RAID 0 HDDs, effective and worth it?

So I know even for desktops, RAID 0 configs is rather questionable. I was wondering is RAID 0 viable and effective in notebooks? Are there any noticable read/write, etc. increase compared to a single 7200rpm HDD? I'm asking this since I'm planning on getting a high-end sager notebook from Malibal!

 

Depends on what you do? Gaming? No. Copying very large files all the time? Debatable.

 

Dont do raid 0 unless its for ëpëën

The one thing I usually say Raid 0 is good for is video editing, but even for video editing I think its more effective to just split duties between your two disks. Have source files on one drive and encode/render to the 2nd drive.

 

nah its not even real raid

 

well I decided not to go Raid 0. SSDs are far too expensive so I'm going Hybrid SSD with the Momentus XT.

 

It is real RAID, just software RAID not a dedicated RAID card. Software RAID is nowhere as good as a RAID card.

MomentusXT's are okay, but unless you constantly reboot and do the SAME tasks 24/7, you aren't going to use the properly use the 4 GB SLC SSD. They are pricey and read/write aren't the fastest.

 

That's really all I'll be doing. Programs I use daily.

-Google Chrome
-Guild Wars 2 (soon!)
-Photoshop CS5
-Microsoft Office
-Other Games

 

raid is for servers, that need data reliability, raid 0 dont provide the basic data reliability, lose one lose it all. it aint raid

 

Sounds like you don't get how caching works.

edit: To clarify, as soon as you launch a program the SSD portion starts grabbing data from that program that it thinks you will use. Using the same program a million times won't degrade performance in other programs.

 

Hungry Man,

I want to clarify the difference on onboard data caching vs. the SSD section for data storage.

As data is read/written from disk, the drives cache reads/writes to that cache. On a read, the Momentus XT can provide data to the OS if it is in the onboard cache. In some drives a READ will also load in other "localized" data as well in case the OS wants more from the file system. On a write, the firmware puts the data in the cache and tells the OS the operation has completed. At that point the OS moves on with the next operation, and it is now up to the XT to get that cached data to the disk. The XT has a 32MB cache used for this purpose. Note, this cache sits between BOTH the SSD and the platters of the XT.

In regards to the SSD (NAND Flash) portion of the disk, the XTs firmware has a bit of logic that watches which blocks of data are being READ from the drive. As uncached data is read, over and over again, the XT's firmware "learns" from this and migrates a COPY of those blocks to the SSD of the drive. Afterwards as uncached blocks are subsequently requested, the XT returns the copy of those blocks from the NAND Flash, rather than going to the data on the spinning platters. And that is where the payoff occurs... uncached READs coming from an SSD, not from the disk are extremely fast. That is for READs, but WRITEs are a different matter. The SSD is not a true "write" SSD. Only the XT's firmware decides what ends up in the SSD based on its own algorithms. All writes to the drive occur on the platters and those blocks may eventually make it into the SSD based on READs, but not unless the firmware places it there.

Also note, the SSD caching algorithm is based where data is mapped to LBAs on disk. Once you defrag your XT, any addresses that are moved due to a defragger are invalidated in the cache. The firmware must re-learn over time on defragged files, so the new locations eventually work their way back into the NAND Flash.

Does this mean you shouldn't defrag an Momentus XT? No, of course not. Fragmentation is still a problem with the XTs for the data on disk living OUTSIDE of the NAND flash. However, you may want to scale back the frequency in which a defragger, so the data within the SSD portion remains relevant for a longer period of time.

 

^ wow that was informative and also slightly above my head. So what's faster RAID 0 or Momentus XT?

 

raid 0 depends on the drives used. i personally would go with a raid. You loose a little data reliability but its still far faster for boot times and loading games and transferring files. SSD is better but way to expensive.

 

I know RAID 0 is faster than the average 7200rpm but lets say

-2x7200rpm 16mb cache HDDs (in software RAID 0)
vs
-Momentus XT 32mb cache 7200rpm, 4GB NAND flash Hybrid SSD

 

i would use either 2 hitatchi 500 gig hardrives or 2 XT in a raid. There is another thread on raids and tanware has some good points. I would concur with tanware and do the XT raid.

 

Low Budget - 2 Drives Dont Raid
Medium Budget - Get a XT
High Budget - Get a SSD


Raid 0 is not going to really make your boot or games load much faster like mr. unknown says. Most files are too small to be split between the drives and get a speed boost and its really annoying to always have 2 drives running just to access a small file its extra wear on your system and a lose of a layer of data security.

With independant drives you can keep your data files like movies, music, picture, documents on the 2nd drive and keep your OS on the main drive.

You get a virus, or a windows corruption you can just install the OS again and your data/files are still there on the 2nd drive. If you were in Raid you would lose them by installing the OS ontop of them.

So its not always physical loss of a drive that is a problem with raid its other things too. Power Draw, Heat, Wear and Tear, Inconvenience. All for the sake of minor speed gains in some situations.

 

terminus123,

Unless your extremely diligent about back-ups and know exactly what is going on with RAID 0 (and all the pitfalls due to data loss), then I'd also suggest you stick with the Momentus XT.

One thing no one has mentioned was using RAID-0 with Momentus XTs. While some people have had it work, others have had RAID volume failures. If it's of any consolation, Seagate itself does *NOT* recommend using RAID with the Momentus XT. See bottom of http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Moment...using-Intel-ICH10-Intel-RST/td-p/92766/page/2

 

indeed, I much prefer the Momentus XT now. But @#$% Alienware only sells M17x configs with RAID 0 or very epxnesive SSDs!

 

just unraid the thing

 

As Mr MM stated, you can disable the RAID in BIOS, delete the array and reinstall the Windows. I would highly suggest creating recovery media first then doing so, so you can get all your original content reinstalled.

 

Expensive? Not really. For a boot drive, $100-200 will get something decent and with $300 you'll be flying.

False economy one more time...

 

Sure, and you'll be back in 2008. Instead of two 7200rpm drives(you -did- mean 7200rpm, righto?), get a small, fast SSD and a cheap(under $100) 1T 5400rpm drive and have what's usually recommended in these threads - a fast boot/app drive and a large, cheap data drive.

Seeing as how this Raid 0 topic comes up weekly, might be worth doing a search next time someone asks the inevitable...

 

back in the day when i had a desktop my boot times were far faster than my friends and load times were so much faster in game. I can say from experience I noticed a large difference. Granted this was back when i had a P4 and two Seagate 120g...than Seagate 250g after first set died.

@AMATX....5400? my god i would loose my mind with a 5400 rpm drive. I hate my single 7200 rpm drives for data. I put all my games on an external eSATA drive so things load faster.

 

There is a huge difference between ide/pata on an ich7 and sata on an ich10.

So much of a difference that the old 'raid0 for speed' recommendations aren't worth too very much these days.

Tech changes and peoples internal infobase needs to change with it.

 

not a littlebit actually. chance of failure is massive increased (yeah, math is complex, but you can google it).

one normal disk + one ssd, no raid => perfect solution (in a 2 disk setup)

you can get the raid0 laptop, then unraid, sell one of the disks (they're new), and invest that money + maybe 100$ to get a nice fresh ssd.

no, not that much more expensive than going the raid0 route.