Raid 0 a power Mac G5

Yes of course, if the user spends a lot of money on a specialist RAID set up then I would expect to see a considerable leap in performance (those figures are extremely impressive by the way).

But, based on the original post, I think it is safe to assume that we are discussing the two internal drive bays in the G5, and I don't think you'll see any 'real world' benefits.

My advice to most people considering internal RAID 0 is either save your money, or put the money toward the next machine 'up' the range - you'll get a greater return on your investment!

Cheers,

Cam.

Like I said, it depends on what you are doing on your system and how much drives you are using.

Speed gain:
Photoshop scratch
Server web or file services
Video editing (if you need throughput over 200MB/s)
Large Databases

BTW DigiDesign sez you should not use a software RAID.

NO or little Speed gain:
Doing layouts (mainly text based like manuals)
Office apps
Surfing the web
3D Rendering

If you setup an internal software RAID0 for system or data then backup your stuff daily!

Also take a look here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundantarray_of_independentdisks
and learn about RAID levels before if you are not sure.

Regards

Nicolas

hi, i have G5 dual with 5 internal drives. i used disk utility to make raid 0 of the 4 identical disks connected via the scsi bus. the other drive is my original drive with my OS on it. i cloned this original drive to the raid 0 drive but cannot make the raid 0 bootable. In system preferences I can choose it s a startup drive but when I boot it is still started up on the original drive.
I would love to be able to boot from the raid 0 (which I can backup to my external lacie biggest so I don't mind that it is raid 0 with no rendundancy)
Love esther

FYI...
I have a June 2004 2x 2.5GHz PM G5. I have installed the SwiftData200 SATA mechanism and placed 3x 400gig HD in the supplied brackets. I've striped across these 400gig HDs as RAID-0 and performance is very impressive at . I use a 74gig 10K RPM Raptor as my boot device in lower Slot A. I have a 250gig Maxtor in upper Slot B.

BarryXSharp-
I also have a June 2004 2 x 2.5GHz PMG5. I am also running a Raptor 74GB as a boot drive. I currently have 2 WD400YR Western Dig drives, the Siig sc-satm12 SATA PCI card and am going to order the G5 Jive. I am seriously debating on running those 2 400GB drives at RAID 0 and was just wondering how secure you feel with your 3 x 400GB stripe? I would figure that since it's not the boot drive then the risk of a drive failure and data-loss would still be minimal.
(160GB Seagate under the Raptor BTW)

Hi Brent;

Whenever you use a Raid 0 array the chances for a failure of the array is increased because if a single drive in the array fails you lose the complete array. For this reason, a backup plan for the data on the array is even more important that when you are using JABOD.

I have a pair of ATA disks in my MDD PM G4 configured as Raid 0 and the performance is worth the effort. Whenever I finish working on the Raid array, I always backup the data to an external Firewire drive.

Allan

I understand all that, thanks. I realize the risk but I don't use ny '2nd hdd's' that often and never as a boot drive. I see my risk being minimal with only 2 drives and the drives I would use are network ready as opposed to just some random 2 drives net'ed together.
I kind of see the risk of a RAID 0 failure more prominent in a network setup where RAID disks are usually used intensively and constantly. IE if you're running a dedicated server with 8 drives striped together in RAID 0. The reason I say this is because I wouldn't be able to completely backup an 800GB RAID every day and I wouldn't use the setup for anything more than mass storage. I mean, would it be more practical for me to just use each 400GBdrive independantly? Or, in your opinion should I just stripe them?

(2 x WD400YR RE2 Drives)

Hi Brent;

From your description of the way you would be using the disks, I don't see any requirement for increased performance so I would recommend that you use them independently rather using them as Raid. In this way it would allow you to duplicate any critical data on both drives to you an increased degree of reliability.

In my case, I have a couple of fairly intensive applications which were running very slowly on my MDD PM G4. It was either go with Raid or upgrade to a G5. Since I could upgrade to Raid with minimal cost, I decided to give it a try. The increase in performance has allowed me to put off my upgrade to the G5 until now. I now have a Quad on order. It is scheduled for delivery after the holidays.

Allan

So basically, with RAID 0, it's not a matter of IF one of them fails it's a matter of WHEN, right? Everything I read gives RAID 0 nothing but pessimistic reviews and makes the setup sound like a doomsday device for anything you store on it. I mean are you expecting your RAID stripe to fail at any time?

Huh! NS, well, that's that then. Thanks. I'll just install the G5 Jive with the dual 400GB drives and partition each one to a single max partition. Once I get the Siig card I won't have to worry about the fallibility of the stock onboard SATA controller.

I've been doing RAID 0 setups for nearly ten years. I've done 9 setups in total. Only one has ever failed, and it was a hardware RAID 0. I have had more failures in single hard drives than I have had in RAID 0 sets (seven single disk failures in the past ten years). I'm not saying RAID 0 is more reliable, but I will say in my experience it has been that way. I don't think people should be so pessimistic with RAID setups. All disks will eventually fail, RAID or not.

Which means that either way, you should have a backup device. If you're going to RAID your system disk, get a backup device. If you're not going to, get a backup device. Anything critical to you should be backed up. Period.

But I like RAIDs. I use them all the time.

Sure. Check out Disk Utility's RAID tab.

As long as it is not your boot/Startup drive sure.

Regards

Nicolas

You are using 10.4, and a RAID0 made with DU (Software RAID0) right?
Or are you using a SCSI or SATA hardware RAID?

10.3 aka Panther can not boot from RAID0.

Regards

Nicolas

with the right card for sure.

NetCell cards

AFAIK the Sonnet 4+4 has this feature too.

Regards

Nicolas