NUCLEARWINTER

getting started with new build now. not wanting to jump right to SSD's just yet so i bought 2 300GB Velociraptors. i also have a 1 TB hd. what i was thinking... win 7 and games on raptors... music,video,pictures,back-up,etc on other drive. what is the best way to configure this array?

im total noob with raid. raid 0 is 2 identical hard drives working as one? are they in a sense additive? data split between them like alternate frame rendering ( so together they would equal 600GB) or same data on both disks?(seen only like 1 300GB drive?)

do i leave larger storage drive by itself? or put it into array? are the onboard raid drivers typically sufficient? or do i need a card?

thanks, <NUKE>

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Matth

RAID - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Raid 0 - stripe ... data alternates between the two drives, so for anything other than very small files, the throughput of both drives is called on.
Seek and rotational latency is a little worse, as the drives will not be synchronized, so it's tha last of the two to complete that will determine.
Capacty 2x, but vulnerable to either drive failing.

Raid 1 - mirror ... data is written to both drives, read operations may be spread - no extra capacity, but a built-in backup against drive failure.

With "matrix raid" (Intel) you may be able to mix partitions and drives, but the performance with fast and slow drives would be questionable - if you mixed a raid 0 of the raptors with mirroring to a partition on the 1TB for backup, then it MIGHT put more of the reads to the faster drives, or it might NOT!

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NUCLEARWINTER

egads! i want max performance for OS and games. raid 1 faster, or just more reliable?both velocraptors=10,000rpm(identical). when configuring raid may i leave the 1 TB drive out of the picture like set up a raid 1 as "C" and have 1TB as"X". all my disc media drives are sata...they're left out of the picture right?(like i said..total noob)

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Lowfat

IF you want maximum performance then use RAID0. Max throughput and IOPS will increase, although that doesn't necessarily mean increase in gaming performance. The only real downside to RAID0 is that if one of the drives fail, you loose the entire partition of data.

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NUCLEARWINTER

cool! thanks for the recommendation. that's what i was leaning toward. i ususally wind up reformatting at least 2 times a year anyway. so if one drive fails and i lose my data on those drives, no big deal, i'll be backing up and saving important stuff to my 1TB anyway. a fresh install of Windows is never a bad thing in that case, unless it's vista(then u're just back to square 1).

p.s. should i let motherboard hardware handle it, or should i purchase a raid controller?

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Neshi

what motherboard are you planning on buying. It might be worth looking into what raid-controller is on the board already. Usually any quality board of the big companies is good enough

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NUCLEARWINTER

it's a toss-up between the Gigabyte X58A-UD7 , the ASUS P6X58D-Premium, and the ASUS Rampage-III-Extreme. leaning toward the rampage however. I was thinking of the EVGA-4-Way-SLI-CLassified also...still haven't ruled that out as I'm going to get a new(huge) case anyway.

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Judas

imo.. the Intel ICH10R or newer versions of the chipset itself have some of the best raid performance..

The only thing potentially better is some of the new SATA 3 controllers, but they mostly only have an advantage for those with SSDs

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NUCLEARWINTER

i've been doing a little homework on X58 boards. the ones including sata 3 will not do raid/certain configurations. only using sata 2. chipset limitation i suppose.

is the performance of ssd that much better than 2 10,000 rpm raid 0? one thing i didn't like about ssd is the complaint ppl have about their drive space dissapearing. i've read that it's common...and not much can be done about it.

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temeteus82

I've been using RAID0 for some time now... The new Intel rapid storage technology drivers are ok and the control interface is nice and clean

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Lowfat

It depends on usage. For most for things an SSD will be considerably faster. And I have never heard of anyone losing drive space on an SSD. I sure have never lost any and I've owned 12 SSDs so far.

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WxMan1

I'm coming off of a semster of Server 2003 management; I have a wee bit of insight here.

One issue that needs to be addressed concerning any sort of RAID implementation pertains to data fragmentation. HDD fragmentation occurs at the file system level - which means that it occurs at the logical cluster level. The file system has absolutely no idea of the underlying disk technology; it doesn't know if the media is IDE, SCSI or RAIDx, or SSD, etc...

RAID 0 technology "stripes" data across multiple disks simultaneosly. The technology that performs this is either software or hardware. What is inherently being done is that the "system" decides how to split up the data packets. Think about it in terms of Chicago Xpress way: its got EIGHT lanes in ONE direction. But the point is that with RAID 0 you don't have a choice: the copper on the chopper can pull you over and make pax get out and into the vehicle next to you. With RAID 0 there is no fault-tolerance however; the date is being multi-plexed across simultaneous receptors (not un-akin to being on the original Star Trek transporter plate).

