Use of RAID0

I just setup my first RAID0. That was not difficult, but I am now wondering if I have implemented it in the best possible way. My main intention is to use the RAID0 disks for capturing, editing, compositing, etc. with Adobe Master Collection. The reason why I am questioning this now is the "rate your system" in Win7. Everything scored very well except the "primary disk" which is a separate physical drive that is not RAID.

Should I have setup the RAID0 and used it for my primary Windows drive? Is this what gamers and video editors do?

Thanks!

BTW, using WD Caviar Black drives, (1x 640GB partitioned into C&D, and 2x500GB RAID0)

Well have you installed Intel matrix storage manager and enabled write back cache yet? IMO yes put the OS on the raid drive. BTW F*ck the windows index crap. Don't take it too seriously. If you want to test your drive then download something like HD Tune and benchmark it.

I use RAID0 arrays on my machines, and they have a noticeable impact only on disk intensive applications. Did you set up the array via BIOS or is it a software raid ?

Thanks, guys. I have an AMD 920 processor, and an Asus M3N78 Pro. The board supports RAID, but I set it up in Win7 (64 bit).

I did not take the specs too much at heart (it is just a silly test), but it did make me wonder a bit.

I know that it is recommended to have separate physical drives for the Adobe "scratch disks". My reasoning at the time was to use the faster drive for capturing video.

What applications are you using, Cabalo? I know you enjoy games. Is your setup just RAID, or do you have non-raided drives in there also?

Ultimately, everything in my system should be able to meet my needs as it is currently configured. However, there seems to be multiple options and I seldom find myself stumbling on the best one out of chance. :D

Also, I did some playing around with the SATA ports early on. 4 of them are red, 2 are black. The black ones are for the hardware RAID. As I was playing with this (switching cables from red to black), it caused some crashes and Windows deleted some of my files (email, specifically) while trying to recover. I have a suspicion that the same thing will happen again. Have either of you switched from software RAID to hardware after installing programs? If so, did you lose data?

Well if it's speed you're looking for you'll have to pay :) I have my OS set up on 2 64GB Solid State disks in Raid 0. Now there's some speed. My machine boots up from pushing the power button to a usable desktop in about 12 seconds.

I haven't ever switched raids but I tend to use the HW raid only.

I've 2 raid'ed machines.
One is a server running win2k3, where everything is stored in this house, from music to xvid to x264. There are usually 4 people accessing it all the time, so access times were of capital importance, so I BIOS raid'ed 2x 1Tb sata2 7200rpm 32mb cache to it. Quickly they got filled so I added 3 extra 1Tb drives, not at the same time. I never raid'ed those, but I did relocate the categories with less hits on them, so there wouldn't be an impact on the networking.

On my workstation, I have 2x 320Gb sata2 7200rpm 32mb cache WD drives as my OS and applications drive. Where I notice the most the impact it has is when using Adobe Premiere. I do quite a bit of video edition, usually to advertise parties or video jamming sessions, and using files as big as 100mb can take quite a hit on the HDD. On gaming it's pretty useless tbh. Using adobe photoshop, it's noticeable when saving large .PSDs.
I use another 1Tb drive as storage in JBOD mode.

I've only got one SSD, and that is in my Asus 901. I have seen a noticeable difference on that one. :D

It looks like we use the same drives, Cabalo. I don't have the kind of demands on my system that you do (at least yet :yikes: ).

I do think I will play around a bit in the future. Actually, with the quickly diminishing cost of HDDs, the not-so-far-off solution may be to simply add another drive and RAID0 it to the OS drive. Total cost <$85.

I have exhausted all of my current discretionary money, buy that makes the most sense all around. I will use the BIOS for the OS/Application drives.