Top hard drive/ram for gaming?

newguy5

newguy5

New Member
[-0MEGA-];845376 said:
That screenshot was taking after I just installed Windows and some games. I have about 205GB used now, although I'm going to import my media collection to my computer so that will take up most of the space.

I rarely partition my drives. I used to have one partition for the OS, one for games/apps, and another for documents. I found it was a pain to manually change all the install directories and when I did need to reformat, I had to reinstall all the programs again anyways.

If/when I need to reformat, the RAID array stays in tact, but just like a single drive everything is gone. Thats why for the mean time the 500GB external drive I have is more then enough for a backup.
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that makes sense. i would also do that, but i have some movies/videos/mp3s that i don't want to lose. i should probably just get a backup HD and my problem would be solved and that way if i needed to reinstall windows i wouldn't mind erasing everything.
 
mep916

mep916

Administrator
Staff member
Yes, sorry, I was "confused." After resizing my array, I have 279 GB of storage available. The "Windows Vista" drive is the RAID 0 array.

diskdrives1.jpg
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
mep916 said:
No sir, I'm not confused. Technically, you have two drives for a total of 279 GB. However, since the two drives are combined as one, you only have 139 GB of storage available, not 137 as I incorrectly mentioned in my previous post. If I'm wrong, Omega will correct me. He's running a RAID 0 array as well.

diskdrives.jpg
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Raid 0 adds up all the drives into one big drive, so if you have 2 150 gb drives then you have 1 300gb drive total. Raid 1 takes the smallest drive (unless both are the same) and mirrors it on the second drive in cast of drive failure. So in raid 1, if you have 2 150 gb drives then you have 1 150 gb drive total, not 300gb.
 
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SirKenin

banned
RAID 0 is a well known, well documented myth. The reality is that the real world performance for desktop use sees no viable gains and you cut your MTBF in half (mean time between failures).

In other words, not only is RAID 0 *not* a real RAID array by definition, the only increase in performance you'll "see" is in your head. Better to use them the way you originally intended.
 
mep916

mep916

Administrator
Staff member
johnb35 said:
Raid 0 adds up all the drives into one big drive, so if you have 2 150 gb drives then you have 1 300gb drive total. Raid 1 takes the smallest drive (unless both are the same) and mirrors it on the second drive in cast of drive failure. So in raid 1, if you have 2 150 gb drives then you have 1 150 gb drive total, not 300gb.
Click to expand...

Right, I understand the mirroring aspect with RAID 1. For some reason, I did not properly allocate the full storage capacity when I installed Windows. That's what led me to believe you do not recieve the capacity of both drives. Thanks for clearing that up. :)
 
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mkjaekmi

New Member
raid 1 just means more then 1 hard drive put together without raid 0 configuration, correct?

So raid 0 configuration combines gb, and keeps higher rpm basically, correct? If so, is that all? How does it make it Faster if the rpm is still 10,000?

However if it's NOT in raid 0 configuration, it keeps the higher gb for main hard drive (in this case a 150) and higher rpm (in this case also 10,000) correct? So the other 150 gb will be for backup, so technically raid 0 doesn't do anything does it? It just combines to make it into 1, which really doesn't matter correct?

Sorry if it's a stupid question


Thank you
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
mkjaekmi said:
raid 1 just means more then 1 hard drive put together without raid 0 configuration, correct?

So raid 0 configuration combines gb, and keeps higher rpm basically, correct? If so, is that all? How does it make it Faster if the rpm is still 10,000?

However if it's NOT in raid 0 configuration, it keeps the higher gb for main hard drive (in this case a 150) and higher rpm (in this case also 10,000) correct? So the other 150 gb will be for backup, so technically raid 0 doesn't do anything does it? It just combines to make it into 1, which really doesn't matter correct?

Sorry if it's a stupid question


Thank you
Click to expand...

Raid 0 combines 2 drives into one and supposedly makes reading and writing faster. Raid 1 combines 2 drives into 1 drive of the smallest drive in the pair but provides for backup in case of drive failure, Raid 0 does not... Just do a google search on the difference between the different type of raid configurations you can have. Like the one seen here....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
 
M

mkjaekmi

New Member
ah icic. So what happens if I don't do raid 0 or any raid at all? adds gb, and picks the lower rpm correct? So in this it wouldn't matter with any raid, correct?
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
You will still get faster access with 10 k rpm drives. If you don't run raid then if you have more than 1 drive they will act as independent drives. You can still use one to back up data from the other drive.
 
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mkjaekmi

New Member
ThatGuy16

ThatGuy16

VIP Member
You can start a computer with only a motherboard, cpu, heatsink :)P), video card, and PSU. But you got to have a video card... well it will start but wont show anything on the screen obviously


I would recommend something like Corsair XMS2 series (DDR2 800) or G. Skill for that price range. And yes, lower latency is better though you wouldn't really notice a difference.
 
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mkjaekmi

New Member
What happens if I don't have a hdd? And If I have no video card, then nothing at all will show? just a black screen?

What's the main difference between 2 and 4 gb's?


Also what's a nice/top ocz ram I can get? I would really like a OCZ more then anything, and fast very fast (4cl or 3cl). 2gb or 4gb. You choose on that part.

Thank you
 
S

SirKenin

banned
You know, I've played around with this stuff for hours and hours and hours.. And what I found is that lower latencies did very little for actual performance. Yes, in benchmarks you could see small gains, but once in the real world it was hardly noticeable, if at all. You couldn't "see" the difference. In your head you knew they were faster, but your eyes couldn't tell.

My end conclusion was that for the extra money it might not be worth it, unless you're one of those idiots at Mad Onion whose only game is 3Dmark.. But someone should take their computers away and put them in time out until they snap out of it.. haha

As for OCZ, I like OCZ. I'm an OCZ vendor.. But I've noticed that they're tricky. You have to do your research, as some of their modules don't play well with some boards. OCZ is very finnicky. As nice as it is, it's a hassle. Very nice RAM, but in practical terms probably you could do better with Corsair or something.
 
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mkjaekmi

New Member
What happens if I don't have a hdd? And If I have no video card, then nothing at all will show? just a black screen?
 
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