3x Samsung sp2504c vs WD raptor 150gb

[Erssa]

Yes, that's generally FRAID. If there are only Windows drivers that's usually a good indication that it's FRAID. Or just Google.

FRAID is not an official term. Even, if you google for FRAID, you won't get any links pointing to any kind of reference or links to RAID with the first 10 pages. (I stopped looking after 10). So it doesn't look to be a part of computer jargon or even a semi-official acronym. So I see no point in using it. Onboard RAID is much more simpler and easier to understand anyway. Did you make the term up?

But when talking about RAID levels, RAID 5 does _not_ mirror. From a user perspective, you can claim it's sorta kinda like having a mirror of your data, but, it's not in every technical sense of the definition of RAID 5.

I just don't want people walking away with the idea that RAID 5 actually does _mirroring_ of your data. It does not. It does stripping with parity.

Again I have to say, that I never claimed RAID 5 does any mirroring, but later in the same post you quoted, I mention the parity data and parity data calculations. So where do you get the image I am confused about the two? I could say an umbrella has basically the same benefits as a raicoat (protect from rain), and yet, it doesn't mean that I am claiming raincoat is umbrella... If a person knows the difference between parity and mirroring, there is no way he could be misinformed on what I wrote. And if a person has no understanding on what mirroring and parity is, he probably wouldn't be any smarter had I left that explanation/simplification out. I wasn't misleading.

That's right. Don't trust the hardware. You trust your RAID 5/1/1+0 whatever to save you from severe hardware failure? Dude, seriously, backup to an external device or media, too.

Nope. If I have raid-5 there's no need for me to have external drives for extra backups. There's a point where the extra protection comes redundant. For me it comes when I have raid-1, raid-5 or an external backup, I don't need both. The possibility of 2 drives failing at the same time is so small, that I don't consider it a big risk. Even external back up won't save you, if your house burns down. So maybe I should get a extra house with extra computer just in case my house burns down, better put that house to different town or even different county in case of revolution... Having said that, I already have my document and settings folder and some other important folders and files burned to DVD. If I'm gonna have a RAID 5 array some day and more then 1 drives fails on me simultaneously, I swear that 'm gonna look you up to tell you about, just so you can say: "I told you so...", but until then, I'm gonna say it's redundant.

I've been through several disk failures just in the past month. I haven't lost any data thanks to backups, but merely running RAID isn't enough to save you from the failure of multiple disks. And, yes, stuff sometimes happens to even those of us who never make mistakes, ever. Once in a great while even I delete something by accident, although it's rare.

As I said the possibility for this is pretty low. But then again. I play lottery...

...
I wouldn't, just because 2x 74gb raptors are noisier, more expensive and slower.

I'd contest that insofar as for data reads, the mirror pair with a decent hardware RAID controller in RAID 1 would pull you ahead for reads. You can read two independent files at a time on a good controller, though writes will surely suffer versus a single disk.

RAID 1 has small benefits in random read performance, and about none in sequential read performances compared to a single drive. However even with the benefits in random read performance 2 x74gb raptors in RAID 1 are slower then a single 150gb raptor. It's true that write performance would hurt a bit even against a single 74gb raptor, but not enough to make a noticeable difference.

There is a cost to FRAID. Poorly implemented drivers can lead to data loss. I trust proprietary drivers even less than I trust my hardware. You've just paid for marketing in most cases with FRAID. There is no hardware RAID controller on-board, just some new BIOS options.

Additionally, you lose out on things like portability and recoverability with FRAID, since you can't necessarily put any remaining disk from your RAID 5 array if you lose the mainboard in some other mainboard and expect to be able to read your data. Further, if that mainboard goes away and you can't buy a replacement, how do you read your data now?
Screwed.

First of all, drop the FRAID. Let's use the official and less confusing on-board RAID 5 instead.
Secondly that recoverability is just as big and even a bigger issues with a hardware controller, so why do you point this out like it's only typical for onboard? For example after 5 years, it will most certainly be easier to find an old used motherboard with the same onboard controller, then it would be to find a compatible discontinued hardware controller. You cannot just pick your HDs and stick them to a compeletely different controller and expect them to work there. Poorly implemented drivers with hardware controller can lead to data loss just as much in hardware controller then in onboard. There is absolutely no reason to speculate on the "poor implementation" of onboard controllers drivers, until even one concrete shred of empirical evidence of drivers causing data loss is presented. To be considered valid this evidence will have to be repeatable in test environment.