RAID 1, on the other hand, mirrors disk writes, i.e., writing duplicate blocks across multiple drives simultaneously. In either RAID 0 or 1 HDD controller will implement simultaneous seek and so average seek times won't change, however, burst transfer rates will be significantly higher; this will be most especially true with RAID 0.

One should be wondering not so much how, but where, the data gets written? This raises a quite ugly specter of HDD fragmentation. Moreover, given the multi-threading technology of modern software, it should be understood that the contemporary OS is operating in a psuedo-multiuser environment; it only gets worse in a true multi-user platform. As such, defrag is your friend.

When you defragment, you are ensuring that only 1 logical I/O request is sent by the file system to the hard drive controller - instead of multiple requests. This where the performance benefit comes in. What the controller does with that single logical request in order to retrieve the data off of the drive(s) is hidden from the file system.

When one thinks about what is of fundamental operational importantce - from a RAID x perspective - it should be obvious that isolating OS fragmentation from that of application & user data should be of extreme concern. AFTER that assessment has been done, it should become readily apparent that there are several components of the OS on a filesystem level that are fairly static, i.e., resilient to fragmentation in that access reoccurance is low (ship it off to another HDD that can spin down using mount, reparse & mount point technology inherent to the OS being implemented).

ANOTHER thing to contemplate with RAID x technology is that ALL HDD's are rotating simultaneously, i.e., continuously. When RAID x > 1 is implemented, error checking & correcting is implemented. HOWEVER, it should be pointed out that RAID does not intrinsicly alter the statistics, propbablities and MTBF for each drive in a HDD swarm.

Here's some numbers to consider: in WWII the USAF bomber crews experienced a success rate of about 97%. The crews were allowed to petition their supeririors for RTH after completing 25 missions. What is the expected outcome for any arbitrary WWII bomber crew member? Yep, obviously about 1:3.

So, now, here's the rub, suppose the 97% figure was per plane (not mission), and you ran the numbers per mission for all planes simultaneously?

O.k., I can hear it already: "what the hell is he talking about." "I was lost when he said Server 2003", etc.

The point is by planning one's implementation one can reduce the probability of failure. When there are mutltiple instances of something having an individual MTBF, the statistics of the aggregate MTBF are completely different that of the individual components. SO, IF you are a server farm administrator and one or more of your devices throw up the "hail mary" code, you have to throw them ALL out.

Beware of the "Gambler's Fallacy".

That being all said, and notwithstanding (and whatnot), anybody that is contemplating RAID needs to plan how, what, where, when specific details concerning the implemtation. What's missing in that sequence?

I've found that it always makes it interesting for the listener (or reader) to have a point to what I'm saying: that notwithstanding (and nevertheless and all that), it distresses me to no end to hear people claim that they "re-format as a matter of course every year or less".

Given the immediately foregoing context, one needs to establish the boundry of the OS itself, where things will be subsequently installed, and the security implications of all the aforementionned.
There's some other things too...

I've always operated under the principle of "it aint worth doing if it aint worth doing right." As far as it goes with HDD, RAID and server ANYTHING, you better have a plan; reformatting the server is NOT a plan. If the perspective is: "I dont't operate a server (nor am a server adminstrator) so I don't care", then you're just a grade-school kid playing with marbles and Mable just smacked because you didn't acknowledge her wearing the dress intended to impress you.

The last thing you want to do - if you can avoid it -is to implement OS RAID. The next worst thing is to implement RAID dependent upon motherboard hardware.

Sihastru

Statistical results are only applicable when you're dealing with large populations, in our case if you buy a large number of drives (in the 100.000s). When you only deal with 2 members of the population, in our case 2 HDDs, then the statistic about them is irrelevant.

Let's say for the sake of argument, that in the last election for a town's mayor, 50% voted with one candidate and 50% with the other (it's a tie). The town's population measures 100.000 souls. If you pick at random 2 voters, can you say with 100% accuracy that one of them voted with one candidate and the other with the other candidate? I think not, they might have both voted for one of the candidates. But if you take the whole 100.000 population, you can say that 50.000 voted for one of the candidates and the other 50.000 with the other. It's 50-50.

Let's apply our little parallel to HDDs. If from 100.000 units 50% are destined to fail, when you go to the store and buy just 2 of them, you might get two defective ones or two good ones or one defective and one good one. It makes no difference whatsoever if that percentage was 1%, 20%, 40%, 90%.

