Raid setup

[zaqwsx]

Hey guys, Well im thinking about getting another 80gb hard drive this time sata and having a raid setup with my other sata hd. I wan't to know dose it have to be the same exact hd. I have a seagate 7200.7 got it for $66, know they got it only as an open box for $40 at newegg also how much better is 7200.8 and 7200.9 Thanks!

[Cannyone]

Re: Riad setup

For the best performance they should be exactly the same drive. Otherwise, if one is slower than the other they will both operate at the speed of the slower drive. Same thing applies for size, it will only stripe, or mirror, the volume of the smallest drive on the largest and ignore the rest. Those factors considered having two drives from the same maker and of equal size, should work. It might not be terribly stable but at the best you would have the same performance as two 7200.7s.

[zaqwsx]

Re: Riad setup

im going to get the same exact hd same nuber and everything is raid going to help me in any way

[casecutter]

Re: Riad setup

Well, 2 drives in RAID 0 speed things up about 25% or so. That is only when using the HD's though and it won't increase overall system speed. My 2 Seagate 120GB 7200.9 SATA 2 drives will beat any 2 WD Raptor SATA 1 RAID0 configs in speed. Even if your drives are SATA 1 they will perform within 90% of the Raptors as well. Just don't expect miracles and there is a somewhat higher risk of data loss because if one of your drives fails you lose all your data. I still strongly suggest it.

[zaqwsx]

Re: Riad setup

Well i dont mind my data loss I mostly always have every thing backed up on cds. All my computer has is games and it runs smooth because its so clean. I monitor almost every file and program also i was thinking about raid because i want more hd sapce and i guess it would be better and faster than buying 1 120gb hd and the fact that I already have an ata 133 hd that might be causing me some problrms with my sound. Know i would like to know when you do raid dose it show up on My Computer as 1 or 2 hds and can you have 2 sata hds without doing raid.

Also i guess it would be fine because if you have one hd and it fails you lose all your data.

[matm347]

Re: Riad setup

25% is a good approximation, I would even go as far as ~25% per drive in a RAID 0 setup. It's not much, but will be noticed.

Be sure to backup more often, even though it's rare to lose a drive, you are doubling the chances that you'll lose your data with a two drive RAID0 setup.

And everything but the RAID controller/BIOS will see both drives as a single.