Stick to either software RAID in the OS or true hardware RAID. FRAID is just a gimmick.

Shame on motherboard manufacturers for putting gimmick-data-destroying-onboard RAID 5 to premium motherboards. What a conspiracy!

[TomZ]

If I have raid-5 there's no need for me to have external drives for extra backups.

That would be foolish, in my opinion. Consider some possible cases - bad PSU kills the drives, flood, fire, theft, etc. If you have important data, then backup is necessary.

[Erssa]

I'm just gonna add that, I see zero reasons for a user to go for a RAID 5 in his home computer with a hardware RAID 5 controller. Since adding one drive and going RAID 0+1 is cheaper (then RAID 5 with hardware controller) and results in a file system with same capacity and fault tolerance and better performance in almost every scenario then a RAID 5 consisting of 3 drives.

[Erssa]

If I have raid-5 there's no need for me to have external drives for extra backups.

That would be foolish, in my opinion. Consider some possible cases - bad PSU kills the drives, flood, fire, theft, etc. If you have important data, then backup is necessary.

The PSU could kill both of the drives while you are taking backups, flood, fire, theft, earthquake, vulcano, meteor... could also result in a loss of even the external backup.

I have only one spare tire in my car, call me a gambler...

[mathias]

The PSU could kill both of the drives while you are taking backups, flood, fire, theft, earthquake, vulcano, meteor... could also result in a loss of even the external backup.

Since you're in scandinavia, what if thor decides to smite your house, or that of someone very close in your power grid?

The chance of of an external drive getting electrocuted is much smaller, especially if you don't do any backing up during storms or periods when brownouts or redouts typically occour. An external backup would also be much safer against, among many things, any drunk people that might collide with your PC.

Which volcano do you live near?

External drives have other big benefits: they're not constanly making noise and wearing out.

[Erssa]

The PSU could kill both of the drives while you are taking backups, flood, fire, theft, earthquake, vulcano, meteor... could also result in a loss of even the external backup.

Since you're in scandinavia, what if thor decides to smite your house, or that of someone very close in your power grid?

I'm not really afraid of lightning storms, maybe I will find faith when my first component gets electrocuted. (I have been testing Thor for 10 years now. I have a good reason to believe that either he doens't exist, or at least he doesn't hate my computers.)

The chance of of an external drive getting electrocuted is much smaller, especially if you don't do any backing up during storms or periods when brownouts or redouts typically occour. An external backup would also be much safer against, among many things, any drunk people that might collide with your PC.

Very valid points. However you are afraid of lightning storms or spikes, buy an UPS. It's much nicer not to lose any combonents in the first place, that way you can even keep the computer safely on during lightning storms. However, I'll take my chances. I have currently placed my case between 2 tables in such a way, that kicking it wouldn't matter. I have probably one of the most "dangerous" suspensions on this forums. My drive swings, if the case is rocked. However danger is my middle name and I like to live on the edge. ROARRRR! .

Which volcano do you live near?

I believe Hekla (Iceland) is the closest one. Too bad Finland is such a boring country. The most serious natural disaster here would be a christmas without snow...

External drives have other big benefits: they're not constanly making noise and wearing out.

Very true. That's why I consider external backup drive an excellent choise. However I wouldn't waste my money on one, if I had a system cabable of handling hard drive failure. Let's face it. The chances of losing 2 drives from a RAID at a same time is very very unlikely.

[Hifriday]

I'd go for 1 raptor as a system drive, 1 samsung as a data drive, and 1 more samsung in an external enclosure or NAS.

