desktop hard drive for raid image
Daniel
I like many people have 2 hard drives my main and then one for back-ups and extra storage. I don't keep my back-ups on my PC so my secondary hard drive is empty. Is there some way i can use this extra space to increase performance for games etc?
P.S I read some where about page file? (Don't know what this is)
Answer
There is a set of storage protocols called RAID that can be used to increase drive throughput. You'd be interested in RAID-0, which uses two hard drives and "stripes" data between the two. This effectively doubles the speed with which you can write data to and read from your "hard drive" (the two disks working in striped mode appear as a single logical drive in Windows and act as a single drive). Going to a RAID-0 configuration would basically only shorten your loading times in games, though. 3D games are bottlenecked first by the graphics processor, then by the CPU, then RAM and lastly your hard drive. So in terms of frame rate performance, you wouldn't see any meaningful boost.
Having a system in RAID-0 is also somewhat dangerous as if either drive fails, all your data is lost. There is no fault tolerance, so you're basically doubling your chances of losing all your data since two drives must cooperate and be in order to access any of your files. Nearly every motherboard sold for desktop PCs has had a built-in RAID controller for the past few years. I don't know whether the big box brands like Dell or HP do or not. Look in your system's BIOS to see if there is a section for RAID. If your motherboard doesn't have an onboard RAID controller you'll have to buy an add-in card like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132013&cm_re=raid-_-16-132-013-_-Product
I'd advise against going to RAID-0 if you're looking to increase gaming performance. The best way to do that is to upgrade your video card, or get more RAM if you have less than 4GB. BTW, the page file is present on all Windows machines. It's simply a temporary storage area on the hard drive that Windows uses as virtual RAM if the system needs to access more memory than you have in physical RAM modules. The page file isn't used unless 100% of your RAM is being used and more is needed, and when the system starts using the page file as virtual memory, it slows the system down terribly, so you certainly don't want to go looking to use the page file to increase your speed :)
There is a set of storage protocols called RAID that can be used to increase drive throughput. You'd be interested in RAID-0, which uses two hard drives and "stripes" data between the two. This effectively doubles the speed with which you can write data to and read from your "hard drive" (the two disks working in striped mode appear as a single logical drive in Windows and act as a single drive). Going to a RAID-0 configuration would basically only shorten your loading times in games, though. 3D games are bottlenecked first by the graphics processor, then by the CPU, then RAM and lastly your hard drive. So in terms of frame rate performance, you wouldn't see any meaningful boost.
Having a system in RAID-0 is also somewhat dangerous as if either drive fails, all your data is lost. There is no fault tolerance, so you're basically doubling your chances of losing all your data since two drives must cooperate and be in order to access any of your files. Nearly every motherboard sold for desktop PCs has had a built-in RAID controller for the past few years. I don't know whether the big box brands like Dell or HP do or not. Look in your system's BIOS to see if there is a section for RAID. If your motherboard doesn't have an onboard RAID controller you'll have to buy an add-in card like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132013&cm_re=raid-_-16-132-013-_-Product
I'd advise against going to RAID-0 if you're looking to increase gaming performance. The best way to do that is to upgrade your video card, or get more RAM if you have less than 4GB. BTW, the page file is present on all Windows machines. It's simply a temporary storage area on the hard drive that Windows uses as virtual RAM if the system needs to access more memory than you have in physical RAM modules. The page file isn't used unless 100% of your RAM is being used and more is needed, and when the system starts using the page file as virtual memory, it slows the system down terribly, so you certainly don't want to go looking to use the page file to increase your speed :)
What are the differences between Raid 0 and Raid 1?
Plain Jim
I was wondering what are the advantages and disadvantages of a Raid 0 and Raid 1 hard drive set up.
I'm getting a desktop with 1.5 TB storage. I don't even half that storage, so which choice should I go with?
It'll be a Intel i7 processor.
Thanks
Answer
Raid 1 is mirroring:
PRO: If you lose one hard drive, you still have all your data. Your computer will still work.
PRO: Reading files is twice as fast since it can read from both drives at the same time.
CON: You lose all the storage capacity of one drive.
CON: Writing files is not faster than without RAID.
Raid 0 is striping:
PRO: Reading files is twice as fast since it can read from both drives at the same time.
PRO: Writing files is twice as fast, too.
PRO: You realize all the storage of both hard drives.
CON: If one hard drive crashes, then you lose all the data on both hard drives.
Raid 0 is scary. I never ever do it.
Raid 1 is mirroring:
PRO: If you lose one hard drive, you still have all your data. Your computer will still work.
PRO: Reading files is twice as fast since it can read from both drives at the same time.
CON: You lose all the storage capacity of one drive.
CON: Writing files is not faster than without RAID.
Raid 0 is striping:
PRO: Reading files is twice as fast since it can read from both drives at the same time.
PRO: Writing files is twice as fast, too.
PRO: You realize all the storage of both hard drives.
CON: If one hard drive crashes, then you lose all the data on both hard drives.
Raid 0 is scary. I never ever do it.
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