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    What should I look for in a hard drive for raid 0

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by jefh262, Oct 24, 2008.

  1. jefh262

    jefh262 Notebook Guru

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    I have recently bought a gateway 6860 fx and was looking to make a raid 0 configuration. However, I do not know a thing about hard drive specs apart from their capacity. I am looking for two 320-500gb hard drives. Do you have any suggestions?

    Thanks... :)
     
    jefh262, Oct 24, 2008
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  2. jisaac

    jisaac Notebook Deity

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    for max speed (not considering ssds) go for any 7200rpm 320gb, or 5400rpm 500gb hd....
    7200.3 320gb
    wd3200bekt
    7k320
    WD5000BEVT
    avoid the hm500li

    you must be aware though, you won't notice much difference running raid 0 as opposed to a single drive configuration... where raid 0 helps is in intensive video/audio encoding applications. pm KTRON cos i'm not sure whether or not the 6860 fx supports hardware raid.... software raid is useless IMO, and only gives a <10% performance improvement....
     
    jisaac, Oct 24, 2008
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  3. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    the 6860-fx has a software raid controller, so the most you will get out of a raid configuration is about a 7% increase in performance. If you still want to do raid 0 for the hell of it, than thats fine. Just realize 2 x the amount of drives does not equal 2 x the performance. Your 6860 also has the option for raid 1, which is worth it, in my opinion, cause it backs up all of your data on the second drive, so if one drive was to fail, the other drive would kick in and nothing would be lost.
    The best drives to run in Raid 0 are the latest generation 7200rpm drives. Currently the fastest of teh latest generation drives are the 80gb models. They have limited head movement, making the 80gb of teh drive only on the outer edge of the platter, making the drive extremely fast. The 250gb model works the same way, except to get 250gb, more of the platter needs to be used. The 160gb and 320gb are equivalent in performance, but both are sligtly slower than the 250gb model.

    The wd 5000 is a 500gb 5400rpm drive, so if you wanted to have two installed, you could store 1Terabyte of data.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Oct 24, 2008
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  4. checkmait

    checkmait Notebook Consultant

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    A longer than average warranty is also a good indicator of manufacturer confidence in their product, which reflects positively on the reliability of the drive.

    An especally important quality for a RAID 0 setup.
     
    checkmait, Oct 24, 2008
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