I went through setting up Raid0 and trying to get two HDDs to coexist quietly can be problematic. If the frequency of the two are slightly off, you'll get a very annoying pulsating whine (forgot the term Mike used, harmonic something?). I eventually matched up a pair of samsungs P120s that didn't sing together, and even managed to throw in a third OS drive, but occassionally on a quiet night they still gang up and sing a soft chorus.
Performance gain using raid0 really was not great (as has been suggested by several sites), depending on what you do. Large files transfer times are great, but otherwise I found general apps startup, games loading, virus scans, to be no better and maybe even worse. I think a lot also depends on the hardware, mine was a MSI onboard NF3 raid solution.
Also if you decide to migrate your data and your new system is using a different raid solution, well you won't be able to simply plug in your old data drives.
Instead having two seperate non-raid drives in the system does have some arguably noticable performance benefit, for relocating the paging file, photoshop, and some other video editing apps.
For backup, unless you update your data a lot during the day, having an external HDD/NAS setup to automatically come on at night, backup your system and then shutdown could be a better solution. This will completely remove the noise of the third drive unless you wake easily at night, then of course you can set it for the time of day when you're not using/near the computer.

[Shining Arcanine]

I never said it would not be. I did say that it will not be significantly faster though.

I would like to clarify this. To be clearer, I should have said:

I never said it would not be. I did say that the RAID 5 configuration will not be significantly faster than a single drive at non-sequential reads though.

[bexx]

I think most of this arguement is worthless... theres a entire range of what is possible. Yes an indidual disk might fail and raid1/5 is can protect against this. However raid1/5 doesn't make your data truely secure. Yes 1000 things can happen where your array is destoryed, act of god or act of user hehe. External backups are good but yes what about a fire. Offsite backups are good too but again, what if there were 2 fires at the same time!! In the end your data has some value to you and the amount of protection should be based on its worth... well and really you should take into account the amount of time it takes to recover from a failure.

Just because something can happen doesn't mean it will and just because something hasn't happened doesn't mean it never will.

I think the problem with this thread is the initial post is so vague... I mean the pros and cons are listed from the start.. how is any answer going to match everyone's individual needs? I think the worst is comparing 150GB of storage to 500... really if you need 500GB of storage then no a signle 150GB disk is not going to work, and if 150GB is enough than no 500GB is overkill.

[spolitta]

I think the worst is comparing 150GB of storage to 500... really if you need 500GB of storage then no a signle 150GB disk is not going to work, and if 150GB is enough than no 500GB is overkill.

amen.

[Erssa]

I think the problem with this thread is the initial post is so vague... I mean the pros and cons are listed from the start.. how is any answer going to match everyone's individual needs? I think the worst is comparing 150GB of storage to 500... really if you need 500GB of storage then no a signle 150GB disk is not going to work, and if 150GB is enough than no 500GB is overkill.

The way I see it, it's a bit like comparing a SUV to a sports car. Surely you can ask people, if they prefere SUV to sportscar, even though they are very different cars.

I never looked for a definitive answer to a question with this poll. It's purpose was that of any normal poll. Finding out where people stand and what are their preferences.

How is any answer going to match everyone's individual needs?

It would be pretty much impossible to make a poll that would take in to consideration every possible need of everyone.
In the end of presidential elections there are usually two candidates left in the end, there are probably people thousands of people who think that neither candidate matches their needs. However polls are still conducted and if these people choose to answer to the polls, they pick the lesser evil.

[jasonb885]

Yes, that's generally FRAID. If there are only Windows drivers that's usually a good indication that it's FRAID. Or just Google.

FRAID is not an official term. Even, if you google for FRAID, you won't get any links pointing to any kind of reference or links to RAID with the first 10 pages. (I stopped looking after 10). So it doesn't look to be a part of computer jargon or even a semi-official acronym. So I see no point in using it. Onboard RAID is much more simpler and easier to understand anyway. Did you make the term up?

I'm not suggesting Fake RAID. FRAID is just trick BIOS RAID provided my manufacturers as a marketing gimmick. It's nearly entirely software driver.

But when talking about RAID levels, RAID 5 does _not_ mirror. From a user perspective, you can claim it's sorta kinda like having a mirror of your data, but, it's not in every technical sense of the definition of RAID 5.

I just don't want people walking away with the idea that RAID 5 actually does _mirroring_ of your data. It does not. It does stripping with parity.

Again I have to say, that I never claimed RAID 5 does any mirroring, but later in the same post you quoted, I mention the parity data and parity data calculations. So where do you get the image I am confused about the two? I could say an umbrella has basically the same benefits as a raicoat (protect from rain), and yet, it doesn't mean that I am claiming raincoat is umbrella... If a person knows the difference between parity and mirroring, there is no way he could be misinformed on what I wrote. And if a person has no understanding on what mirroring and parity is, he probably wouldn't be any smarter had I left that explanation/simplification out. I wasn't misleading.

