Raid0 performance and power use

I have the RAID-0 with 7200RPM drives and my disk access is great. I routinely compile a large application as well as deal with a large SQL database.

I've been using IDE RAID-0 for years in my desktop and found that it was a big improvement in overall performance and responsiveness.

But, since I've never used the 8890 without RAID, it would be hard to give you an accurate account on what kind of improvement it provides.

-Mike

go check out the review on the 8890, it gives some stats about disk performance, but i dont think it says anything about power drain.

go herehttp://sagerforums.com/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=6481

Re: Raid0 performance and power use

Uhh.. please tell me that you ordered a 8890, and not 5680, if you wanted to use raid... Just becuase you have two hard-drives in the 5680, does not mean you can do raid....

Because its doesnt support raid.

It does have the ICH5 chipset, but, it isnt the version that supports RAID (Even if it were the ICH5-R, it would have to be Serial ATA raid, since it doesnt support Parallel ATA raid.)

THe 8890 is the ONLY sager that supports RAID 0. It has a Promise ATA raid controler.

Just out of curiosity, why did you think the 5680 could to raid? Was it advertised on a website as that?

i've read of a software raid. winXP is supposed to have software raid.

eh.. u can (2k can too), but performance isnt much better, and its less stable...

...and you can't boot off a software raid, only hardware, like the 8890.

Software RAID is less stable, since it relys on windows being totally stable. If windows crashes, so does your drive array (most of the time). But, the bigger problem, is that you cant boot off a software RAID

Also, the laptops dont use any Serial drives. They are still parallel ATA. Additionally, you cant run a RAID array on the same cable (well) anyway... And, any raid array shares a controller, since it is the same controller that runs the array. They may not be on the same channel, but still the same controller.

Anyway, i will ask again, since this concerns me.. Where did you hear that the 5680 could do raid?

Well those specs are early, and possible the poster erred in posting them himself, but the 5680 does not have RAID support.

Might also have been that Adam thought the 5680 had RAID before the final specs were in place, but that I can't remember.

Unfortunatly, that was all speculation.

As is stands now, the 5680 has the ICH5 southbridge, not the ICH5-R. Thus, it supports no raid functions.

Mind you, the laptop will scream anyway, but, just without raid...

RAID

Windows (XP or 2000) RAID is slower than hardware RAID because under Windows your CPU has to perform all the I/O related to RAID. Hardware RAID offloads all the I/O processing to assemble data from 2+ separate physical drives to a dedicated processor (just like in a server, for example). Hardware RAID will be MUCH faster than software RAID b/c that's all the hardware does whereas in a multithreading OS like Windows every piece of running software gets a timeslice of your CPU every so often meaning software RAID only gets a fraction of full CPU power (effectively). Finally, not in laptops but in many higher-end hardware RAID controllers there is a battery backup right on the RAID controller so that in a power loss data writes get finished. Of course, you have your laptop battery.

Software RAID 0 will still show somewhat of an improvement over no RAID at all but as some mentioned here you won't be able to boot from a software RAID array. The advantage to Windows' software RAID, though, is that you can install Windows to a partition on one HD, then use the remainder of that HD as well as an equal-sized chunk of the other HD as a RAID0 array. That would leave you one more free partition (equal to the size of your Windows partition) on the second HD. Is it worth it? Depends on your workload, whether you are comfortable managing such a setup, whether you understand and accept that in software (as in hardware) RAID0 either drive frying means all data is lost (=twice the probability of data loss over time) etc. etc. If you have the time, test it and let us know how you fared...

PS I wouldn't even waste my time with software RAID unless I had two of the Hitachi 7K60 7200 RPM notebook drives (hey, actually, I do... ). And if you really need disk I/O (still slowest subsystem...) then I would strongly consider the 8890 and hardware RAID. It's just that much better.

i take it you have a raid0 setup using the 7200 drives?
do you get hiccups when playing games. i once purchased a dell 8100 about 3 years ago. i would get hiccups all throughout the game. i purchased an additional 256 stick of memory thinking it was lack of memory. it wasnt the memory. it was my $hitty laptop drive at the time. i gave up and returned the laptop.

I have Raid 0 on my desktop, and i love it. Works very nicely..

I have no doubts you will be happy with it, Raid or not. Anyway, glad we could help ya before you were dissapointed.