One 7200 RPM SATA II HDD or Two 7200 RPM Hard Drives in Striped Raid Array?

[darthJones]

I'm trying to figure out which setup will give me a faster startup time for my operating system and programs. Are SATA II so advanced these that they eclipse IDE based Raid arrays in terms of speed? I'm using the onboard Raid controller in my motherboard (Asus P5ND2-SLI Delux) if that helps. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[ZokesPro]

Raid 0 is a lot faster than just one drive, even for startup, it's about 2x faster.

[darthJones]

so the pure awesomeness of sata ii does not stand up to a raid 0 setup with lowly ide drives? i just want to make sure before i sell my equipment off. my case is getting way too crowded so i need to know what i can get rid of...

[ZokesPro]

Hmm, that I'm not sure about. AFAIK, SATA II has a little more performance than SATA I but not sure if the difference is all that great. But don't take my word on it, there are other here who's knowledge of these things is better than mine is this field.

[Gurm]

SATA II is a misnomer. There is no new standard. It's just a faster SATA.

And honestly, the odds of you getting even REMOTELY close to swamping the SATA bus are... well, nonexistant. None. Zero. There is no drive currently in production that can deliver even a burst at 150MB/sec.

What makes SATA in general better than EIDE is that it handles concurrency substantially better, although nowhere near as well as SCSI. That, and it has smaller cables and no need to jumper drives.

So... a RAID-0 array of two EIDE drives, if they are the same model as the SATA drive only in an EIDE flavor, will ALWAYS be faster for ALMOST EVERY operation than a single SATA drive, be it SATA1 or SATA2 or some mythical SATA-N.

SATA2 is just SATA/300.

[Jammrock]

Raid 0 is a lot faster than just one drive, even for startup, it's about 2x faster.

Not true. Raid 0 in a desktop environment is rarely faster than a single good HDD. RAID is designed for extremely heavy hard drive usage that would normally saturate a single channel HDD. In a desktop setup you would rarely ever saturate a single channel, and so the perfomance increase just isn't there.

In addition, the only way RAID really gets the really big perfomarnce boost is by using a hardware RAID with RAM buffering.

So unless you're going to invest in a hardware RAID controller, going to use obscene amounts of data throughput for video editing and have money to burn, just get a nice SATA II drive, like the Hitachi T7K250 ot the new 500 Gb monstrosity, both of which are extremely fast and SATA II.

http://faq.storagereview.com/SingleDriveVsRaid0

Jammrock

[Jammrock]

SATA2 is just SATA/300.

Yes and no. SATA-II added NCQ as a requirement for the HDD to be labeled SATA-II, and it adds the eSATA specifications which are, imho, pretty freaking awesome. There are a few other minor things like better connectors, but from a performance standpoint, it's just a faster SATA, as you said.

[ZokesPro]

Not true. Raid 0 in a desktop environment is rarely faster than a single good HDD. RAID is designed for extremely heavy hard drive usage that would normally saturate a single channel HDD. In a desktop setup you would rarely ever saturate a single channel, and so the perfomance increase just isn't there.

In addition, the only way RAID really gets the really big perfomarnce boost is by using a hardware RAID with RAM buffering.

Jammrock

Well I have two friends that use their onboard controllers for their raid 0 (ones an Intel the other I don't remember) and the loading times are considerably faster than my single drive in every application, even on installation.

Isn't raid 0 made for speed, even if your using the onboard controller? Doesn't always have to be the top notch controller, of course if it's a software controlled raid 0 then there's no point but still.

[Gurm]

You will see a difference running RAID0. When Windows wants 100MB off the drive, 50MB comes from one drive and 50MB from the other... and since both drives probably deliver 25MB sustained per second, the entire affair takes a little over 2 seconds instead of a little over 4. It's not TWICE as fast unless you're really streaming tons and tons of data, but it's always at least a little faster.

Now, given that most HDC's nowadays require almost no CPU overhead even for large transfers, and that software RAID-0 DOES, that might make you think twice.

[ZokesPro]

It's not TWICE as fast unless you're really streaming tons and tons of data, but it's always at least a little faster.

That's what I meant, it's all around faster. And the difference between one drive and two in raid 0 is quite noticable.

[Gurm]

That's what I meant, it's all around faster. And the difference between one drive and two in raid 0 is quite noticable.

Right. What Jammrock is referring to is that for GENERAL USE, it's not particularly faster. In fact, depending on the implementation it can be SLOWER when doing lots of random seeks. Also if you don't use IDENTICAL drives (same batch number, same firmware revision) you'll often run into issues because if one drive is seeking even a fraction of a millisecond slower than the other it throws things ALL out of whack.

So during boot time, when Windows is essentially just streaming an assload of data off the drive, it's faster. Copying DVD images around, it's faster. Streaming audio/video, it's faster. Just farting around in Windows? Maybe slower. Overall? About the same, but if you keep it defragged it's faster.

It also depends on how you manage the drive. The way _I_ manage drives, it's faster because I make sure that the swap file and the working space are never on the same drive. When possible, I put the swap file on one drive, the working area on another, and the system/apps on a third. That way I'm almost NEVER random seeking. In reality, my drives are pretty full right now but I still don't rip a DVD to the C drive. That's just ASKING for your machine to run like ass, RAID or not.

And let's not forget that if ONE 80GB drive crashes, you lose 160GB of data in RAID0.

[ZokesPro]

True, but I wouldn't build a raid 0 with 2 non-identical drives, my 2 buddies had the cash and that's what they did, plus they manage their drives pretty well so it's always running at peak performance.

[Wombat]

Well I have two friends that use their onboard controllers for their raid 0 (ones an Intel the other I don't remember) and it's considerably faster than my single drive in every application, even on installation.

Isn't raid 0 made for speed, even if your using the onboard controller? Doesn't always have to be the top notch controller, of course if it's a software controlled raid 0 then there's no point but still.

First, I would say that RAID 0 is for bandwidth, not for speed. Most users, most of the time, are waiting for a small amount of information from the drive, a cache miss that has to seek on the HD. RAID wouldn't help you there (unless you've got an expensive RAID card with large cache that's more likely to have pre-fetched what you want).

Zokes, I doubt that your friends have faster computers because of the RAID. It's everything else. For most users, a single faster HD is a better choice. All drives are definitely NOT created equally (speaking as someone who's been playing with 300-400GB SATA drives for over a year now, with RAID, and looking forward to the Hitachi 500GBs coming soon.).

[ZokesPro]

First, I would say that RAID 0 is for bandwidth, not for speed. Most users, most of the time, are waiting for a small amount of information from the drive, a cache miss that has to seek on the HD. RAID wouldn't help you there (unless you've got an expensive RAID card with large cache that's more likely to have pre-fetched what you want).

Well when loading a game like Stronghold 2, compared to a single HDD setup, your wait time is cut in half, almost. On my signle drive system it takes almost 2 minutes to load, on a RAID 0 that loading time is reduced by at least 30 seconds, both systems using very similar HDD's.

Zokes, I doubt that your friends have faster computers because of the RAID.

I never said anything about their computers being faster, just loading times are reduced. I have NO clue where you got that idea from.

[Wombat]

Fine. I doubt loading times are reduced because of the RAID.

Fragmentation, paging & page file location, currently running programs, and placement of program on the platter are all much bigger players.