You were. You even admit as such. My point is people not familiar need not become confused. So I offered clarification.

That's right. Don't trust the hardware. You trust your RAID 5/1/1+0 whatever to save you from severe hardware failure? Dude, seriously, backup to an external device or media, too.

Nope. If I have raid-5 there's no need for me to have external drives for extra backups. There's a point where the extra protection comes redundant. For me it comes when I have raid-1, raid-5 or an external backup, I don't need both. The possibility of 2 drives failing at the same time is so small, that I don't consider it a big risk. Even external back up won't save you, if your house burns down. So maybe I should get a extra house with extra computer just in case my house burns down, better put that house to different town or even different county in case of revolution... Having said that, I already have my document and settings folder and some other important folders and files burned to DVD. If I'm gonna have a RAID 5 array some day and more then 1 drives fails on me simultaneously, I swear that 'm gonna look you up to tell you about, just so you can say: "I told you so...", but until then, I'm gonna say it's redundant.

Why would you need to? Where I work we have 1,000s of machines and and catastrophic hardware failures do happen.

Do you think you'd be winning the lottery or something? Hardly.

You see to be completely confusing the concept of redundancy and backup, so for the benefit of others I'll simply elaborate further.

Storage redundancy, as provided for in all RAID levels except RAID 0 (just stripping, no parity or mirroring) protects your running data set from one or multiple mechanical hard disk failures, depending on the RAID level. RAID 1+0, for example, can sustain failures of up to half your disks.

RAID doesn't product again:

* Controller failure
* Controller obsolescence
* Filesystem corruption
* Electrical failure that electrically damages the card or drives
* Accidental file deletion
* Anything that isn't a single physical (or as provided by RAID level) drive failure

That said, some of those items are more applicable than others depending on if you're running true hardware RAID, true software RAID, for fake vendor BIOS driver based RAID. I'd consider the latter most susceptible to all items above.

There is a cost to FRAID. Poorly implemented drivers can lead to data loss. I trust proprietary drivers even less than I trust my hardware. You've just paid for marketing in most cases with FRAID. There is no hardware RAID controller on-board, just some new BIOS options.

Additionally, you lose out on things like portability and recoverability with FRAID, since you can't necessarily put any remaining disk from your RAID 5 array if you lose the mainboard in some other mainboard and expect to be able to read your data. Further, if that mainboard goes away and you can't buy a replacement, how do you read your data now?
Screwed.

First of all, drop the FRAID. Let's use the official and less confusing on-board RAID 5 instead.

Because it isn't on-board RAID anything. It's software based RAID using a vendor driver with basic hardware hooks. It isn't true hardware RAID or software RAID. It's just junk. So, Fake RAID seems appropriate.

Secondly that recoverability is just as big and even a bigger issues with a hardware controller, so why do you point this out like it's only typical for onboard? For example after 5 years, it will most certainly be easier to find an old used motherboard with the same onboard controller, then it would be to find a compatible discontinued hardware controller.

Not if you choose wisely. Pick a hardware vendor that's been around for a while.

I can stick any drives I have on my 3Ware 7810 in RAID 1 in any earlier or later series 3Ware that takes PATA drives and read my data.

That's not necessarily true for mainboard based, fake software RAID, where the chipset may vary from board revision to board revision. You just don't know... and not knowing is in direct conflict with protecting your data.

You cannot just pick your HDs and stick them to a compeletely different controller and expect them to work there. Poorly implemented drivers with hardware controller can lead to data loss just as much in hardware controller then in onboard. There is absolutely no reason to speculate on the "poor implementation" of onboard controllers drivers, until even one concrete shred of empirical evidence of drivers causing data loss is presented. To be considered valid this evidence will have to be repeatable in test environment.

I find that amusing.

And yet you will willfully plug your drives into a fake trick BIOS RAID implementation without any such information?

Or do you have information for the mainboard in question? Feel free to post it here, then, I'd love to see it.

Stick to either software RAID in the OS or true hardware RAID. FRAID is just a gimmick.