It's about dumb luck.

Paraphrasing our good friend, Dirty Harry, do you feel lucky, punk?

If you're lucky, you could buy 2 drives and have them in RAID0 and both of them will work for years and years without a problem. But, if you're unlucky, you might buy two drives and put them in RAID1 (because it is statistically safer that way) and have both of them fail when they are full of irreplaceable data.

Or, if you're really unlucky, the earth might open up and swallow your house with both hard drives in it, does this constitute a HDD failure? (joke)

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Judas

i've a system built that has been running going on 3 years with 6 seagate 7200.11 500gb in raid 0 .....

no problems at all.

So considering that.... topping it off with the fact that the 7200.11's were unreliable by most peoples standards (higher then average fail rates)...... i think the owner is exceptionally lucky (although i tell him to frequently backup due to have a 6x more likely chance of loseing all his data due to that configuration)

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Sihastru

So, basically, with Intel's ICH10R you have a choice of RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 (on select models) and RAID 10. Intel also offers a "matrix" mode RAID, which means you can mix certain RAID modes across the same HDDs.

What you want to do is:

1. connect the two velociraptors to the first two SATA ports, do not connect the 1TB drive yet

2. if you have an optical drive connected to the same ICH, it's best you connected to one of the last ports, 5 or 6, there have been some strange results with the ODD connected closer to the RAID array ports (I can't confirm it, but I heard about it from various sources)

3. in the MB BIOS set the ICH to RAID mode (other options are IDE and AHCI, some with Native and some with Legacy emulation modes)

4. reboot, after the BIOS post messages, there will be an ICH post section, when you can press CTRL+I to enter the RAID setup. Inside this setup, create a new array, give it a name, assign the two VR drives to it, set a 128K stripe.

(there is a whole debate about stripe size, but for RAID 0 the setup usually recommends 128K, if you set it too small there will be a lot of overhead and you'll lose some of the performance, 64K is doable, 32K also, but I wouldn't go lower)

5. the RAID bios creates the array, and reboots the system. Now you can enter the MB BIOS again and make sure that the array (that is now seen as a SINGLE drive, with the name you've given it in the RAID setup) is configured as a boot device

(every time you change the ICH mode from IDE to AHCI or to RAID or any other combination, the MB BIOS storage configuration changes, and you need to make sure it's the correct one for your system)

6. during the MB post push the F key that gives you the BOOT SELECTION MENU, on Asus boards it is "F8", in this new menu select your optical drive (that should have the OS bootable disk in it at this time ;-) )

7. install Windows, enjoy speed and IO enhancements. After Windows is installed, connect your 1TB drive. The array will take it as a NON MEMBER disk, and it will work as if it is an AHCI drive (a non member disk in an array is configured automatically as a JBOD = Just a Bunch Of Disks). If the ICH sees is as a MEMBER disk and lists it as FAILED, just enter the RAID setup (CTRL + I) and RESET it as a NON MEMBER disk

While there are a few variations you can try, for example something called "short stroking", you should first see if performance using the standard method is enough for you. On step 4, when you create an array, you have the option to NOT use all the available space. For example, you could use only 50% of the available space. Instead of creating a 600GB array, you create a 300GB array, using the first 150GB from each drive. What this does is to decrease your access times from the typical 7-8ms a VR can do to 5-6ms. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it can speed up OS boot times, and working with many small files.

But you should only try it if you think 600GB is not really needed and you really want to get the last drop of performance out of your already fast mechanical drives. For Velociraptors I don't think I would do it, but for 7200RPM drives I certainly would.

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Judas

Generally i setup the OS boot drive with program files to a 50gb Raid 0 partition 1 volume.

This gives by far the GREATEST boost in overall performance because it only uses the first 25gb of both drives ( in larger arrays the speed is more significant because it's useing even less of the first part of each drive)..

A 50gb partition is typically more the addequate for Windows, Typical Program files and room to spare for other necessities. Provided that you setup the remaining about of hardrive as another raid volume, and then partition it (preferrably into partitions that should help) depending on the volume sizes.

For example with the 750gb WD Caviar Black 32mb sata 2 hd's i've got, a raid 0 array was sliced into a 50gb main partition and a 1450gb (using total values not REAL ones) for the 2nd patitioned array.

