[dubs89]

Hi all,

Here is what i have currently:
- a 10k rpm raptor 130ish GB gard drive (WIndows vista 64bit installed is on this hard drive)
- A 7800 rpm 500 GB sata hard drive (Music and other files on this one)

1) Can i install another 500 GB 7800 RPM HD in Sata0 and keep the 10k hard drive with windows on it?

2) OR can i DO a sata5 connection and put the 10k hard drive in the connection with the 7800 rpm (will there be any problem with them being different drives?)

3)What is my best option?

4) would it be a better option to just connect all 3 hard drives together without and sort of "raid" connection?

[Gazmondo]

1) Yes you can install another 500gb hard drive (preferable the same model as your current) and use them both in a raid array. You may then use your raptor as a primary to offer the OS.

2) By sata5 connection I gather you mean RAID5. No, do not attempt to use different sized disks in a raid array, you will be losing out. Only the size of the raptor will be taken from your 500gb, So, whether it be the 36, 74 or 150gb version, you would be losing out on 350-464gb.

3) Your best option depends entirely on your needs and circumstances. If it is gaming and performance you are after, buy another identical 10k raptor drive and run them two in RAID0 as your primary and your 500gb as your secondary drive. If it is more storage and reliability you are after, buy an identical 500gb to the one you have now, and run that in RAID5 against your current 500gb drive.

RAID0 offers the most beneficial performance boost, however has a 0 tolerance policy. If one hard drive goes down your other is USELESS. Most often used in hardcore gaming systems, or performance enthusiasts.

RAID5 offers the most data protective method, no matter which hard drive fails your data is 100% recoverable from the other drive. Most often used in servers.

4) No, as stated in #1 do not try to connect different sized drives together. Stick with the same modules, like you would running dual channel in ram modules, raid works in a similar way.

Hope this helps.

[dubs89]

That is very great info!

So if i do a RAID5 connection that means that the systems proformance wont be increased at all, correct?

I am wanting to do video editing, so sense i will be in need of so much room i thought that doing a RAID0 connection would be the best bet sense they increase the proformance while increasing the amount of space i have. but I am very un easy of the fact that it is sumwhat unstable (This is a workstation PC).

DO you think that i should just keep the OS in the 10k raptor and have 2 other 500GB hard drives connected normaly?

[Gazmondo]

Right well depending on the size and the value of the videos you are editing again has an influence of what raid array you use.

To sum up;

RAID0 offers the best performance but the worst reliability. The best way for you to achieve this is to buy a duplicate of your current 10k RPM drive and use them two in RAID0 with your 500gb as backup which will store your videos.

RAID5 attempts to offer RAID0 speed with better reliability. Though it fails, it is not as fast as RAID0 but i THINK it is slightly faster than using a single disk. The best way for you to achieve this is to buy 2 duplicates of your current 500gb drives (as the minimum number of disks in a RAID5 array is 3), so in turn you will have 1.5TB of storage space. RAID5 also "wastes" space for mirroring - which is basically protecting your data from corruption, so that if one disk fails you can still retrieve the data from it. This means that a section of each of your drives will be used for "parity data", which basically must be created everytime something is written to the array, causing bottlenecks in performance.

Basically do not be put off by using RAID0, I have been using it for some time now with 2x36gb raptors and haven't had any problems whatsoever.

However as most computer enthusiasts know, the slowest part of a computer is generally the hard drive, which means if you are wanting to encode/decode videos and such at a much faster speed then I would recommend setting up a RAID0 array as this would offer a subtantial speed increase. Although if not then I would recommend the RAID5 array, simply for the storage solution it offers through mirroring.