Shame on motherboard manufacturers for putting gimmick-data-destroying-onboard RAID 5 to premium motherboards. What a conspiracy!

What, way to make things up.

I realize this is SPCR and people are mostly interested in quiet systems and have little interest in the realities of why things work, but I see now reason for you to wander around with a badge of ignorance on your shoulder while you contribute to burning other people.

Bad show.

In either case, dispelling continued misinformation to the two people that might be reading this thread besides you and myself isn't worth the effort.

[jasonb885]

...
I think the problem with this thread is the initial post is so vague... I mean the pros and cons are listed from the start.. how is any answer going to match everyone's individual needs? I think the worst is comparing 150GB of storage to 500... really if you need 500GB of storage then no a signle 150GB disk is not going to work, and if 150GB is enough than no 500GB is overkill.

I believe the poster already had a solid idea of what solution was going to be implemented.

The purpose of the poll is unknown.

Besides, having a poll with such complicated subject matter behind each option defies a concrete lack of understanding on behalf of the OP.

[Erssa]

raid 5 makes things a lot slower and having a good backup on a drive on another place is still necessary. all imho of course.

Raid-5 indeed makes things a whole lot faster, not slower. It has faster read performance then raid-0 array, however write benefits are only very little due to parity overhead. Basically, It has the benefits of both striping and mirroring. Having a backup is not necessary, if a drive fails raid-5 can still function, and it can rebuild the array when you replace the failed drive

Again I have to say, that I never claimed RAID 5 does any mirroring ... I wasn't misleading.

You were. You even admit as such.

Your claim that in that quote I claim that RAID 5 mirrors. I will now explain the logic, so maybe even you will understand.
Assumptions:
RAID 5 is A
RAID 1 is B
Mirroring is C
Benefits of mirroring = Fault tolerance = D

If B then C
If C then D

I claim:
"Basically, A has the benefits of C, because C => D, therefore A => D"
You claim that when I say "A => D":
"Because A => D, and because C =>D, and because B => C therefore A = B".
Cannot you see the fault in your logic? There is no causality or implication that A does C. Do I need to explain the basics of cause and effect?

I could draw a truth table about this, but it would be pointless since, it seems that you disagree with my opinion and therefore say I am wrong, not because there is fault in the logic I presented.
I think you had problems understanding what you read, so you've drawn wrong conclusions and made up implications that do not exist.

Or do you disagree with the logic I presented?

My point is people not familiar need not become confused. So I offered clarification.

It's a good thing you want to make sure people understand the difference between mirroring and parity.
But based on my comment you assumed and implied*(proof 1) that I didn't know what I was talking about.

No. RAID 5 is stripping with parity only. There is _no_ mirroring component to RAID 5. Perhaps you meant RAID 1+0 or RAID 0+1?

Even when I mention parity overhead in the same verse, which should imply that I know what parity is.
The funny part is, that after tha comment you say.

In either case, RAID 5 is slower than an identical number of drives in a RAID 0 configuration, as stripping on RAID 5 is n-1 for any given stripe, since the parity information is on the 'final' disk. For n disks, RAID 0 is simply n, not n-1 for reads.

This is pretty funny, because it proves you don't know how RAIDs stripe. I will tell you:

Source: http://wiki.ittoolbox.com/index.php/Top ... ,3,4,5,0/1
"Every entire data set of 2 kbytes written (also, the pre-allocated space on the disk in which a set could be written) is called a "stripe". The number of stripes on an array set is basically: useable size of all the disks combined / stripe size."
You were simply wrong. RAID 0 with similar number of drives in RAID 5 are faster only, if the size of the RAID 0 array is bigger then RAID 5. Similar number of similar drives in RAID 0 will result in more stripes, but only because the total size will be bigger. Your calculations for calculation number of stripes is total bs. Besides RAID 5 has no "final" disk, or even "final disk", parity is divided evenly on the disks. RAID 3 however has the final disk. It seems you were the one confusing people, not me.

Having many drives on raid-5 array is also benefitial because, the amount of parity data is counted (n-1/n) where n is the number of hardrives in array. So he uses only total of 300gb from the 2.4Tb for parity information.

Sadly your stripe calculation formula was pretty similar to the formula of parity data I presented, earlier, pointing out that I knew what RAID 5 and parity was.

