Raid0 question

[jdlover]

I want to turn my gaming rig into a striped raid array. I know the 2 drive's have to be the same. My question is the same true for the drive's cache. I have 2 seagate 500gb 7200.11 drives but one has a 16mb cache and the other a 32mb cache. Can I still use these 2 drives together or will the cache size really make a difference?
Thanks for any help!

 

[DelJo63]

hardware cache in the HDs is invisible to the OS and its drivers, so NO they do not need to be the same.

HOWEVER, I would strongly advise you to search the site for all RAID comments;
raid-0 will be a disaster upon the very first disk error and force you into a full system
recovery. ARE YOU READY FOR THAT???

 

[jdlover]

Thank you jobeard for the reply. I am still researching the pros and cons of doing this. I do welcome the info which does allow that option.

Thanks again,

jdlover

 

[DelJo63]

getting the option, or better said, making that choice and implementing it on a specific
machine is the trivial part.

it's the consequences that frequently get over looked and then when disaster strikes,
we hear "Oh my, how do I recover my ..."

suggest you get some good backup software and practice creating backups and more
importantly, performing restores in at least two modes:

1. restoring a simple directory to a given date
2. learning how to recover the whole boot disk
   (hint: normal backup will not recover an HD which will not boot as it doesn't
   capture the MBR)

For case (2), you need something like Ghost or Acronis True Image 11

 

[jdlover]

I have been using ghost for years to make my own system restore disks. Once I get a new install done with all essential programs installed I ghost it to dvd's.

Very good suggestion that other's would do well to heed!
It has saved my bacon many times.

In your opinion would you set up a raid array to get alittle more performance out of the pc or is it a case of extra work for little gain?

 

[DelJo63]

In your opinion would you set up a raid array to get alittle more performance out of the pc or is it a case of extra work for little gain?

At least you asked IMO, it's the latter -- even Microsoft does not recommend Raid-0
for the Boot disk!

Best wishes

 

[jdlover]

Thanks again jobeard. I do believe I will pass on the raid setup.

It just seems when I built this rig I expected more performance! I went from an old socket a amd 2700+ with 1gb ddr 3200 and an agp video geforce 7300 512mb ddr2 with no sata connections on mobo to this setup. There was a performance gain but again not what I thought it would be.

Just trying to get the most bang for my buck!

Again, thanks.

 

[DelJo63]

you're welcome -- my objective on this subject is to keep users SAFE and not let them
make brash assumptions based upon techno-bable terms that require special 'care & keeping' for the average home user.

(gee, maybe that's a bit transparent; teeheehee ).