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<blockquote data-quote="moab" data-source="post: 517000" data-attributes="member: 73157"><p>I currently have a hybrid RAID 0 set up.</p><p></p><p>C: is 32GB SSD contains OS + APPS.</p><p>R: is 3 x 500GB RAID 0 using onboard Intel ICH8.</p><p>E: is 1.5TB drive for backups.</p><p></p><p>Initially I only had the 3 RAID drives. </p><p>I ran some HDD benchmarking to test the RAID0 as I added 1,2 and 3 drives. For me it improve disk i/o by a factor of 1/n (n= number of drives) which is as one would expect e.g. 2 drives halves the read times, 3 drives one third read time.</p><p>I did not record the CPU usage during i/o as it appeared to be negligible. With hindsight it would be interesting to see the comparisons.</p><p></p><p>Then one day to my horror my OS got corrupted which prompted the addition of the E: as insurance. I had turned off disk caching in the RAID software which is risky if you turn the PC off without a gracefull OS shutdown. So don't turn it off. Naturally I have a UPS which is a must have item but someone turned off the PC using the power button due to it hanging.</p><p></p><p>I was then the happy recipient of the SSD. So now my RAID is only used for DVD images, TV recordings and TimeShift. Disk i/o is fast and I have no performance issues other than mounting the iso image to virtual drive.</p><p></p><p>I agree that RAID 0 is risky but if you can live with the risk then the performance gain is attractive. </p><p>Performance gain is an 1/x factor increase. So the gain reduces as you add more drives. 2 drives = 50% 3 drives = 33% etc so diminishing returns.</p><p>If you add a new drive to RAID array then remember that you need to re-build the array i.e. (re-install). I don't trust the hot adding to arrays in these low end RAID controllers as it just band aids the striping.</p><p>Consider purchase of a $100 32GB SSD - blazing performance and reliable. Probably need a bigger SSD for Vista/W7.</p><p>Note that for me the 1.5 TB performed about equal to the 3 x 500GB drives in RAID 0. After a certain point disk i/o is not a bottleneck.</p><p>In your situation I would add an SSD and use the 2 drives as non-RAID and only for data. Easy to expand, less risk, best hybrid performance. </p><p>The only reason you would want better performance is gaming or other disk i/o intensive activity.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="moab, post: 517000, member: 73157"] I currently have a hybrid RAID 0 set up. C: is 32GB SSD contains OS + APPS. R: is 3 x 500GB RAID 0 using onboard Intel ICH8. E: is 1.5TB drive for backups. Initially I only had the 3 RAID drives. I ran some HDD benchmarking to test the RAID0 as I added 1,2 and 3 drives. For me it improve disk i/o by a factor of 1/n (n= number of drives) which is as one would expect e.g. 2 drives halves the read times, 3 drives one third read time. I did not record the CPU usage during i/o as it appeared to be negligible. With hindsight it would be interesting to see the comparisons. Then one day to my horror my OS got corrupted which prompted the addition of the E: as insurance. I had turned off disk caching in the RAID software which is risky if you turn the PC off without a gracefull OS shutdown. So don't turn it off. Naturally I have a UPS which is a must have item but someone turned off the PC using the power button due to it hanging. I was then the happy recipient of the SSD. So now my RAID is only used for DVD images, TV recordings and TimeShift. Disk i/o is fast and I have no performance issues other than mounting the iso image to virtual drive. I agree that RAID 0 is risky but if you can live with the risk then the performance gain is attractive. Performance gain is an 1/x factor increase. So the gain reduces as you add more drives. 2 drives = 50% 3 drives = 33% etc so diminishing returns. If you add a new drive to RAID array then remember that you need to re-build the array i.e. (re-install). I don't trust the hot adding to arrays in these low end RAID controllers as it just band aids the striping. Consider purchase of a $100 32GB SSD - blazing performance and reliable. Probably need a bigger SSD for Vista/W7. Note that for me the 1.5 TB performed about equal to the 3 x 500GB drives in RAID 0. After a certain point disk i/o is not a bottleneck. In your situation I would add an SSD and use the 2 drives as non-RAID and only for data. Easy to expand, less risk, best hybrid performance. The only reason you would want better performance is gaming or other disk i/o intensive activity. [/QUOTE]
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