Raid 0 or single HDD for games

[HEADBANGA666]

Hi all, I'm after some advice.

 

I currently have a 120GB M.2 SSD as a boot drive (windows and applications), a 2TB HDD for documents, music, photos, videos etc, and a 4TB HDD for my enormous library of games (Steam, GOG, Uplay, Origin etc).

The games drive was just a cheap one I acquired a while ago and it's cheapness is reflected in the long loading times.  I'd like to upgrade it for faster loading times.

 

Before you say "buy an SSD", it isn't really an option as the cost to fit my entire library of games on one would be upwards of $2000NZD.  Moving games between drives is also a pain and I'd rather not.

We also have slow internet in our household, meaning it takes forever to download anything, so I can't just download a game when I want to play it.

 

What I want to know is, should I buy a faster 4TB HDD or run 2 faster 2TB HDDs in raid 0?

I realize raid 0 is more at risk of losing data, and the cost of the drives would work out about the same.  I just want to know if raid 0 would give enough of a reduction in loading times to make it worthwhile in my scenario.

 

The specs of my current games drive are here:

https://www.cnet.com/products/hgst-ultrastar-7k4000-hus724040ala640-hard-drive-4-tb-sata-6gb-s-hus724040ala640/specs/

 

[Senzelian]

Since you already have a 4TB drive, go for a 4TB Raid 0 (2TB + 2TB) and backup your games regularly or whenever you change something to your old 4TB drive.
 

This way you can run your Raid 0, get better load times and if the Raid 0 fails, you can restore it with the backup.

[HEADBANGA666]

So you're suggesting raid 10?  That could work.  Would there be a significant change in loading times?

[Dedayog]

Linus just did a video mentioning Primo Cache, may be a solution for you.

[HEADBANGA666]

3 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

Linus just did a video mentioning Primo Cache, may be a solution for you.

Link please

[Dedayog]

 

Primo Cache mentioned around 7:30

 

https://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/primo-cache/purchase.html

 

[HEADBANGA666]

Thanks for that mate.

 

I did watch it and it seems to suggest that I get an SSD to use as a cache for my existing 4TB HDD, but I'm left wondering how that would compare to the setups I'm looking at, since I'd have to spend about the same amount on an SSD plus the software.

 

It's a great suggestion but I'd like to know or at least have an idea of how they compare before making a purchasing decision.

[seagate_surfer]

Hello HEADBANGA666,

 

A RAID 0 setup does boost the performance in most areas, but not to double as you might expect. You will get about 50% added performance in most areas, but it also comes at the sacrifice of slower access times if you use the RAID configurations we all know. Whenever you see comparisons of normal speeds of one single drive against other type "RAID" configurations like the Optane of Intel and its concatenating/accelerating methods with SATA drives, PrimoCache or AMD StoreMI Technology you will see that numbers improve and access times also because these last mentioned technologies are meant to work as cache for your storage. RAID is meant to combine multiple drives into one unit for the purposes of data redundancy, performance improvement, or both. Comparing both the RAID setups vs the existing accelerating options available in the market, the one that can help you lower wait times is accelerating instead of doing the normal RAID set ups. But both of them will definitely will result in better performance than having just one drive as usual.