320GB 7,200 RPM HD x2 in Raid 0 vs. Single 500GB 7,200 RPM HD?

What's the difference and is the dual worth an extra $25 bucks or is it simply unnecessary? What exactly is Raid 0 "for"? I have no clue.

 

RAID 0 is when two HDD's works togheter. It will be much faster, but does your laptop support it ?
And don't forget that if one drive fails you will lose all data on both drives, that is becouse it spilt files into two drives to acsess it faster...
Did you get what I mean ?

EDIT:
You can find more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

 

Well, RAID 0 is used to increase performance of games by distributing the installation of programs across two independent hard drives. (I think). Plus, you'll have an extra 140 GB of space, which isn't bad for $25.

 

500GB 7200rpm isn't worth the money at the moment.

Get either two WD5000BEVTs or WD3200BEKTs in RAID 0.

 

cheap high performance low capacity SSD + 320gb 7200 imo

 

RAID 0 is not faster than a typical hard drive in everyday applications; it has its uses, sure (video editing), but it is not worth it if you are going to use it as your main hard drive. RAID 0 effectively doubles the risk of data loss since you depend on one hard drive; if one dies, then you lose all of your data.

I suggest a single 500GB Western Digital drive as Phil mentioned.

 

I agree, RAID-0 implies a really bad data loss, and the performance increase is simply not worth losing sensitive data, however, the speed boost is quite nice.

 

I'd get 500GB, not only its cheaper, you can upgrade to 1TB Raid 0 in the future; where as getting a pair of 320GB drive is kinda dead end.

 

That too!, 1 TB RAID-0 is awesome, I wish I had that... Hah.

 

Aeris, can you post a HDD tune and Crystal mark of your Clevo laptop?

I have a pair of 200GB drive in Raid 0, I'd be very interested in the performance drfference between that, and 3x200GB.

 

Crystal Mark won't run on my computer, "Disk not found.", however, I have a HD Tune Benchmark at handy:

Results (Attached Thumbnail):

Minimum - 79.2 MB Per Second.

Maximum - 139.4 MB Per Second.

Average: 117.6 MB Per Second.

--------------------------------

Access Time - 15.2 MS.

Burst Rate - 99.8 MB Per Second.

CPU Usage: 3.7%.

--------------------------------

 

I would get the RAID-0. Depends on your applications though...

--

 

Interesting. +rep.

Seems the result isnt that simple to explain, cos our set up are so different.

I've a touch higher maximum, and lower minimum. I guess your quadcore CPU and higher RAM bus seem to help CPU usage, but has to cope with an extra drive.

 

Very true, RAID is somewhat confusing sometimes.

What brand of Hard Drives do you have? Mine are Toshiba.

Hehe, maybe, I was running in a pseudo perfomance mode (only vital resources are running) when I ran the benchmark, too.

 

I think its Seagate Momentus 7200.2, with with 16 MB buffer.

I looked it up before, but I'm running Raid 0 now, device manager doesn't seem to tell.

I normally turn off those obvious disk activity hogs, when running HDD Tune, but no critical tweaks.

 

Ah, alright then.

Yeah, you could write down the serial number and name in the RAID Setup at boot-time, that is what I did.

 

can we all please use hdtune to show our results. i'm lost here also.
i have 3 hdd slots.
3 500gb 7200.4 raid 0

ssd 2 500gb 7200.4 raid 0

2 320 wd raid 0 1 500gb wd

2 ssd raid 0 1 500gb wd or 7200.4

i'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo lost at what i should do.

here's my old 120gb seagate @5400 rpm for kicks





but i had 2 400gb WD's @5400rpm and in raid 0 i
average 99mb/s
min 64mb/s
max 125mb/s

i sold them and i wasn't thinking about saving the results.