To Raid Or Not?

[3rd gen noob]

well, another twist in my seemingly never-ending hard drive conquest...

i'm considering getting two of these (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=50956) drives

i'm also considering setting them up in a raid0 config, but i'm not sure what's involved in the setup and what the performance gains are

anyone got any experience with raid and/or any stories to tell?

tia for any replies :)

[lynx]

If you merely want high capacity and high speed, then raid 0 is what you want. If you want protection from data loss, you need raid 1. You can also combine these to give raid 0+1 depending on your raid controller. Raid 0+1 gives improved read performance over raid 1, but no write improvements.

There's an article here (http://www.modtown.co.uk/mt/article2.php?id=sataraid) on raid 0 using those drives, but I think some of their results are a little misleading.

If I had the money, and assuming by raid controller supported it, I would get an extra drive and set up a raid 5 configuration. This gives even better speed than raid 0 for reading (the data is spread over a three way stripe), with only a slight overhead on write performance. You get the same capacity as 2 drives in raid 0, but with the added benefit of data protection.

[adamp2p]

Yes, I have had excellent experience with the Promise Fast Track TX2 IDE RAID ATA100 Controller Card w/2 Cables (http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=130430).

It does cost $75 USD, though. All you need to do is to install the thing into one of your PCI slots, do some easy configuration in the fasttrack BIOS with the drives plugged in, then as you install XP you have to press F6 as you boot while inserting the the floppy drive with the drivers for the RAID array. As you install XP it will prompt you to agree to install an non WHQL driver for the array, just say "ok" and wala, it's all done.

...everything definately speeds up a shitload...from loading programs moving files. Basically it is a damn big improvement from standard harddrive config. And I must say the promise engineers did an excellent job with the TX2. I have never had any irregularity. Promise is probably the most respected of the bunch, I would stick with them. They even have excellent tech support.

:D

edit: you might want to look into the fastrack133 tx2 if it exists. (cause I saw your drives are 133s)

edit2: this is what you want, it does 133 (http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=130404)

[lynx]

Actually, they are SATA 150.

This (http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=132222) may be more the sort of thing you are looking for.

[adamp2p]

Originally posted by lynx@29 December 2003 - 21:53
Actually, they are SATA 150.

This (http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=132222) may be more the sort of thing you are looking for.
Thanks, I would not have noticed that myself, lynx. Good looking out. Those SATA 150's are some damn fast drives. Raid 0 would make them more badass.

@3rd gen:


I strongly advise against doing raid 0+1 etc. Just use your old hardrives as IDE for backups.

[adamp2p]

or maybe you might want to consider one of these (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/promise-fts150-tx4.html)