After that, loading windows onto the main 50gb was a snap, way fast, and then i partition the remaining 1450gb into 3 other partitions, one 300gb, another 500gb and then the last would be the remaining

300gb for video, 500gb for games and the last for anything else.. junk files and such.

The reason i suggest heavier partitioning is to significantly reduce file fragmentation, random seek and write/reads and just overall improve things considerably.

With just 2 of the WD drives i'm using my windows score for the HD is sitting at 6.2

And i highly recommend anyone that is going to use the ICHxR controllers to download the Intel Rapid Storage controller software and drivers, not the older and now out of date matrix storage manager.

Preferrably download the F6 windows installer files too and have them ready to LOAD DRIVER when windows presents you with the option to install to a partition EVEN if windows already can see, the driver provided with windows is basically a fallback/native just get it done kind of driver that isn't optimised for the system and is quite out of date.

After you get the rapid storage manager installed, run it, and if you wish to chance it (or if you are running on a UPS) enable Write back cacheing, it's now fixed in windows 7 that it actually works correctly, the boost in speed is quite significant.

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NUCLEARWINTER

alright, so i've installed the raptors in my current rig seeing that the need for a new vehicle has arisen from the pool of motor oil gushing from my rear main negates the need for a new rig. :*( but that's part of becomming a responsible adult i suppose. what good is a new pc if i cannot afford to keep lights on?

...but anyway. i feel i'm getting some pretty piss-poor performance. according to win7(x64) my hard drive rating is only a 6 > what kinda of numbers is everyone else getting?(those running 7)

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Tyrsonswood

The same............ I haven't seen anybody get much more than 5.9 in Win7

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Judas

i've got machines running 6.0 and 6.2's with standard raid 0 and hard disk drives.

The most recent of which was 2 of the WD 2tb 64mb Cache Drives in raid 0 pushing the 6.2 mark...

for anything higher.... requires a minimum of a SSD

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Cow_160483

This is a very informative thread always wondered about Raid , so am just going to hijack the thread for a bit NUCLEAR...

Just a quick question if you wanted to run a raid 0 set up would it be better to have two identical smaller capacity HDDs or to larger ones eg. 300GB vs 500GB?

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Judas

Speed wise.. it's i think best to have 2 smaller drives rather then one large one....

I try to get the smallest yet FASTEST hardrives i can just to put in raid 0... as there is quite a real world noticeable difference vs a larger single fastest drive.

It's totally counter productive to purchase 2 cheap small drives to compete with a single large highend drive though.

Like jamming 2 WD green drives in raid 0 = why? Your better off to just get a single WD Black Caviar lol

also just a fyi, you DON'T HAVE to have 2 identical sized drives, it's just recommended, because if you combine a 300gb and a 500gb, your combined amount will still be 600gb, because the smallest of the drives dictates times values. Losing 200gb is a quite a hit, but back when raid FIRST appeared, using the Highpoint Technology 360 chipset (which was the FIRST chip ever on consumer motherboard which was the Abit KA7-100 (First board with ATA-100 too), i Raid 0'd a Maxtor 20gb and a 30gb together and got a 40gb combined space. Later I got the Abit AT7-MAX2 which used the highpoint tech 370 which was blazing fast, raided 4 drives together initially with some 80's and 120gb drives for a combined 320gb space, only for a bit as i was better off with the 120gb drives in raid 0 for 240gb and putting the 2x 80's in another machine.

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NUCLEARWINTER

I read somewhere on the www.internet.com (lol don't click) that larger capacity drives were desired for certain aspects. The higher density of the disc's causes the arm to move a lot less while seeking. Which in theory makes sense I suppose.

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Sihastru

If you want speed, you'd have to go for the smallest drive that has the highest platter density available. Today that is a 500GB HDD with just one 500GB platter inside and just two heads.

How to identify these hard drives, it's another story. 500GB can be obtained in more ways then it would seem possible. One 500GB platter, two 250GB platters, two factory short stroked 333GB platters and so on.

What is clear is that a 1 platter 500GB HDD should be the one that weights less then all the other 500GB HDDs in a pile of 500GB HDDs (joke, or is it?!)

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NUCLEARWINTER

I'm not sure if it's windows 7, or if it's the raptors...but i am most certainly noticing a performance increase of overall responsiveness. I am dual booting vista on 7200rpm 1TB drive and win 7 2 X 10,000rpm raid0. But that's kinda like comparing apples to cannonballs. vista is known to be bloated. Perhaps a culmination of the two factors. Either way I'm glad I did this.

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Cow_160483

thanks guys I might look into this

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