Can you admit you were wrong?

What you were doing here was pulling my text out of context and bluntly implying that I didn't know what I was talking about, while giving false information of stripe calculations etc... I cannot believe, that you honestly could have misunderstood me so badly. So I draw the conclusion, that you tried to rectify me just so you could feel smug about yourself. I have to admit, I feel pretty smug now.

Where I work we have 1,000s of machines and and catastrophic hardware failures do happen.

Statistically speaking, it would be quite amazing, if you didn't have failures. However when I made this poll, my intentions were, that even home systems with only 1 computer could have a say in this poll. I can say, that in the 12 years I have owned computers, none of the four drives I have owned have failed on me.

Do you think you'd be winning the lottery or something? Hardly.

Isn't that the biggest reason for people playing lottery? I hope, that some day I will win, but of course I am aware of the chances of me winning are extremely small, 8/15380937 every week to be exact.

You see to be completely confusing the concept of redundancy and backup, so for the benefit of others I'll simply elaborate further.

Oh please. You just proved you haven't read what people say in this thread. Tibors brought these up, before you made your first reply.

It seems you already know one reason why your first statement is not true. RAID 5 also doesn't save you from:

* User errors - Oops I deleted the wrong file.
* Bugs in software - Ever seen a complex Word file (lots of OLE) where the second half of the document was automagically turned into gibberish? I have seen that too many times and was glad the company I worked for didn't think RAID 5 was enough.
* Virus infection
* Malicious users
* Your mobo dies and the model is out of production. Say bye to your data or good luck finding one second hand.

You made some pretty good points. But none of these is a big threat to me.

Tibors already brought these up. And I replied to him, pointing that I didn't find those risks big enough to concern me. So when I disagree with you on the number of safety needed, does that make me instantly wrong or unable to understand the difference between the two?

Closest I have said are:

Having a backup is not necessary, if a drive fails raid-5 can still function, and it can rebuild the array when you replace the failed drive.

or

Nope. If I have raid-5 there's no need for me to have external drives for extra backups. There's a point where the extra protection comes redundant. For me it comes when I have raid-1, raid-5 or an external backup, I don't need both. The possibility of 2 drives failing at the same time is so small, that I don't consider it a big risk. Even external back up won't save you, if your house burns down.

The first quote has an important word "necessary". Necessary is a synonym for "absolutely essential" or a "must have". I mearly pointed out, that it's not of the utmost necessity to have external backup, if you have RAID 5, certainly you can have it and must have it, if your data is so valuable, that the loss of it even under the most unlike circumstances is too big of a risk. This doesn't apply to me. Hence I disagree it is necessary.

That said, some of those items are more applicable than others depending on if you're running true hardware RAID, true software RAID, for fake vendor BIOS driver based RAID. I'd consider the latter most susceptible to all items above.

I agree with your reasoning here. However I disagree with the last sentence. I respect your opinion, do the same for me, at least until you can prove me wrong, with some undeniable evidence. I have no trouble admitting, if I am wrong or in the wrong trails. I admitted to Tibors, that I wasn't aware that RAID 5 was mostly driver/software based. However admitting to that does not mean I don't know the princible of how RAID arrays work, it only meant, that I wasn't fully aware how onboard RAID 5 implements the RAID 5.

First of all, drop the FRAID. Let's use the official and less confusing on-board RAID 5 instead.

Because it isn't on-board RAID anything. It's software based RAID using a vendor driver with basic hardware hooks. It isn't true hardware RAID or software RAID. It's just junk. So, Fake RAID seems appropriate.

How do you expect anyone to believe you are impartial, with objective information, when you insist on using such a term. Just think what it would sound, if a defendant was instead called criminal during the trial. Calling it FRAID shows prejudice. I cannot take anything bad you say about onboard seriously, when you show such a prejudice. Without evidence.

You cannot just pick your HDs and stick them to a compeletely different controller and expect them to work there. Poorly implemented drivers with hardware controller can lead to data loss just as much in hardware controller then in onboard. There is absolutely no reason to speculate on the "poor implementation" of onboard controllers drivers, until even one concrete shred of empirical evidence of drivers causing data loss is presented. To be considered valid this evidence will have to be repeatable in test environment.

