HELP with RAID

nayaseedq · Post by **nayaseedq** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:57 pm

My PC has following

Epox EP-5EPA+ Motherboard with Intel® Matrix RAID Technology
Intel Pentium 4 540 Prescott 800MHz FSB LGA 775
Two Maxtor MaXLine III SATA Hard drives 300GB each.

I stalled WinXP and then i realized i did nothing to setup RAID.
My current Rwrite speed is 58.5 Mbytes/sec, but i heard i could get as good as 200 to 250 MB/Sec with Raid0 is that true?
I need that because i do lot of video processing.
Since already installed my OS, how can i setup the RAID0 now? My total space is 300+300 GB, will i be left with only 300GB if i apply Raid0.

Please help me with Raid0 setup , ?????

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:38 pm

nope the best you might do is 100mbs and thats still only burst speed. generally your not going to get any improvement in applications that dont NEED lots of bandwidth. if your doing video editing then you might want to think about it but 54mb is more than enough for video editing. you also need to remember that raid0 means that if either drive fails you loose ALL your data.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:53 pm

Welcome nayaseedq!

As infinitevalence said... you will NOT see any real world benefit! Some people setup raid 0 for their program files folder.. But even then...Games etc. only load 3-4 seconds quicker if your lucky!

Video editing only needs about ~35mb/sec to be SURE you don't drop any frames..even if you work with HD content. (a fast 5700rpm drive will do)

Raid 0 = 2x the chance of data loss...

I personally think RAID on desktops is just a gimick... Unless you have IMPORTANT data -> then setup RAID 1 (but if it's that important..then backup to another pc or dvd?)

just keep that second 300Gb drive for a working folder for your files...if you keep your large vid files on a seperate drive you WILL get better performance (things will "feel" smoother)

sbohdan · Post by **sbohdan** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 5:20 pm

actually when you convert video files the best is if you place the temporary file on the other drive then where the source video is and the final output folder on the same HDD as the source is. this way when converting the source reading and temporary files writing is done by 2 separate drives instead on the same drive (ex. C drive reading and D drive writing instead of drive C reading and writing at the same time) this will speed up the conversion.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 5:25 pm

sbohdan wrote:actually when you convert video files the best is if you place the temporary file on the other drive then where the source video is and the final output folder on the same HDD as the source is. this way when converting the source reading and temporary files writing is done by 2 separate drives instead on the same drive (ex. C drive reading and D drive writing instead of drive C reading and writing at the same time) this will speed up the conversion.

thats why I said keep the second drive as a working folder - i wasn't clear enough.. sorry

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:01 pm

it is true that you will actualy see more of an improvement in graphics, and video if you use the second drive as a scratch driver and keep your data on the other drive.

sbohdan · Post by **sbohdan** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 7:13 pm

kenc51 wrote: thats why I said keep the second drive as a working folder - i wasn't clear enough.. sorry

yeah... I usually try to be more specific assuming the other party doesn't know everything that we take for granted. If he does, than its OK. if he doesn't then I helped.

nayaseedq · Post by **nayaseedq** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 8:58 am

Thanks a lot for the advice.
Man!, i should have taken advice first here before i bought those 2 SATA drives replacing my IDE's.I guess i fell into trap of RAID and SATA, now i realize even from other forums that SATA & RAID r just a waste of money like camera cell phones.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 9:42 am

not always some times its worth it, when i was doing video editing and i only had 2 160gb drives i used raid because it gave me enough space to work. and you still have two drives and 600gb of storage so its not all bad.