Computer question

[LoD]

Re: Computer question

Dont get either option. Get a 200+ GB single hard drive. Preferably with SATAII and 16Mb cache.

RAID does JACK sh*t for load times. Trust me, if you do a seach I even posted my results of some tests that I ran, including BF2 load times.

There was no difference in loadtimes Raid 0 vs no raid.

As for the OP's question, RAid 1 is on the fly data backup, and is meant for servers and enviroments where a hard drive might physically fail. Its almost useless in a home single user enviroment, because the odds of you getting a virus, or accidentally deleting something are much greater than a hard drive physically dieing on you. With Raid 1, everything that happens is instantly duplicated on both drives. You get a virus you LOSE everything on both, so the backup is useless.

Raid 0 on the other hand offers some performance benefits, but is not that great. I happen to run it because I am a hardware freak, and already had two drives. I dont recommend people do it unless they know what they are dealing with, and accept the risks of data loss.

Your best bet is a modern SATAII drive with lots of cache. I say get a SATAII drive, not because you will use the bandwidth. You WONT. But because top of the line current generation drives are more optimized and include slight performance improvements over 1-2 year old SATA 1 drives. Also the addition of 16Mb of cache can help. Not alot, but for the $10-$20 price premium (sometimes cheaper) its worth jumping on a top end drive. The hard disk is the slowest componenet in your system, and it doesnt hurt to spend a few bucks more on a good drive. That being said something like a raptor is probably too much money and not worth the cost in most cases, but a top end 7200 RPM drive, its worth it in my opinion.

[Rub-UFS-]

Re: Computer question

Raptor doesn't make anything.

I meant a WD Raptor, smartass. I'm sure you know what I meant, but like making posts such as these. If he googled Raptor HD, he would fine something.

[Blak_Phoenix]

Re: Computer question

Actually RAID 0 does make loading and read/writing faster, it is just that they are so small that they are very hard to notice. You may find that they didnt make any difference because of other hardware that was making a bottleneck.

[LoD]

Re: Computer question

In my experience it doesnt make a difference with load times. Now possibly if I had more bottlenecks, it might help. But in my experience not really.

http://www.totalbf2.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59854&highlight=raid+0

[Blak_Phoenix]

Re: Computer question

Thanks for the link :)

I can see that the difference in most cases is negotiable but there are still some reasonable differences there.

Time in secoonds
Non RAID / RAID

Bootup: 36.1 / 35.7
Shutdown: 11.5 / 11.7

Photoshop CS 8.0 Load: 10.2 / 9.2

1GB MPEG-2 File Copy: 51.3 / 47.9
700MB Xvid File Copy: 45.7 / 29.1 (16.6 second difference)
367MB BF2 1.2 Patch File Copy: 18.3 / 17.3

5.73GB Intense MP3/AAC Folder Copy: 317 / 287 (30 second difference)

1GB BF1942 CD Image Winrar Extraction: 53.6 / 42.2 (11.4 second difference)

BF2 Hard Drive Image Install Time: 125 / 92 (33 second difference)
BF2 1.2 Patch Install Time: 260 / 192 (68 second difference)
BF2 LAN Server Host Creation 64 Man Daqing Map: 62.5 / 60.5
BF2 Single Player 16 Man Gulf of Oman Load Time: 54 / 55.5

In all areas the time is better, except with shutting down (2 HDD need to be shut down instead of one), but the rest is an improvement, but not one that i would say would be worth the money.

BUt yea i have read elsewhere that RAID 0 doesnt do much.. but if you take those results, there is deffinate improvement, especially with the large file copy and the BF2/patch install time.

[LoD]

Re: Computer question

Yeah, raid excels at large transfers, thats where it is very nice.

[Amnesic]

Re: Computer question

Ok now Dell changed there whole thing so what about these 2.

160GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 8MB cache
320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 16MB cache- I was thinking this one and it is only 90 bucks more.

All the other hard drives are just Raid 0 and Raid 1

So I think the 320gb with 16mb cache is what you told me exactly to get with more cache.

Thanks

Edit: They dont have any Sata II hard drives btw.

[lil_jimmy_norton]

Re: Computer question

Ok now Dell changed there whole thing so what about these 2.

160GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 8MB cache
320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 16MB cache- I was thinking this one and it is only 90 bucks more.

All the other hard drives are just Raid 0 and Raid 1

So I think the 320gb with 16mb cache is what you told me exactly to get with more cache.

Thanks

Edit: They dont have any Sata II hard drives btw.

Serial ATA 3Gb/s is SATAII.

[LoD]

Re: Computer question

Ok now Dell changed there whole thing so what about these 2.

160GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 8MB cache
320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 16MB cache- I was thinking this one and it is only 90 bucks more.

All the other hard drives are just Raid 0 and Raid 1

So I think the 320gb with 16mb cache is what you told me exactly to get with more cache.

Thanks

Edit: They dont have any Sata II hard drives btw.

Personally i wouldnt bother with dell, they only sell Intel, and they usually are pretty pricey for a poor value. However get a single SATAII 16Mb cache drive if you can afford it.

[redearedslider]

Re: Computer question

Raptor doesn't make anything.

whehe auch ! :P hehe