Raid questions.

314 Views 7 Replies 5 Participants Last post by uberjon, Mar 19, 2009

noahmateen1234

Discussion Starter · Mar 18, 2009

I want a Raid 0 setup for OS, games, progs. I got a 1tb for storage of music, movies, and other important stuff already.

1 - Should I get 2x320gb AAKS for $100 or 2x500gb 7200.12 for $130, the extra space probably won't be used, but I am wondering about performance.

2 - What stripe size should I use for the Vista 64 partition? Vista 64 will be the only thing installed along with updates and drivers. I want the fastest boot-up I can get.

3 - What stripe size should I use for the other partition, which will have games/programs, like MS office and Photoshop. I want speed.

All good answers will be rewarded with rep.

BTW, throw in any more advice on what drives I should get or any other tips, like if I should make 3 partitions or w/e. Remember, this is trying to keep it low cost and space is not a huge issue.

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ghozt302

· #2 · Mar 18, 2009

I always kick myself for not getting the larger drives when I start to close in on running out of space..
Also if your going for 3 partitions I'd go for the 500GB

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Bellatrix

· #3 · Mar 18, 2009

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152102

You can Raid 0 the other 1TB and this one.

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ghozt302

· #4 · Mar 18, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guest on some forum
The cluster size is just the smallest size that any bit of data will take
up.
If you have a 4K cluster size and the data is only 1K, it marks the whole 4K
cluster used.
If you had an 8 or 16K cluster size, there is a little more wasted space for
those bits of data that are smaller than the cluster.
That is one cluster per file that may not be fully utilized.
If you have hundreds of thousands of files, the 'wasted' HDD space may be an
issue, but with such huge and cheap drives available, I don't think it is an
issue for a personal use machine.

So basically the smaller stripe means the smallest you can write to the raid if its larger it writes the smallest file to that size and eventually can waste space.
Also from reading up on it theres really a small gain in speed from small stripe to large stripe sizes

you can read THIS about the stripe sizes

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ghozt302

· #5 · Mar 19, 2009

So did you figure out what stripe to use?

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noahmateen1234

Discussion Starter · #6 · Mar 19, 2009

Dunno yet, still thinking about it. Maybe 32kb for OS partition and 128 for the other.

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ericeod

· #7 · Mar 19, 2009

I've tested the stripe size on the Intel ICH9R and 10R and the 128k gave me the best performance.

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uberjon

· #8 · Mar 19, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericeod

I've tested the stripe size on the Intel ICH9R and 10R and the 128k gave me the best performance.

i have heard this too. and it always seemed so in "real world" don't got any tests to back it up.. but i believe it to be fairly true.. true enough i didn't bother with anything else when setting up my perc 5/i!

i would go with the 500GB single platters you linked there.. seems like a good product overall. even with seagates recent hiccups..

never had a chance to use any other brands besides those in OEM systems. or seagate (and now maxtor with my SAS drives) but i never had a problem..

do you have any plans of later adding drives? possibly for space, but most likely for added speed/e-peen? if so id recommend biting the bullet on a perc to start with. the ability to expand an array etc is quite nice! its probably largely a "new hardware freakout syndrome" but my drives/perc are currently one of my favorite parts of my system! (right up there with my old mechanical keyboard and windows7

)

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