Need some help understanding Raid setups

[Buffalo Six]

I am looking at gettign a new PC (gee, I bet you have heard that before) and I am looking at a Falcon NW MachV system.

There is an option for a Raid controller with 4 SSD's.

Problem is I am not real clear on what a Raid controller (or Raids for that matter) does or is good for

I am liking the SSD's as my primary with dual 1TB drives for my secondary storage. I should not run out of disk space any time soon (unlike my current situation, where I am out of space).

So I need some advise on this Raid stuff.

Any help out there?

This is the current configuration:

Power Supply 1200 Watt Modular
Motherboard Rampage III Extreme
Processor Core i7 Extreme 990X 3.46GHz
Processor Cooler Mach V Liquid Cooling
Processor Overclock No Processor Overclock
Memory 24GB (6x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3
Video Card GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)
Video Card 2 GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)
Video Card 3 GeForce GTX-580 (1536MB)
Monitor 3x 24" 1920x1200
Sound Card X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Pro
Networking On-Board Ethernet
Keyboard Logitech G-19
Hard Drive 512GB - SSD - 6Gb/s
Hard Drive 2 2TB - 7200RPM - 6Gb/s
Optical Drive 24x DVD Writer
Optical Drive 2 12x BluRay Writer
Media Reader Internal Media Reader
64-Bit Operating System Windows 7 Ultimate

[Hammer]

Geez Buff - got some spare cash laying around, eh?

do you even need the 2TB drives for additional space?

RAID explained:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

is 512GB or 1TB not enough? you can take the 4 SSD's and do a raid 10, they will be striped and mirrored then. they will be screaming fast and you will have 1TB of usable space. the nly issue is if one fails, you want to have another to replace it right away, because you will be at risk of losing data if the next drive fails and it happens to be the wrong one.

But if you are going to actually use the 2TB drives for something, then just get 2 SSDs and mirror them. you do not need a raid controller to do that - you can do that in your operating system or with your mainboard - i cannot imagine it does not support raid 1.

3 video cards? really?

[Hudson]

RAID 0 is just striping. No redundancy. If you lose a disk you lose all your data. Faster, but riskier. If you do this make sure you have good backups frequently. 2 disk minimum. If you had two 1TB disks you'd end up wth 2TB usable space.

RAID 1 is mirroring. Both disks are a mirror image of each other. If one disk dies, then in theory the other is still good. It usually works, but I have seen death occur on occasion despite this. 2 disk minimum. If you had two 1TB disks you'd end up wth 1TB usable space.

RAID 10 is a combination of the two above; increased performance and space with mirroring for redundancy to save the day if a disk dies. 4 disk minimum.

RAID 2/3/4; don't worry about these; I don't think I have ever seen a controller that even implements them and they're inferior to 5 and 6 anyway.

RAID 5 uses a portion of each disk for parity information. Requires 3 disks minimum, and you effectively lose one disk in space, though that parity information is split across all disks. If you have 3 1TB drives, you'll end up with 2TB usable space. I believe you end up with slightly slower write times, but faster reads; I honestly forget how seek times are affected, but either way for a desktop system its probably not terribly noticeable if you get a reasonable controller. The upshot of RAID 5 is that if you lose a disk you can continue to run with the degraded array until you replace the disk.

RAID 6 came along because it is increasingly likely with larger disks that you will encounter a second error when recovering an array if a disk goes bad. If this happens with RAID 5 you're doomed. With RAID 6 though you need a minimum of 4 disks and can run degraded with up to two failed disks. If you had 4 1TB disks you'd end up with 2TB usable space.

[Buffalo Six]

Thanks guys. Looks like I will prolly not go for a Raid or a Raid controller as it looks its more of a headache than its worth.

and yeah, that system is a bit overkill, and yes I have some cash to do it right and not have to do anything PC wise for a few years. My current system is doing a lot of BSoD and other failings of late, so its time.

