Computer Geeks: Got RAID?

[J. MacDonald]

MY 40 gig hard drive was starting to fail. I know this because it would often make a strange squealing noise while trying to boot and then I would get a message indicating boot disk failure. Fortunately being the type of geek I am, I actually do back-up my data and was able to get everything important onto CDRW before removing the old drive.

My computer is an ongoing upgrade project as I'm a gamer and always looking for a bit better gaming experience. The ABIT IS7 motherboard I upgraded to about six months ago came equipped with a Serial ATA raid controller built in, so I figured that this would be the perfect time to try my first RAID array. For those normal people reading this post, Serial ATA is a new way to connect hard drives that gets away from the old 40 wire ribbon cables and uses a sleek new 4 wire connection for better data integrity and speed. RAID arrays are using multiple discs for either greater speed (RAID 0) or greater data protection (RAID 1). I chose to go RAID 0 and striped two 80gb MAxtor Diamond Max Plus 9 7200 RPM drives together for a 160gb array.


WOW! It's the single biggest improvement that I've ever seen in all my years of tweaking my computer. My office apps and browser all open almost instantly and even big game files load with almost no delay. With a striped array there's a slightly higher risk of data loss as things come apart quickly is the drives get out of sync, but if you back up regurlarly, it shouldn't be a problem. Now all I need is a new state of the art $500.00 GeForce FX5900 Ultra video card and my machine will be complete again (for at least another six months).

FYI, here's what's inteh box these days:

ABIT IS7 mobo with Intel P4C 2.4ghz stabily overclocked to 3.12ghz w/800mhz front side buss

2x 256mb Kingston Hyper X 433mhz memory

Nvidia GeForce 4 TI 4400 128mb video card

Soundblaster Audigy Gamer sound card

Lite-on 52/32/52 CDRW drive

Pioneer DVD115 DVD rom drive

2x Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 80gb 7200rpm SATA drives w/ 8mb cache in RAID 0

Antec 350 watt power supply

It's a gamer's dream. Does pretty well at Photoshop and anything else I throw at it as well.

What's doing with your machines? Anyone else got a RAID array?

jmx

 

[H2600]

I also have a RAID array in my computer (2x 120GB) and I definitely notice a difference when I'm opening huge graphic files that I often deal with (>200MB). There was one little mistake in your original post, you said that there was "slightly higher" rish of data loss. In fact, with a two disk RAID-0 configuration, the risk to your data is actually twice what it would normally be.

In terms of performance improvement, the best thing that anyone can do for their computer is get more RAM. RAM is usually the major limiting factor in any computer.

P4 2.4 GHz
1.0 GB RAM
240 GB RAID Array
nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4400

 

[J. MacDonald]

Besides a new grapgics card, two more 256mb sticks of Hyper X are on my Xmas list. a gig o' ram ought to do it.

jmx

 

[phatch]

My reading shows the ATI 9800 XT with 256Mb beats the nvidia. Heck, I'm still slogging along on a 9700 Pro with 128.

Phil

 

[Skyline]

Although my Abit IT7-MAX2 V2.0 motherboard also includes ATA133 and S-ATA150 RAID, ATA is not for me! I get great hard drive performance by going with the Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 36GB drive. Yeah, it costs a pretty penny, but Cheetahs are (almost) bulletproof and perform like nothing else. Now, I'm just waiting until the 73GB version drops in price a bit more and I'm there.