I find that amusing.
And yet you will willfully plug your drives into a fake trick BIOS RAID implementation without any such information?

Yes. Innocent until proven guilty.

Or do you have information for the mainboard in question? Feel free to post it here, then, I'd love to see it.

Asus A8N-VM CSM. Information about the motherboard can be found on www.asus.com. If I had RAID 5 now, I had no fear of swithching the motherboard to a new one using the same controller.

I realize this is SPCR and people are mostly interested in quiet systems and have little interest in the realities of why things work, but I see now reason for you to wander around with a badge of ignorance on your shoulder while you contribute to burning other people.

Bad show.

I consider onboard RAID 5 just as good as onboard RAID 0 and RAID 1, that so many users have. Again I challenge you to give us (SPCR) the evidence behind the conspiracy of manufacturers, implementing data destroying onboard RAID 5 options to their motherboards.

In either case, dispelling continued misinformation to the two people that might be reading this thread besides you and myself isn't worth the effort.

Yes, it's a hard task, but I don't mind the effort. I dispelled the misinformation you presented about stripes and the misleading information regarding "final drive".

I believe the poster already had a solid idea of what solution was going to be implemented.

The purpose of the poll is unknown.

I never looked for a definitive answer to a question with this poll. It's purpose was that of any normal poll. Finding out where people stand and what are their preferences.

I just wonder how many times I have to repeat or quote myself. Is it reading comprehension, or is the consept too hard?

Besides, having a poll with such complicated subject matter behind each option defies a concrete lack of understanding on behalf of the OP.

Adult people have the right to vote for a president in presidential elections, even though most of the voters have no idea what kind of effects and consequences their choises have. This is the reason why I personally object to the idea of people voting for things such as EU constitution, when most of them have no idea, on what kind of consequences the results will have. However this is just a poll. No matter how much or how little you know, you have the right to your opinion. It seems that you cannot craps this. It is you who's understanding is compromised, if you cannot grasp the purpose of polls in general.

Feel free to respond and prove my points wrong. I like the chances to practice my english skills. Civil debating never harms anyone. Although I understand, if you didn't feel like responding, since it seems hard for you to admit it, when you are wrong.

[TomZ]

(yawns)

I'm not seeing the point of this thread any more.

[bexx]

poop

[scandium]

It provided some first hand experiences with the the 74 & 150 GB Raptors

[Tibors]

This is the reason why I personally object to the idea of people voting for things such as EU constitution, when most of them have no idea, on what kind of consequences the results will have.

I can't agree with you more

Was signed: A frustrated Dutchman.

[jasonb885]

You suck at quoting, so I'm just going to paste stuff because it's easier than wading through a huge post filled with unbroken paragraphs of streaming quote tags.

Your claim that in that quote I claim that RAID 5 mirrors. I will now explain the logic, so maybe even you will understand.
Assumptions:
RAID 5 is A
RAID 1 is B
Mirroring is C
Benefits of mirroring = Fault tolerance = D

If B then C
If C then D

I claim:
"Basically, A has the benefits of C, because C => D, therefore A => D"
You claim that when I say "A => D":
"Because A => D, and because C =>D, and because B => C therefore A = B".
Cannot you see the fault in your logic? There is no causality or implication that A does C. Do I need to explain the basics of cause and effect?

I could draw a truth table about this, but it would be pointless since, it seems that you disagree with my opinion and therefore say I am wrong, not because there is fault in the logic I presented.
I think you had problems understanding what you read, so you've drawn wrong conclusions and made up implications that do not exist.

Or do you disagree with the logic I presented?

That's a lot of hot air and hand waiving.

You said RAID 5 was like RAID 1. It isn't like anything. RAID 5 is exactly what it is. There is no like-anything.

There is no mirroring component to RAID 5. You implied otherwise.

Your statement was false.

This is pretty funny, because it proves you don't know how RAIDs stripe. I will tell you:

Not really. I put 'final' in quotes. Obviously there is no final disk in RAID 5 as there is no dedicated parity disk. Your quest to prove you have some small nugget of knowledge is amusing.

Nevertheless, my point is still correct. When reading from the same number of disks, say four, the RAID 0 array has one more spindle to pull from for any given stripe read whereas the RAID 5 array does not.

