RAID Question

[General J]

So, I have my new laptop with 2X250 gig 5400 RPM HD's. They are currently set with 4 partitions. One is Vista 64-bit, and the other are data from what I have seen. Asus ships with a program called "express gate" which allows you to do web browsing, music, some online games, photos, chat, and skype calls without launching the OS. It's neat, and nice not waiting for windows just to look up directions on google maps.

 

But, the BIOS supports a RAID 0 setup. I know nothing about RAID setups at this point other than they are supposed to be faster (?). Can someone shed some light on why the RAID setups are better? How much of a benefit would I get out of it? How hard is it to do? And is it worth the hassle of setting it up and reformatting? I would lose the ability to use express gate, which seems some what handy. But if performance would be greatly enhanced, then I would probably give it a shot.

[Cujo]

you will get faster performance with the higher risk of data loss. with your laptop i'd probably either use raid 1 or just keep them as two separate drives. one for windows and games and one for data. i wouldn't recommend raid 0.

 

express gate sounds cool. my new motherboard supports it i think but i haven't even played around with it at all. i should though.

[dragonfly]

I have yet to try the express gate too, cujo. Maybe later this week. I'd be interested to see how it runs. I wouldnt sacrifice it for raid0 though.

[shoot]

I agree with Cujo... If one of the drives fail, it's like losing 1/2 of a full disk and you'll lose all data. RAID 0 is "striping" where data is written on 2 or more hard drives sequentially(or manufacturer specific algorithm). The computer sees the two drives as one as the RAID controller does the translating. As the data is written on 2 different drives, it improves I/O speed. On a notebook, I think the speed improvement is marginal. In my opinion, you have more to lose on functionality than the benefit of faster drive performance.

 

Another thing to keep in mind when using RAID... If you change the BIOS setting and somehow mess up the boot/disk-type setting, and your computer will be un-bootable. You have to change back to the "original" RAID setting or it will look like your drive went belly up. No need to panic, you just need time to figure out the correct setting that you did months or even years ago (personal experience). What's confusing about RAID settings, is that most mother boards(desktop) come with multiple RAID controller, so if you forget which one you used, you have to do some re-learning. DO NOT PRESS "RESET BIOS SETTINGS".

[dwEEziL]

Another thing to check is if this RAID is hardware supported in the mobo or merely emulated by the BIOS (seen some weird "hack-type" setups before). If it's emulated (read as: software-based) then the speed you gain with RAID 0, which to be honest, for your setup and 5400k hdd's, won't be much, will be completely negated by the overhead needed to run the emulated (software) RAID.