Raid 0

[blackeye]

Whats the big deal. Some people say that raiding your Harddrives in 0 is bad for your games. And that you should only use a single drive for games. Others say that you should use it becuase your loading times are significantly decreased. So what are the advantages of raiding two hd in 0 then not raiding them.

 

[FictiousWill]

From what I hear it's simply that it increases load and write times, the disk data is intermeshed so the disks are completely dependent upon eachother. The 'bad' possibility is just one of reliability I think - but I don't know much about raid myself. With newer systems it seems to be fine, in fact I may just pop for a raid 0 for my next comp upgrade.

 

[Asus]

Whats the big deal. Some people say that raiding your Harddrives in 0 is bad for your games. And that you should only use a single drive for games. Others say that you should use it becuase your loading times are significantly decreased. So what are the advantages of raiding two hd in 0 then not raiding them.

I don't think people quite say it is bad for your games but RAID-0 arrays can and do fail and when they do you loose everything on the drive.
I wouldn't recommend using a RAID array for a boot drive even if it gives faster boot times if you care about the risk of loss of data on that drive.

If you setup a Raid array for your second drive ( D: ) and install your apps there instead of your C: drive then that will speed up load times yet you don't have to risk reinstalling your OS if the array fails...Just your apps.
Some people have had their RAID-0 arrays running for a while with no issues but understand the risks and chances of it going bad.
This is where Raid 1+0 comes in handy. Mirrors and Stripes. nForce3 250 has 4 SATA RAID ports and you can do RAID 1 and Raid 0 between SATA or even PATA.

There are several issue to consider before setting up RAID-0 or choosing which controller to use.
Raid-0 arrays generally use more CPU usage and how much depends on the controller. Link and Link
Onboard RAID controllers generally are poor compared to a hardware controller card that you would buy and install in a PCI slot and can vary between other onboard controllers.

Real world performance when adding in CPU usage doesn't always make RAID the best option. Link

The other is added latency.
It takes a RAID-0 array longer than a single drive to read T E S T inorder from
Drive1: PPTSPPPP
Drive2: PPPPETPP
vs
Single : PPTESTPP

Besides all of that, a good RAID-0 array should give you a big improvement in drive access. The biggest difference is in the write speeds. A single drive usually has pretty good Read speeds already but lower Write speeds.
Notice Average Read speeds VS Average Write speeds.
Another RAID-0 vs singles review

 

[blahblahblah]

I don't think people quite say it is bad for your games but RAID-0 arrays can and do fail and when they do you loose everything on the drive.
I wouldn't recommend using a RAID array for a boot drive even if it gives faster boot times if you care about the risk of loss of data on that drive.

Yes, I had a Raid array fail on me once. Very irritating to say the least.

Let me clarify something about a Raid array failing. It doubles the chances of your harddrive chances of failing since you have 2 hard drives. But, the chances of a harddrive failing on you is extremely small.

If you do go with a raid setup, make sure you back up all of your critical stuff. I have a USB flash drive that I use to back up all of my important papers on a regular basis.

 

[blackeye]

Well im not going to have any important documents on my system anyways. Just games so data failure doesnt mater to me. I can reinstall a game whenever a want and just back up my saved game files to a cd once in a while. But even if it does fail it isnt a big deal to me. But im still a little confused as to which is better for games.

 

[Asus]

Well, Games (and all apps) run off RAM and hopefully you have enough so they arn't using a swapfile on your harddrive...lol

The only time it would need to access your drive is for map loads or for loading other files that were not already in Memory.

 

[blahblahblah]

Well im not going to have any important documents on my system anyways. Just games so data failure doesnt mater to me. I can reinstall a game whenever a want and just back up my saved game files to a cd once in a while. But even if it does fail it isnt a big deal to me. But im still a little confused as to which is better for games.

I enjoy RAID 0 on my computer. There is a big difference in level loading in games like BF:V. RAID 0 helps eliminate one of the biggest bottlenecks a modern computer has today. With that said, RAID 0 is not perfect and it will not increase FPS in games either.

 

[amneziac85]

Great breakdown Asus, nice read...

I plan on Raiding (raid 0) 2x 36GB 10,000 RPM drives and using it as boot only. Getting a 250 7200 SATA for games and apps, and a Hitachi 400GB for all my videos, tv shows and movies.

Sounds like alot, but I record shows on my DVR, take the drive out then convert the Mpeg-2 files on that drive into divx, and store them on my computer.

So some say NOT to raid 0 your boot drive, I say why raid 0 anything else? By the way, your swap file is on your boot drive, so raiding it would speed your shit up for everything, while raiding your games drive only speeds up games.

 

[Asus]

My swap file isn't on my boot drive.
It's off my Raptor and on my PATA WD drive ( E: ).

You're right, go ahead and RAID-0 your boot drive.
My post was trying to inform rather than deter. I just didn't want anyone going into it without actually thinking about what might matter.