Anyone Using a RAID Setup?

[ske]

My $100 USB external hard drive just decided to have a bad block, so I got to thinking about how to do backups more economically. I decided to go with a hard drive docking station. The one I ordered has USB and eSATA connections http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_oh_product
Seeing as eSATA is considerably faster, and my computer didn't have the port for it, I found a card that plugs into my PCI Express x1 slot http://www.cooldrives.com/sapciexracor.html
As it turns out, that card is also a RAID controller. With and internal port multiplier, I could have a RAID 1 setup right in my desktop http://www.addonics.com/products/hos...er/ad5sapm.asp
And still retain the eSATA connection for my backups.
From what I understand, a RAID 1 setup would speed up read times, which seems like a bonus when running FS. And, of course the redundancy gained from two mirrored disks adds some nice security.
Has anyone given the RAID setup a try?

[Paxx]

RAID 1 mirrors your disks. What is on one is on the others. If one goes down the another can step up and you lose no data.

What you are thinking of is a RAID 0 or striped disks which distributes data across several disks in a way that gives improved speed at any given instant. If one disk goes down you will lose all data across both disks. Think of it as two disks acting as one for simplicity's sake.

While striped disks or RAID 0 can improve FSX load times in reality the speed increase is pretty negligible for FSX load times. I used to run striped but I didn't notice much difference (probably because my disks are run of the mill 7200s) so I went back to a regular type setup and use additional disks for system and data backup.

Here is more info on RAID systems and their benefits.

[loki]

Depending a bit on the controller, RAID1 arrays can boost read transfer rates almost as much as a RAID0 array. The problem with FSX and RAID0 arrays is that RAID0 is better at transferring large files, like 100+MBs each, not multiple small files. Part of this has to do with the overhead of the array, and partly because RAID0 arrays don't improve seek times. Also, most people only have software based RAID controllers, not a dedicated hardware controller with its own memory.

For most of us a single faster drive will be better than a RAID0 array. RAID1 is a little better in than your data is more secure, but you lose half of the total capacity of the drives.

RAID1 isn't meant for backing up data. It is designed to limit downtime due to a dead hard drive. If you get a virus, or your computer is hit with a power surge, the data on both drives will still be affected.

[Paxx]

Thanks for clearing that up loki. I remember now why I wasn't impressed with RAID 0, software based control.

[ske]

Depending a bit on the controller, RAID1 arrays can boost read transfer rates almost as much as a RAID0 array. The problem with FSX and RAID0 arrays is that RAID0 is better at transferring large files, like 100+MBs each, not multiple small files. Part of this has to do with the overhead of the array, and partly because RAID0 arrays don't improve seek times. Also, most people only have software based RAID controllers, not a dedicated hardware controller with its own memory.

For most of us a single faster drive will be better than a RAID0 array. RAID1 is a little better in than your data is more secure, but you lose half of the total capacity of the drives.

RAID1 isn't meant for backing up data. It is designed to limit downtime due to a dead hard drive. If you get a virus, or your computer is hit with a power surge, the data on both drives will still be affected.

The card has the chip, so I assume that means it is dedicated hardware controller. After a bad block appeared on the Iomega Prestige 500gb External HD, I got to thinking about what a bad block could mean to my system's HD. Technically, I would only lose one day's work as I do daily backups. And I do keep an Acronis Image of my system at the ready. However, viruses aside, having to repeat hours of AutoCAD & Quickbooks tasks would be pretty painful. I guess I had just put those thoughts out of my mind a long time ago. But once I start thinking about it...yikes.
And the potential read speed increase seems like a nice bonus.

[vgbaron]

Having a dedicated card is only half the battle. If the card doesn't allow for at least a 256k stripe you will get no performance gain from FS. Not worth the effort, in fact it may actually hinder FSX performance.

Vic

[loki]

All RAID controllers have a chip of some kind. With the cheap ones the chip just handles the basic transfers, but still needs the CPU to tell it what to do. Generally any RAID or SATA controller from Silicon Image or Promise falls into this categeory. Proper hardware controllers usually start at around $300 and go up from there, and will have onboard memory or cache. Something like what Adaptec or Areca make (they do have some cheap ones as well that fall into the software RAID category).

[ske]

Having a dedicated card is only half the battle. If the card doesn't allow for at least a 256k stripe you will get no performance gain from FS. Not worth the effort, in fact it may actually hinder FSX performance.

Vic

Stripe size isn't an issue for RAID 1, is it? I'm not sure how I can tell the max stripe size for the card. I'll have to see when I get it.
I thought stripe size was more of a write issue though. Would it affect read speed as well?