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I've seen that many people use in their DAW the Asus MB. And i've seen too, people asking for advice to build a new DAW, and saing that they have bought HDD WD 80 GB ATA 133. So i've check Asus site and i find that only the PC800 Delux with the Intel 875P have support for ATA 133 in "RAID mode". I would like to someone could tell me what RAID is and should i buy 2 HDD 7200 8MB ATA100 and connect in the 2 IDE, or buy 2 ATA133 and connect them in RAID (that i suppose that they are connected in the some cable) and waht's this for. In terms of audio (rec/mix) do i get more performance out of my PC?
Am i wrong in something here?
So, as i don't understand what's RAID for, i was thinking (as an alternative to my laptop setup), buying a rack case with an asus MB, and get on WD 40GB 7200 8MB ATA100 in the 1st IDE for OS, and having a Maxtor 5000DV 160MB 7200 8MB ATA100 FireWire/USB 2.8 Combo for data and storage. Is this a stupid idea?

Comments

anonymous Wed, 07/30/2003 - 17:34

I will give you 2 links to read, and answer the question very briefly:

1st link,

http://www.storagereview.com/php/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0&PHPSESSID=8858cc0fdd592cc938cccf3b3e7e33a6

Storage Review Benchmarks and Drive Comparison

2nd link, [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.storager…"]Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks from the PC Guide and on Storage Review[/]="http://www.storager…"]Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks from the PC Guide and on Storage Review[/]

RAID serves a few purposes (and this isn't all of them: Speed (configured right), saftey and capacity.

I think people try to use RAID 0 sometimes out of mis information? RAID 0 splits data across disks and in theory, makes data access faster and creates double storage. So if you have two 60GB disks, capacity doubles to 120.
Benchmarks on the referanced site show there isn't much speed increase in data access from that and a good single drive. But because of geometry, data can stream faster if on the first part of the disk, typically the first 40% of capacity. Read the links.

RAID 0 decreases security of the data. If 1 drive goes, so goes your data. Some argue RAID 0 is not a RAID at all because the data is not "redundant". There are different levels of RAID, again, read link 2.

The RAID controller however on the MB can offer the advantage of increasing your available channels to attach devices and free up precious IRQ, plus allow a bit faster access to the disks attached to it. You do not have to use that port for RAID but it offers flexibility.

For most people it seems to me with the newer drives and MBs, RAID is unwarranted. Your idea of 1 for programs and the other for data is typical. I myself wouldn't go USB because I think its a resource hog and things attached internally seem to perform much better.

anonymous Thu, 07/31/2003 - 04:56

Opus
Thanks for responding my post.

I have a laptop P4 2.4 352MB Ram 20GB HDD.
I would like to record with Cubase 8 Mic's and 2 Lines at the some time. Will it handle it?
If not, is it because of is HDD 4200 RPM?
Is it stupid to put via firewire the Maxtor 5000DV 160MB 7200 8MB ATA100 to do the job, or the internal HDD set's the rules?

Thanks again

anonymous Sat, 08/02/2003 - 22:15

IDE RAID is problematic. RAID done with SCSI controllers is the ticket, but very pricey. Depending on the RAID configuration, you will get increased Read or Write performance.

IMO, it is a non-issue if you have a current board and modern processor. A 7200 rpm drive with 8mb buffer will deliver a whole lot of getup and go.