So I bought (2) 250 GIGers put hem in RAID 0, for $215.00

The following is quoted from a website I googled for a better description than I could provide of which levels of RAID mean what:

RAID Level 0 provides no redundancy. RAID Level 0 splits or stripes the data across drives, resulting in higher data throughput. Since no redundant information is stored, performance is very good, but the failure of any disk in the array results in complete data loss. Level 0 is only used to increase disk performance.

RAID Level 1 is usually referred to as mirroring. A Level 1 array provides redundancy by duplicating all the data from one drive on a second drive so that if either drive fails, no data is lost. This is a good entry-level redundant system. Most newer motherboards have this option built-in today using the Promise Technology IDE RAID chip. The downside to this is that the cost per megabyte of disk storage is twice that of a single drive as two drives are needed to store the same data.

http://www.integratedsolutions.org/raid_ov.htm

Neither of these results in greater space than a single drive. I believe a few levels of RAID do, but not as much as simply connecting two drives without using RAID.

Feel free to check out that link or do a search for more info.

 

[Zeion]

Thanks, Gaara, for pointing out installation times. I suppose I wasn't really considering the point of RAID 0 and what it is designed to do. I will definately give it a try. Who knows, maybe I'll appreciate it as much as many of you.

Thanks for all the info, everyone.