How do you expect anyone to believe you are impartial, with objective information, when you insist on using such a term. Just think what it would sound, if a defendant was instead called criminal during the trial. Calling it FRAID shows prejudice. I cannot take anything bad you say about onboard seriously, when you show such a prejudice. Without evidence.

Proceed at your own peril. If you simply dismiss the possibility that vendor specific, software driven proprietary RAID is equal to OS software RAID and/or hardware RAID merely because you don't like me, the poster, you'r doing yourself a disservice. But the choice is yours.

Statistically speaking, it would be quite amazing, if you didn't have failures. However when I made this poll, my intentions were, that even home systems with only 1 computer could have a say in this poll. I can say, that in the 12 years I have owned computers, none of the four drives I have owned have failed on me.

Eh? You'd take a single statistical sample as authoritative?

That's pretty clueless.

This discussion is obviously redundant.

I consider onboard RAID 5 just as good as onboard RAID 0 and RAID 1, that so many users have. Again I challenge you to give us (SPCR) the evidence behind the conspiracy of manufacturers, implementing data destroying onboard RAID 5 options to their motherboards.

Clearly you misinterpret. No conspiracy has been implied.

Yes, it's a hard task, but I don't mind the effort. I dispelled the misinformation you presented about stripes and the misleading information regarding "final drive".

No, what you did is get burned. You make stupid remarks and I corrected you. Now you bask in the warmth of believing you've somehow corrected me.

Dude, you failed. This thread is done.

Anyone paying attention -- I suspect no one at this point -- is aware of the potential drawbacks to using mainboard vendor supplied RAID 5. Since most here are interested in silence _at the expensive of everything else_, it was probably a waste of time to elaborate to any extent on this matter.

I'll leave you to your prison of half truths and incomplete knowledge.

It is you who's understanding is compromised, if you cannot grasp the purpose of polls in general.

That's amusing to no end. You actually thought there was merit in having a poll for what should have simply been a technical question? It seems you value unscientific sampling data.

[Shining Arcanine]

If I was a moderator, I would lock this thread. It appears to have gone horribly off topic around the post that had the lesser evil comments...

[Erssa]

(yawns)

I'm not seeing the point of this thread any more.

Thanks for contributing to it, anyway.

If I was a moderator, I would lock this thread. It appears to have gone horribly off topic around the post that had the lesser evil comments...

I have no need to reply to jasonb885, so there's really no need to be afraid of this turning into flame wars.

[peerke]

jasonb885 wrote: Anyone paying attention -- I suspect no one at this point -- is aware of the potential drawbacks to using mainboard vendor supplied RAID 5. Since most here are interested in silence _at the expensive of everything else_, it was probably a waste of time to elaborate to any extent on this matter.


I was paying attention because I think there is lots to be learned from discussions. I am disappointed it turned this ugly but still would not have liked this thread to have been shut down.
The discussion in itself has been interesting and informative but I think you could have respectfully disagreed with each other instead of turning to name calling.
No one in this world can, and thus should, claim to know everything to a subject as complicated as this and therefore no one should judge someone for his or her possible lack of knowledge.
The reason we are all here is to share knowledge and learn from each other.

[vick1000]

Funny thread....

back on topic, I did not vote considering the large difference in the given configurations. I fail to see the dilema, if you need more than 150 GB then get more, if you need 150 G or less get the Raptor. In addition, if you charish silence, get the Raptor and suspend/enclose it or get a slower and quieter drive.

In my own interest, I would inquire the 150 GB Raptor owners as to the seek level compared to other drives including the 74 GB models.

[bkh]

Hi, Erssa.

Here is a cautionary tale that may be relevant to this discussion.

I thought I was pretty safe when I had a Promise SX-2000 controller in my office PC with a pair of mirrored disks. I could tolerate a disk failure with no impact whatsoever.

But one day a power failure hit during a disk write. It corrupted both disks simultaneously, and I ended up having to do a complete reinstall.
(Fortunately, my important data has always lived on backed-up network servers.)

At home I was using a RAID-5 array (Promise SX-4000 controller) with 4x120G disks for bulk media storage. But after the failure at work I changed strategy. Now I have an external 320GB disk on usb2.0 that I turn on only to take backups, and that is what I depend on to save me the next time there is a major failure.

-B.