To Raid or Not To Raid? That is my question...

[Chimpy]

My PC uses Raid0 for the applications and games. As such, program loading is VERY zippy. I've heard some conflicting things regarding Raid0 on the Mac, so I was hoping some gurus could chime in and set me straight.

My current config: Mac Pro (3GB ram) with the stock drive on the first bay. That drive has the OS and the apps on it. Bays 2-4 have 500GB drives in them. Bay 2 has data, but stuff I don't care about (basically). Bays 3 and 4 have been raided into a Raid 1 array - this is where I'm storing photos and music.

I'd really like to fit a Raid 0 into the equation for my apps. I would imagine it would make the Pro seem much more snappy. However, I've heard bad things about Raid0-ing your boot drive.

Anyone have any thoughts, ideas, tips, anything to throw out here? I'll be building an external array in the next few weeks, and that can figure into the equation as well.

 

[jolton]

I have a mac pro with 4 western digital drives in a raid 0 config. There is nothing wrong as long as you back up. I did not want to do a raid 1 or a 0/1 so instead I use a program call psyncx and schedule it to back up the entire system every 3 1/2 hours. Runs in the background and works great.

The speed on a 4 disk raid 0 is very noticeable.

 

[hayduke]

I have a mac pro with 4 western digital drives in a raid 0 config. There is nothing wrong as long as you back up. I did not want to do a raid 1 or a 0/1 so instead I use a program call psyncx and schedule it to back up the entire system every 3 1/2 hours. Runs in the background and works great.

The speed on a 4 disk raid 0 is very noticeable.

Just out of curiosity, what are you backing up to? Also, do you think your 4x RAID 0 is any faster than a 2x RAID 0/1? Maybe you haven't tested that, but it seems like it might not be much of a boost.

 

[Chimpy]

Yeah, I would only use the raid for applications and stuff I don't care about. All of my data is on Raid1 drives. I just want to buff up the loading times of my applications - my windows machine really flies with Raid0.

 

[danderso]

On a desktop, raid 0 is a total waste. I'd be pretty willing to bet any perceived performance increase is just in your mind. Anandtech posted a good article about this a while ago:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=11

 

[trainguy77]

On a desktop, raid 0 is a total waste. I'd be pretty willing to bet any perceived performance increase is just in your mind. Anandtech posted a good article about this a while ago:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=11

This test is flawed....with a decent RAID controller you will see more improvements. But either way personally RAID 0 for the desktops I think are a waste of time....but its really up to you. I am off to go finish fixing a RAID 5 failure....