Raid0 or Sata better?(or are they the same?) Sapphire GPU??

Anonymous User SG

Hiya guys, just wanna ask, which is better? Raid 0 or Sata better? or are they the same? think i can put 2 different config in 1 comp? maybe Ultra DMA and sata/raid0?? Talking about hardware… any1 with sapphire Gpu? X1600 up, if you can compare with other GPU would be great. Feel free to include anything you think might help (i’m myopic btw, i dont wanna be blind.XD) And what is the best value G.card at the $200>,=,< price range? Thx guys…

Farmerseed SG

I have written about SATA and RAID before but i guess it won't hurt to repeat them again. SATA and RAID are two different concepts of hard disk technology. SATA is the interface while RAID is the method of arranging a series of hard disk units so that speed, accessibility, fault tolerance and data backup can be enhanced beyond that of a single hard disk alone. You can RAID your PATA (100 ~ 133 MB/s transfer speed in theory) or SATA I/ II (150 ~ 300 MB/s transfer speed in theory) hard disks drive in any of the RAID array levels (0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10 and so on). RAID can be done in the form of software or hardware. Motherboards with build in raid controllers controls your 2 or 4 hard disks in RAID 0,1,0+1 by 'software', but when you plug in a raid controller card into the PCI slot, you might be doing the same with 'hardware'. RAID 0 is the level for 'stripping' which may increase your hard disk read and write access performances but doubles the possibililty of you losing the data if either one of the hard disks fail. Usually users will not use RAID 0 alone. RAID 0 is usually flavored with RAID 1 as in RAID 0+1 which includes 'mirroring' (RAID 1) and thus more fault tolerance. However, 0+1 requires 4 identical hard disks in an array instead of 2. If you want RAID 0, i suggest getting a single fast 10krpm hdd from WD.

As for the X1600 GPU i believe it belongs to the ATI camp. You should not be comparing a Sapphire GPU but instead should aim at only 2 main GPU infrastructure i.e ATI and nVidia. However you might want to check out how reliabe Sapphire assembly and test their cards with the 2 GPU giants before purchasing their cards. After sales service, the included gf card package contents and warranty should also be your major consideration in such card purchases. X1600 and up ATI should play most videos and average games well though i think now MS OS users might be more concern about software and drivers support if they took the Vista train.

manyu882 SG

ha, not worth to buy raptor. u have to pay a huge amount of money to see a little of performace say ...10% more. the perforamance of 7200rpm hdd have a very very small difference if u deal with small file sizes. however, the diff is alot when u deal with large file sizes.

Farmerseed SG

I believe the cost of say a 74gig raptor as compared to 2 or 4 hard disks of the same capacity as the raptor should almost be equal. If not the raid 0 configuration may cost less but at the price of a 50% redustion in data preservation and reliability. Moreover a single fast drive cuts down the hassle of installing RAID drivers and all the tedious data recovery process in the event of one of the hard disk failures and thus rebuild while you need only to troubleshoot or format 1 single raptor in a similar situation.

As we know, OS loading, games with large maps and multiples levels loading are also reported to be faster with RAID or a Raptor.

manyu882 SG

eh brother, i comparing about 1 raptor to 1 7200hdd.
ok, why i say both raptor or 2 disk raid together is also no good.

1. both methods' performance divided by price factor as compared to say..7200rpm sata2 with 16m cache not worth it.

2. raid 0 , if one drive fail. bye bye to your datas. but by adding raid 1, you will need to spend money again. not only that... more power needed. and also, only significant improvements as compared to 1*7200 sata2 hdd( go ask people who have try before).

what my priority is 1 x 7200sata2 16cache hdd follow by raptor( if i'm rich) and lastly strongly not recommended: raided drives( raid 0,1,0+1)

Farmerseed SG

Originally posted by manyu882:

eh brother, i comparing about 1 raptor to 1 7200hdd.
ok, why i say both raptor or 2 disk raid together is also no good.

1. both methods' performance divided by price factor as compared to say..7200rpm sata2 with 16m cache not worth it.

2. raid 0 , if one drive fail. bye bye to your datas. but by adding raid 1, you will need to spend money again. not only that... more power needed. and also, [b]only significant improvements( go ask people who have try before).

what my priority is 1 x 7200sata2 16cache hdd follow by raptor( if i'm rich) and lastly strongly not recommended: raided drives( raid 0,1,0+1)[/b]

Comparing one 10krpm drive to a SATA2 7200rpm the raptor still load games and OS faster. Not to mention video editing and encoding. Try comparing the SATAII raptors and you may see even more contrast. If TS want availability and data integrity, the money spent shall be worth it. If not why companies and business will border to spend money on they data backup external storage systems and servers? Also you can opt for RAID one which uses 2 drive minimum like RAID 0 yet requires no rebuild in the event of one of the hdds' failure. I also will not define geeks who spend money on computer hard ware as rich. People in to computer or any other hobbies will save up or even spurge on the hardware. They may be students or an average income earner. More so i see some richer people indulging in other luxuries but would rather use the company computer and internet connection for their lown eisure use because they are just not savvy 'geek' enough to own their own assembled computers.

One thing is for sure if i were to use a computer to host a site/ as a gaming server, doing business online or ever in to a small business RAID is the solution for me.

orionlight SG

Most of us home users will not see the need for 10k raptor drive, not to mention raiding it.The difference you mentioned in applications is only measured in seconds, i believe it is really not worth it to spend the money on these “faster” hard drives. As for running RAID, i would advice beginners against doing it as the driver iss especially when it comes to trouble shooting is quite a headache.

Farmerseed SG

Perhaps so ---> homeusers. Modders and enthusiasts usually find it irresistable to own a raptor. Not because of the specs and access time but also because its the cheapest enterprise level hard disk made affordable for advance users at home. Seagate, Maxtor and Hitachi, major players in the hdd industy all have their assortment of enterprise level hdd offering very high performance and availability as compared to the basic SATA hard disk, up to 15krpm. Take a tour at their SCSI, fibre channel, Ultra-SCSI and SAS and you will know the true giants and speed demons of the past and the present. WD stands in the middle with their 10krpm drives for the entry level enterprise configuration and the advance home users.

SATA I/II is good though. It should proof reliable enough for the basic home users.

Anonymous User SG

Hmmm, so beginners(i think i'm one) should stay away from raid system?

I'm a gamer and uses my computer everyday, that means the data in my comp can be quite important from time to time depending on sch work. I'm thinking either raid1 or SATA2 is my thing.

The question is that can i incorperate TWO different HDD config into one computer? Like my current comp uses Ultra DMA and i'll like to add a second HD for gaming use. If the UDMA hdd is main, will it affect the performance of the faster drive?

Farmerseed SG

It should not. Whatever you do (even if you game) youstill depend and work on your computer from your OS environment installed in that particular hard disk you boot from. So if you have windows in the PATA and you boot from it you can simply play games run from that hard disk. SInce you pointed that data is important and you are not an advance user just use a second internal (or better and conveniently easy for noobs - an external hdd) hdd for backing up of your data.

But if you do want to try raid the 2 hard disks have to be identical in size and interface. Otherwise for certain RAID levels you will only gain the capacity of storage size from the smallest hdd in the RAID configuration.