Just want too know which setup is faster and better for gaming (FS9). Two 7200 HD running via Raid 0, or one 10000 HD?ThanksBill

I've found that they feel to be performing about the same but in benchmarks my raid drives show better marks, but when it comes down to real world game playing they both feel the same to me.I've got 2 7200 250GB drives setup in Raid 0, and I use to only put my games and their data on those two drives, then I started to put it on my SATA II 10K primary C: Drive and when I load up a game from the C or the D drive and play, it seems the same to me. I've even put the same game on both drives to see if there was any noticible difference in load times or save times and I didn't notice any difference. But perhaps your perception of performance gained might be more finetuned to notice it. But I just don't notice performance gains that are as small as the benchmarks reported they were.The only thing that I do notice is that when I open up windows explorer, by right clicking the start menu, and choosing explore, the first time that I wish to browse my Raid drives there is a noticible lag time (1 to 5 seconds) of time spent where nothing is happening, then BAM, the contents are shown on the drive and it is fine after that until I have stopped using it for a good length of time (30 minutes maybe?) where as the primary C drive shows me the contents of the drive immediately.So in my opinion (and IM sure others will have their own opinions) I'd go with the 10k drives simply so that you don't take the chance of data loss if one of the drives in your raid should fail, because for any possible noticible increased performance (which again I didn't notice any) of running the two drives in RAid 0, I don't feel it's worthwhile when one drive in your raid can make everything unavailable to you if one of those raid drives fail. I hope that makes sence. It was confusing enough to try to write it.

Two 10,000 in RAID 0 :)This is a loaded question as it depends. My experience and benchmarks show that a 2 drive RAID 0 is up to 50% faster than the single drive.Then there is cache. Testing shows that a higher cache drive can outperform a faster RPM drive because you are actually reading/writing from the cache. The RPM difference may not be noticeable at all.The difference between a 7600 and a 10000 can be minimal depending on the size of the data block, the file system in use, the size of the cache, the type of controller you have, etc... The biggest difference will be price and noise.From a regular standpoint, one would logically think that if you write a known block of data on one drive, compared to splitting it into two, and writing the two halves on two drives at the same time, you get a two to one improvement. Not so. Yet, throughput is usually better on data striped drives, provided that the overhead isn't too large.Some folks don't like RAID 0 because a failure on either device causes the entire volume to fail.I've accepted the risk and I semi-trust my backups. RAID 0 should be faster than a single drive, and has advantages such as capacity on a single volume. I'd get 2 7600 drives in RAID 0 over a single 10K drive, provided that I have a good backup system (I use a WD "mybook") external HDD for this.Hope this helps,Etienne

Yes, i have an external hard drive for back up too. Not too worried if a drive goes out. Now I have another issue since my PC wont boot to nothing..not even to the Post., looks like more headaches.Bill

To be a voice of dissent...I've used both RAID0 7200's and straight-up 10,000's, and I've found that for Flight Simulator use, the 10,00 RPM was better. The simulator, flights, and scenery all tended to load faster. (Obviously there is no FPS improvements)The reasoning behind this is that MSFS depends far more on the seek times of your drives, rather than raw throughput. MSFS uses thousands upon thousands of little files (BGL scenery, BMP textures, etc)... any system will have NO trouble loading that little file into memory once it finds it... the problem is finding it! RAID0 will give you *fantastic* throughput, ideal for working with large files. However, that comes at the expense of seek times. Aligning two drive read/write heads to gather information physically takes longer than aligning ONE drive heads. A single, high-RPM drive will give you better seeks, but will lag behind a RAID0 when it comes to throughput. For MSFS-focused systems, a single 10,000 RPM drive is ideal. Nice, fast seeks to the thousands of BGLs. A 10,000 drive will find and load all the files it needs before the RAID0 can. The difference wasn't *HUGE* for me, but it was observable... even after structured defrag runs. For *OTHER* computer uses, I've noticed that the RAID0 was better for some functions. I've done some video editing and I work with large format images for editing, and the RAID setup was superior for loading and saving the multimedia files. Again, not huge, but noticable. Same goes for other games like Company of Heroes - that game uses only a handful of very large files to store game data.. the RAID0 handled that better than the 10,000 does. My recommendation, take it for what it's worth:* MSFS Focused? Go 10,000.* Split Use? Either - your choice!* Minimal MSFS and more Multimedia production? Go RAID0.Enjoy! The differences aren't too significant, so don't sweat it. But I did want to share my observations as they relate to MSFS!-Greg

I am running a non-raid 10000 rpm drive as my FS drive.I did that for a number of reasons, and I researched it a long time before deciding to do it this way. Greg gives a lot of the reasons, above.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

As above, a single fast non-raid setup works best for FSX because of the seek times incurred by the constant disk access of scenery loading.

How about two 7200s in raid 0 + 1. These will cost about $150 for (2x250=) 500Mbs or raptor-down for $150 (1x150=) 150MB? Ahh, but its a raid 0, you say. No protection. Technology marches on.Intel's Matrix Storage manager lets you setup 2 drives in a raid 0 + 1 configuration. You get the performance of a raid 0 plus the protection of raid 1. I have 3 of the new Seagate .11 250s in raid 0. Individually, these new gen HDs are getting 100MB/sec transfer rates and < .7ms access times. The raid 0 was a linear scale. I'm getting ~ 280-300MBs Sustained xfer. Good defragging gets < .6ms access times. No more heading to the frig during a Megascenery load. Gotta be ready to go. The darn things threw off my whole FS rhythm. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148262If you want this performance with the 250, its gotta be this P/N. The best of both worlds is now available.

What about 2 of this ??? http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3167or wait for the 64gb version.Henrik

>What about 2 of this ??? >>http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3167>>or wait for the 64gb version.>>>Henrik:) Only if I have a grand to burn for 32gb. :)RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

>>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148262>If you want this performance with the 250, its gotta be this>P/N. >The best of both worlds is now available. Yep, thats the same HD I picked up based on the 'egg reviews and the final nail was Sam's opinion a few months back. Great HD solo.Sam, what are the biggest diffrences if I would Raid them pertaining to FSX, load times or a few frames too? I might pick up another but am not too concerned about load times. I don't do anything like Megascenery......yet. Regards, Kendall#1: [email protected]/Coolermaster HyperTX2 Gigabyte P35-DS3L 4GB Crucial Ballistix Tracers PC6400 Seagate 250GB 7200.10 SATA2 Gigabyte X800XT -Cat 6.12's CH Yoke/Pedals/Saitek Throttle Dual Monitor: Dell 2405/1905 #2: Dell 8400 3.2 H.T. 3GB PC4200 Diamond Xtreme/Logitech X-530's

You'll get better load times with the raid, but a single is plenty to feed the beast once it gets running.

>>>You'll get better load times with the raid, but a single is plenty to feed the beast once it gets running.Not for scenery loading.

Have you checked the specs of these new Seagate .11s? We've come a long way, baby. The day of the Raptor is OvEr . . . that is for those that don't already own one.

Sorry, meant better scenery loading times with a single fast drive over a RAID0 array because of the seek times caused by the continual loading of many small files.