Raid0 worth it for me?

[vSyNd1c4t3]

Hi guys, I am wondering what kind of realistic speed difference I will see with Raid0.

 

My final build plan is this.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3tH6gs

 

As of now, I do not have the Samsung SSD, I have a Kingston v300. Plan to upgrade later (Soon)

 

Also, I only have 1 Seagate Barracuda 1TB. Planned on Raid0 later. (Soon)

 

And finally I'm still on Windows 7 Ultimate. Plan to switch to 8 after full build is finished.(Later)

 

I have my SSD that will be used for Windows, certain apps, kind of the standard SSD usage. Maybe my Game of the Month will be put on the SSD while I'm playing it daily.

 

BUT MOST of my games will be on my storage drives, the Seagate Barracudas.

 

When I get my second Barracuda, what kind of speed difference will I notice, is it worth doing?

 

Plz give reason and proof of your answer. Yes and No doesn't satisfy my curiosity.

 

Edit:

To clarify, I'm trying to Raid0 my 1TB Seagate Barracuda (Storage) HDDs not my SSD (Bootdrive).

 

OH, and I didn't mention I would be getting rid of my old 120GB ssd. It's going into a different system I own.

[GlassBomb]

I personally wouldn't do RAID 0 with normal harddrives. Increasing the failure rate with spinning media isn't something I want to think extra about :c

[CapricaBuccaneers]

Speaking as someone who has used Raid 0 as my main boot drive for the last 3 years - no it's not worth it. There's no noticeable speed increase in my case and you're just adding another point of failure.

Instead, when it came time to upgrade I got a new bigger SSD and used the older ones to put games on - things that benefit an SSD such as MMOs.

I only use HDDs for mass storage (backups, file downloads) these days - since SSDs have become so much cheaper, though please note I have literally no use for more than 3tb of total storage so ymmv.

[vSyNd1c4t3]

I personally wouldn't do RAID 0 with normal harddrives. Increasing the failure rate with spinning media isn't something I want to think extra about :c

Not too worried about failure.

 

Speaking as someone who has used Raid 0 as my main boot drive for the last 3 years - no it's not worth it. There's no noticeable speed increase in my case and you're just adding another point of failure.

Instead, when it came time to upgrade I got a new bigger SSD and used the older ones to put games on - things that benefit an SSD such as MMOs.

I only use HDDs for mass storage (backups, file downloads) these days - since SSDs have become so much cheaper, though please note I have literally no use for more than 3tb of total storage so ymmv.

 

I am talking about Riad0 on my Storage HDDs not my Boot SSD.

 

I am already upgrading to a new bigger SSD going from 120 to 256.

 

You might have misunderstood my post? Or I might have misunderstood yours.

 

OH, and I didn't mention I would be getting rid of my old 120GB ssd. It's going into a different system I own.

[Jarsky]

If you're storing games on them, then sure why not - you'll get faster load speeds on a range of games.

If they're for personal storage of files like photos, documents, etc...there is no benefit of raiding them. You would typically only do a RAID0 for something that holds applications of some kind.

[Grunilg]

I am talking about Riad0 on my Storage HDDs not my Boot SSD.

I honestly don't see a reason beside brag-rights taking a risk to RAID0 your HDDs. Any Program you need to access fast should be stored on the SSD anyway, hence HDDs are used for Mass-Storage, which mostly don't benefit from higher readtimes. Also HDDs are mechanical and therefore a little risky in a setup without any redundancy (dataloss etc.)

There is only really one application I can imagine to be useful and that would be to improve loading times on videogames.

[vSyNd1c4t3]

If you're storing games on them, then sure why not - you'll get faster load speeds on a range of games.

If they're for personal storage of files like photos, documents, etc...there is no benefit of raiding them. You would typically only do a RAID0 for something that holds applications of some kind.

 

Yea, they will be for all my games really, but I will also have some videos I made, photos, and files, which I will be transfering between storage devices. Like phones and flash drives.

 

I honestly don't see a reason beside brag-rights taking a risk to RAID0 your HDDs. Any Program you need to access fast should be stored on the SSD anyway, hence HDDs are used for Mass-Storage, which mostly don't benefit from higher readtimes. Also HDDs are mechanical and therefore a little risky in a setup without any redundancy (dataloss etc.)

There is only really one application I can imagine to be useful and that would be to improve loading times on videogames.