I'm going to tone it down some. I actually only wanted 1TB drive

I also want to run a 3 screen setup and I believe I need at least 2 cards to do that (I run 2 monitors now using 2 cards (depending on the game I run SLI on 1 monitor or non-SLI on 2, with one being the desktop so I can have TS or other stuff running and not have to alt tab out of the game) plus I am an old school gear head and more HP is better, but I think 2 cards will work for me.

Of course all of this takes a bit of a back seat to the new Deck/Garage/Landscaping/Much Needed 6 ft. tall Privacy fence project I am starting in the back yard next week. I almost fell over at the price of composite deck materials.....about $6500 more than treated lumber......yikes!

[Softball]

My current gaming Rig uses RAID 5 for my data drive(s). I have a single 500G HD for the system drive (I have a 2nd 500G HD that I Image to manually; I didn't want to run mirroring due to a past issue with the RAID 1 on this system) and (3) 1 TB drives in a RAID5 setup (1.8 TB Usable space). I have been installing games for 1 1/2 years on this setup and I still have over 1TB of free space on the RAID5 drives. I have not noticed any performance degradation while running RAID5, so I'd say it's pretty solid.

Nice setup BTW Buff.

[Hammer]

"not have to do anything PC wise for a few years"

Buff that is funny. you heard of Moore's law?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

that thing will be tier 2 in 6-12 months.

[Buffalo Six]

yes I have heard of Moore's law. But at least 2 years down the road I'm not hand cuffed like I am now expandability wise.

[Tach Deneva]

So I need some advise on this Raid stuff.

Any help out there?

Odd groups go to left, even groups go to right. That means 1, 3, 5, 7 left. 2, 4, 6, 8, right. 7 and 8 are whelp groups. Okay, listen the <bleep!> up. You're going to DPS very, very slowly. Now. And by slowly I mean <bleeping!> slow. If you get aggro it means you are going to lose 50 DPK because you didn't know what the <bleep!> to do. And watch the <bleeping!> tail. If you get kicked into the whelps you lose 50 DKP again for not being where the <bleep!> you were supposed to be.

There is no aggro reset. You only need - there's some <bleep!> about an aggro reset when people don't know how to manage their aggro. After two Sunders you can basically start doing damage to it. Assuming you know how aggro works and you don't over-aggro.

Okay, nuke it, dot it. Help the whelp groups. When it's in phase 2, nuke it as hard as possible. You want to get it down as fast as possible. Have dots up on every time, 2 rows, Shadow Word: Pain, Warlock curses, Rends, everything. I don't see enough dots, more dots now. Come on more DPS. Hit it like you mean it. You'll have time to rest in phase 3 while I'm getting the aggro. Remember, save all your aggro reducing abilities for when it lands. That means Feign Death, Vanish, <bleeping!> Fade, anything you can use to reset aggro.

At 40% you will stop dots, until then you will throw more dots. Throw more dots, more dots, more dots. Come on, more dots. Okay, stop dots. Now hit it very hard and very fast. Lee, run to the center! Mulgras, run to the center! Forsyte, run to the center! Nurf, run to the center! Isis, run to the center! Whatever the <bleep!> you do, do not stand next to other people. Mulgras, center. Just heal me. Lee, do not... Go away from the head, Lee. Go away. Okay, DPS, slowly. Come here you <bleeping bleep!>. Watch the tail!

Whelps!

Crushim was feared into -

Who the <bleep!> was that? Crushim, what the <bleep!>? Whelps, left side! Even side! Many whelps! Now, handle it! <Bleep!>! That's a <bleeping!> 50 DKP minus! What the <bleep!> was that <bleep!>? If you stand in the right <bleeping!> place, there is no way you are going to <bleeping> get into the <bleep bleep!> whelps, whatever <bleeping!> Fear, tailswipe, whatever the <bleep!>, OKAY? It's like one in a <bleeping!> million. From the <bleeping!> north corner to the middle into the <bleeping!> whelp cave, IT'S NOT EVEN <bleeping!> REMOTELY IMAGINABLE!