How much faster is RAID?

[Slamadatan]

I realise that results vary depending on the controller, the size of the
striping, the drives and the task at hand, but generally speaking, how much
faster will a system with RAID striping operate?

I ask because after ghosting my C drive over to a pair of Seagate Barracuda
SATA .7's, I've noticed that the drives operate very noisily with a lot of
cruching and loud seeking that I don't hear when I don't set them up in a
RAID array. Is this likely to have been a side-effect of having ghosted the
contents, as opposed to creating a new install from scratch? I couldn't
notice any great increase in speed, so again I'm unsure if the RAID setup is
worth the extra noise, or if the ghosting compromised it's effectiveness.

Any ideas?

 

[CJT]

I realise that results vary depending on the controller, the size of the
striping, the drives and the task at hand, but generally speaking, how much
faster will a system with RAID striping operate?

I ask because after ghosting my C drive over to a pair of Seagate Barracuda
SATA .7's, I've noticed that the drives operate very noisily with a lot of
cruching and loud seeking that I don't hear when I don't set them up in a
RAID array. Is this likely to have been a side-effect of having ghosted the
contents, as opposed to creating a new install from scratch? I couldn't
notice any great increase in speed, so again I'm unsure if the RAID setup is
worth the extra noise, or if the ghosting compromised it's effectiveness.

Any ideas?

"Raid" is a broad category. So is "faster."

 

[SteveH]

I realise that results vary depending on the controller, the size of the
striping, the drives and the task at hand, but generally speaking, how much
faster will a system with RAID striping operate?

I ask because after ghosting my C drive over to a pair of Seagate Barracuda
SATA .7's, I've noticed that the drives operate very noisily with a lot of
cruching and loud seeking that I don't hear when I don't set them up in a
RAID array. Is this likely to have been a side-effect of having ghosted the
contents, as opposed to creating a new install from scratch? I couldn't
notice any great increase in speed, so again I'm unsure if the RAID setup is
worth the extra noise, or if the ghosting compromised it's effectiveness.

Any ideas?

I've had a couple of mobo's now with onboard raid. I must say I've seen no
real difference in speed when running two striped drives.
And having lost all my data when one of a pair of Barracuda IV's packed up
two weeks after purchase, I've given up with the idea of striping all
together. I just use the drives on the raid controller as single drives.
I also have conflict problems with the raid drivers and some programs,
notably WinRar, which runs at about a tenth of the speed it should when the
raid drivers enabled.

HTH
SteveH

 

[54fred]

I've had a couple of mobo's now with onboard raid. I must say I've seen no
real difference in speed when running two striped drives.
And having lost all my data when one of a pair of Barracuda IV's packed up
two weeks after purchase, I've given up with the idea of striping all
together. I just use the drives on the raid controller as single drives.
I also have conflict problems with the raid drivers and some programs,
notably WinRar, which runs at about a tenth of the speed it should when the
raid drivers enabled.

HTH
SteveH

ick. sounds grim. I read a review about onboard raid controllers
that wasn't very complimentary. Said they were pretty minimal raid
technology, sort of like your typical on board video.

 

[John]

You'll mainly notice the difference when you copy big folders/files - it
will copy about twice as fast.

If you get into video editing, DVD's etc you'll appreciate the extra speed.

 

[David A.Lethe]

I realise that results vary depending on the controller, the size of the
striping, the drives and the task at hand, but generally speaking, how much
faster will a system with RAID striping operate?

I ask because after ghosting my C drive over to a pair of Seagate Barracuda
SATA .7's, I've noticed that the drives operate very noisily with a lot of
cruching and loud seeking that I don't hear when I don't set them up in a
RAID array. Is this likely to have been a side-effect of having ghosted the
contents, as opposed to creating a new install from scratch? I couldn't
notice any great increase in speed, so again I'm unsure if the RAID setup is
worth the extra noise, or if the ghosting compromised it's effectiveness.

Any ideas?

It varies way to much for a generalization..

 

[mhicaoidh]

Taking a moment's reflection, David A.Lethe mused:
|
| It varies way to much for a generalization..

Indeed. In fact, some configurations may be slower. If you are talking
IDE RAID ... I don't think any speed increase will be significant.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I realise that results vary depending on the controller, the size of the
striping, the drives and the task at hand, but generally speaking, how much
faster will a system with RAID striping operate?

I have a Linux-Software RAID-0 with two disks on different
controller channels (Maxtor DiamondMax 9 pus 120GB). It is
roughly twice as fast on linear reads and writes and roughly
as fast as the individual disks for seeks. Just what you expect.

I ask because after ghosting my C drive over to a pair of Seagate Barracuda
SATA .7's, I've noticed that the drives operate very noisily with a lot of
cruching and loud seeking that I don't hear when I don't set them up in a
RAID array. Is this likely to have been a side-effect of having ghosted the
contents, as opposed to creating a new install from scratch? I couldn't
notice any great increase in speed, so again I'm unsure if the RAID setup is
worth the extra noise, or if the ghosting compromised it's effectiveness.

I have no idea what is weong with this setup. However clearly something
is wrong. Everything that is loud (seeking) is also slow and generates
heat.

Arno