RAID worth it?

So my laptop might enter production Monday, but now I'm wondering if maybe I should alter my order and get 3 320 GB harddrives, and RAID the last two for games and such. The increase of +70% read and +30% write speed I've heard RAID provides seems pretty substantial..

I don't wanna bother PNB again if I don't have to.. do you guys know if Sager would let me remove a harddrive and send it to them with a RMA instead of the entire laptop? I have the tools and I'm capable at it, but I can understand why they can't just trust my word on that..

Right now I'm sitting at 3474 shipped, with the 3rd harddrive I'm looking at $205 more.

 

I will attest that RAID definitely makes a noticeable improvement. I have RAID on both my desktop and my laptop and honestly hate it when I have to use something without it. Now, whether or not its worth the extra $205, thats something youre gonna have to decide. If I had already spent $3500, I would probably not think twice about another $200, but thats just me.

Friendly FYI: Your sig doesn't really make sense in its current state.

 

9262 is faking it. That's just my opinion.

As for RAID, I asked something similar recently. It looks like there is an increase in speed (with the proper RAID) but not that big, perhaps 10-15%
Mind you, I don't have one.

 

If the system supports it... I would never send a system in for review w/o a RIAD array set up on it. RAID0 is going to make a tremendous difference, and even RAID1 will help your read speeds.

Go for the RAID!

 

Thanks Killernotebooks.. There seems to be no clear benchmark of the read speeds of the 9262 RAID 0 and 1. That's all I'm really interested in (the loss of a full harddrive space doesn't bother me). A slight drop in write speed wouldn't bother me too much really. I'm attracted to raid-1 because I can feel that my OS is much safer, but from what I've read RAID-1 might not increase the speed. But you're saying it will. Ahhh!!!

Maybe the RAID has been updated to stripe read...

 

According to the RAID Wiki article the performance boost in RAID 1 comes when you have a multi-threaded operating system that supports split seeks. You'll have an increase in read speeds because the OS can read different parts of a file from each drive at the same time. There will be a slight reduction in write speed because everything must be written twice.

 

well RAIDｉｎｃｒｅａｓｅｓ　ＨＤＤ　ｓｃｏｒｅ　ｉｎ　Ｖｉｓｔａ　ｅｃｐｅｒｉａｎｃｅ　ｉｎｄｅｘ　ｂｙ　５　ｐｏｉｎｔｓ．．．．．　ｓｈｏｕｌｄ　ｂｅ　ｗｏｒｔｈ　ｉｔ！！！　ＷＨＥＲＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＥ

 

I suggest a RAID 1 setup, since that way you have mirrored disks for data security. I have two RAID 1 arrays in my desktop and it has paid off. One drive suddenly failed about three months ago, and I was fine since the other drive had everything on it. With RAID 0, you double the risk of data loss since you are depending on two disks . . . not worth it in my opinion.

 

why no talk about raid 5???? how does that compare to raid 0 and 1 on the 9262?

 

I read about bazaido, it seems to have HORRIBLE random write and read performance.

All I'm interested is in read speed. If there is a slight reduction of write speed for raid 1 vs 0, I'd rather take 1 because of the peace-of-mind-for-the-OS factor.

 

hmmmm odd when i spoke to xotic they said it was best performance and backup option. should i switch to raid 0 on 2 drives and leave the third as a backup?

 

David, there are several different types of RAID arrays that is true (ie: 0,1,5, etc) but there is also hardware and software RAID. This system uses an ICH8R RAID controller so have a leg up on the software type already. If you don't mind losing a drive, then definitely go with the RAID1 array. It's benefits far outweigh the cost of an additional drive if your data or time is valuable. As for the differing information out there about the RAID1 read time speed increase I have written a small anecdote for those who are like "WTH are they talking about?"

In the following example the stake is your data and the men are your hard drives. Two carnival workers are putting up a tent. They are tasked to drive stakes and that's all they do. To drive the stake one man hits it with a large wooden hammer and when he is recoiling, the other man slams his hammer down on the stake. They continue to do this in succession until the stake is driven into the ground. If one of the men sees a pretty girl walk by and misses a beat the other man continues to drive the stake. Therein lies your redundancy, two drives performing the same task.

On the other hand, once the stake is driven (data is all written) the men are waiting (now you want to simply read the drive). If a pretty girl walks by now one man can go ogling after her because there are no stakes left to drive. If that girl also has a sister... well they're in luck because the second man (drive) can independently act on his fancies. The read speed increase is due to either drive, if they are not being written to, can independently seek out and produce read data needed.


Chaz stated:

I can't say enough times to back up your data or use something like RAID1. What Chaz says here is even downplayed a little because although he lost a drive, he never lost a beat. When one drive fails in a RAID1 array, other than getting a warning about it, it is business as usual. You just keep going. When Chaz dropped a new drive in, the RAID array would have rebuilt itself with little human effort involved. That saved him time in two ways.

• The single drive failure did not cause his system to cease functioning.
• He did not need to reload from a back up or completely re do everything on his new hard drive... the RAID array did all the rebuilding itself.

I have not seen a lot of notebook hard drives fail. I think the official statistic is less than 1% (.7% if I remember right). RAID 1 appears to be the proper choice for what you are doing when you consider you aren't concerned about the price increase or losing the space of one of the drives. If the benefits outlined above are what you are looking for you have yourself a RAID type winner.

I also agree with RAID5 having decreased performance. I have built them and the systems felt sluggish. I am not a huge fan of RAID5 in this system (notebook). If you have a server, ok that's different. This though, I think you can accomplish what you want to do with a less elaborate system.

 

wow killer notebooks! thanks so much again.. After looking at some prices on some 1 terabyte external harddrives, I was flabbergasted how cheap they've gotten. I decided to go with the RAID 0 with a good external nightly backup, that should do nicely. The crux for me with raid 0 for me also was if Sager would allow me to remove the faulty harddrive myself and send only it back, as I was worried that I'd be without my own PC for awhile again

 

You can get a Raid 1 setup with 3 hard drives?What happens on the 3rd hard drive?Is the 3rd one a back up?
Lets say in some unfortunate way you do lose one HD, will the computer tell you which one failed?
My newbie brain is about to explode on all this info!
For some reason I was thinking a Raid 5 setup was the best of both worlds for safety and extra speed.
I was looking to have a Raid 5 setup in my C901 but now I hear it's sluggish.DAMN!
Now I have to rethink me configuration.

 

I would say that a RAID 1 is the smartest choice atm, since 320/7200 hdds are fast enough as it is.
And it increases the read speeds(100%?).

 

Theoretically yes, it is possible and would be called a multi-drive RAID-1 configuration, but not on this machine.

Yes, and rebuild it once a new drive is put in.

As far as your particular RAID configuration, that is up to you. My personal feeling after configuring a RAID5 array in this machine is that it seemed a little sluggish. If you want the protection for all drives in the system you have to go with the RAID5.