 

Well as of now I only have 1 HDD so I'm already at risk of losing those files anyway. I know with raid0 I'm pretty much double my loss chance, but I'm really not too worried about losing the files. It's nothing I don't have saved on my personal Social Media or File save sites that I use for backups and whatnot.

 

In the original post I mention what I will be using the SSD for and what the HDD will be used for. Everything you said I SHOULD use Raid0 for is listed, but you say I shouldn't do it.

 

Anyway no one is giving me real numbers and performance gain information. Just all negative. "Failed drive worries." Which I don't care about.

 

Still looking for a detailed Pros and Cons I guess, and if the only Con is "Failed drive data loss." Then I'm doing it. And the only information I need now is what are some real world gains?

[Jarsky]

Yea, they will be for all my games really, but I will also have some videos I made, photos, and files, which I will be transfering between storage devices. Like phones and flash drives.

 

 

Well as of now I only have 1 HDD so I'm already at risk of losing those files anyway. I know with raid0 I'm pretty much double my loss chance, but I'm really not too worried about losing the files. It's nothing I don't have saved on my personal Social Media or File save sites that I use for backups and whatnot.

 

In the original post I mention what I will be using the SSD for and what the HDD will be used for. Everything you said I SHOULD use Raid0 for is listed, but you say I shouldn't do it.

 

Anyway no one is giving me real numbers and performance gain information. Just all negative. "Failed drive worries." Which I don't care about.

 

Still looking for a detailed Pros and Cons I guess, and if the only Con is "Failed drive data loss." Then I'm doing it. And the only information I need now is what are some real world gains?

 

 

OK then.

 

If you RAID0 2 x brand new SATA3 7200rpm drives, which will have a sequential read/write speed of about 120-150MB/s - then if you RAID0 them you'll see upwards of 250-300MB/s* sustained throughput on sequential (this doesnt include 4K sectors and small files random read/write). You will have similar access times, as raiding doesn't really affect this.

 

Due to your ethernet being limited to 1Gbit (125MB/s) and USB 3.0 being 480Mbit (60MB/s) - that means unless you're transferring between your SSD's and your RAID - you'll see none of that speed benefit as far as moving files on/off the RAID. 

 

No documents and/or media files you could put on there, would be reading 120-150MB/s let alone more than that.

 

The only way you'll see this speed increase is in the likes of 3D Rendering applications and Games where you're loading the large textures and files off the RAID array to your graphics card and/or memory along the PCI-E Bus.

 

*NOTE: This depends on the file structure and the bit spread across the drives - you may see lower and higher bursts

 

 

So for personal home use this comes down to

 

Pro's:

---------

- Faster load times for large textured applications i.e some Games

 

Con's:

--------

- More chance of failure in RAID0 configuration

- Time spent redownloading 2 drives worth of game content, vs 1

 

It's worth noting that very few games actually benefit from faster disk read speeds - these are games with large textures.

Games such as Battlefield 4, Shadows of Mordor with the HD Texture Pack and heavily modded Skyrim.

About 80% of games you aren't going to notice any benefit.

[vSyNd1c4t3]

OK then.

 

If you RAID0 2 x brand new SATA3 7200rpm drives, which will have a sequential read/write speed of about 120-150MB/s - then if you RAID0 them you'll see upwards of 250-300MB/s* sustained throughput on sequential (this doesnt include 4K sectors and small files random read/write). You will have similar access times, as raiding doesn't really affect this.

 

Due to your ethernet being limited to 1Gbit (125MB/s) and USB 3.0 being 480Mbit (60MB/s) - that means unless you're transferring between your SSD's and your RAID - you'll see none of that speed benefit as far as moving files on/off the RAID. 

 

No documents and/or media files you could put on there, would be reading 120-150MB/s let alone more than that.

 

The only way you'll see this speed increase is in the likes of 3D Rendering applications and Games where you're loading the large textures and files off the RAID array to your graphics card and/or memory along the PCI-E Bus.

 

*NOTE: This depends on the file structure and the bit spread across the drives - you may see lower and higher bursts

 

 

So for personal home use this comes down to

 

Pro's:

---------

- Faster load times for large textured applications i.e some Games

 

Con's:

--------

- More chance of failure in RAID0 configuration

- Time spent redownloading 2 drives worth of game content, vs 1

 

It's worth noting that very few games actually benefit from faster disk read speeds - these are games with large textures.

Games such as Battlefield 4, Shadows of Mordor with the HD Texture Pack and heavily modded Skyrim.

About 80% of games you aren't going to notice any benefit.

 

This is the information needed to make my decision. thanks