PS scratch disk - two Raptors or one ?

[singularity2006]

definitely 2 using RAID since u would be able to "double" your bandwidth... but that's expensive. But if u have the resources, RAID is where u get the largest performance gain.

[rawshark]

...or perhaps NOT (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=11)

[parallax]

using 2 raptors in RAID-0 is pure madness, unless you've got solid gold pouring out of your ears, then by all means go for it.

You might as well skip HD's entirely, and go solid state.

[parallax]

Wich would be stupid, cause SOLID gold doesn't pour.

ps/ That anandtech article is a joke, and does not reflect our industry need.

[Drevious]

Hmm, quite interesting replays. So, you suggests for ps scratch disk to go just for SATA II pluged to RAID or IDE, lets say 2x160 GB disks... ?

Just building the workstation and I am primarlly ps and painter user, huge images/artworks...

[catamount]

yes, a RAID would be good for something like Battlefield 2. hard drive is always the slowest thing in my system. i think you'll need SATA drives, do any boards support RAID with SATAII?

[lots]

The Nforce4 does.

Here's the thing. These scratch disks are used when you run out of space in your RAM. So, I think the best idea would be to increase your ram size. How much memory do you have? I'd go with at least 1 GB minimum. 2GB would be perferable. And depending on your OS and hardware setup, you could get more than 4.

Don't get me wrong though. RAID scratch disks WILL help once you've used up all your RAM. But the point here is to have enough RAM that you do not need too much scratch disk usage. I'd recommend getting at least a separate hard drive (SATA I or II) for your scratch disk space (this is fairly cheap). Then add as much ram as you can.

Anand is right in the claim that RAID 0 does not help your average desktop user. But, look at the benchmarks for the DCC apps, they lead one to think that there isnt much gain for the money envolved. Of cource RAID 0 definately helps alot with video editing (though it doesnt show on these graphs..). I think we need a break down of this particular test to see how each individual app behaves with the RAID array vs non-RAID systems.

It's really too bad there's not a hardware review site dedicated to our usage :)

[Drevious]

If you get 4GB ram, PS only uses little above 3GB. On Adobe forum its a lot about this. And believe me, its to small for me.
I will probably put 2x160 GB SATAII on nforce pluged to raid, and aditional 160 for stuff.
What do you think about choice like this ?

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