Hey, I was just wondering what the difference between like a big 640GB WD Caviar (in my case) and a >80GB WD Raptor, where the Raptor is more expensive. I also have an idea what RAID setups are, but I'm not to sure. Any info would be good, thanks.
the raptor is a 10,000rpm drive. they perform better than most drives. but the WD 640 actually performs about the same as the old 74gb raptor. but the new velociraptor blows it out of the water. here is all the info about raid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
Only in data transfer. Even the oldest 37GB Raptor is miles faster than any 7200rpm drive for loading an OS and large numbers of small files. Faster still are the 150 and 300GB Velociraptors, HIGHLY recommended drives.
would there be a way to install your os on a velociraptor and also have a big hard drive (lets say the 640 caviar) and use a RAID configuration? I'm still confused on how RAID works, but is there a configuration that will view those two harddrives as a single drive, but load the OS really quick because it's on the velociraptor?
yes you can use the raptor for the os and have a raid set up for all your data. i dont know much about configuration because i have never done it before but a google search should get you some good info.
Don't RAID the Raptor and the other drive together, that will be useless. You can use a RAID array for your data storage, but I warn you now, unless you spend big money on a proper RAID card, it's near pointless. RAID will slow down your operating system load time as it causes a delay in access time, which is what matters for loading windows. Additionally, you either have the choice of RAID0 or RAID1 normally, RAID0 means that while you get a speed boost (for data transfer rate only), if one drive goes bad, the data from all the drives is lost. With RAID1, a drive can fail and all the data will still be there, but you only get half the amount of storage - i.e. two 500GB drives in RAID1 still only get you 500GB.
dont forget about raid 5. if you have 3 500g hdd's you will get a total of 1tb that is redundant. most newer intel boards support it. i would not worry about slow access times on a data drive. if you are only using it for movies musics and other stuff you wont have a problem with speed.
raid.. as a server owner what can I say about raid? Waste of power and hardware.. I tried it across my 13.5TB array and it was slower to access and caused a higher hardware failure rate than just running it as a scsi array as I have for years. The only benefit I can see is in a business environment where data is valuable.. data loss could be embarrassing and cause loss of business customers details, orders and all kinds of other things.. banks use raid5 (or other high redundancy systems) for data security in the event of hardware failure.. money is no object to them... There may be 10000+ users all trying to access random data at the same time across maybe 1000+ drives. In those situations raid does give a faster seek time..For home use it's a pointless waste of hardware and power.
Thanks for all the info guys... So lets say we take any RAID configurations out of the picture, could you have a, lets say 150GB VelociRaptor and a 640GB WD Caviar and load you OS on the VR and install your games on the Caviar? Now would those games even be able to play, if so they would they even have a load benefit because they're on the Caviar? Though the OS would load really quick because it's on the VR. What would you limit the VR to? Games and the OS? Then put your movies and other stuff on the WD. If that's the case why would you need a big Caviar in the first place because the only thing that eats up hard drive space are games. Sorry if this is redundant or confusing, I'm just a little lost right now.
i use my raptor for the os and all my games and programs. you want to install games to the raptor so you get faster load times in games. then you use the other for everything else.
except what do you use the other hard drive for? I can see movies and music, but my collection only takes up like 25GBS MAX!! My games, programs, and OS take up Hundreds of GBs, I'm just confused why someone would/could buy a VR and install all their games, programs, and their os on it. Then go out and buy a MASSIVE Hard drive and only put music and movies on it. I dono the only reason I bought a 640 gig HDD was for Games/Programs.
the point of the raptor is faster load times and better slightly better performance in games and programs that load stuff a lot. but there is nothing stopping you from installing games or programs onto the data drive if you run out of space. just select D:\someplace and you can install it there. but if you do that the only benefit you get from the raptor is a few seconds off you boot time and that doesn't seem worth it to me. i dont really need that much space for the os drive. i use 50gb for the os games and programs. i use 410gb for iso's hd movies music.
Some games won't work if you have to reinstall windows for whatever reason, and additionally loading up your OS drive with stuff means it's a pain when you do have to reformat it to fix problems. Keep nothing on your OS drive bar what can easily be moved (for example a small number of specific games that don't leave piles of settings and save files everywhere) and dump the rest on a slower outside drive. Loading time for a lot of games on 7200rpm drives and 10k rpm drives isn't really much different. Fill up your raptor though and it will literally halve in speed, if not worse.
