8250 vs. 8300 and RAID

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4 total messages Started by Marcos M. Zattar Tue, 15 Apr 2003 21:54

#103

Author: Marcos M. Zattar
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 21:54

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Hello!

I am planning to buy a desktop from DELL and until yesterday I didn't
have any doubt, I was up to the Dimension 8250. But then Dell launched
a new model here in Germany, the 8300. It claims to be faster because
it has the chipset 875P and 533/800 Mhz PSB. Besides, the RDRAM was
replaced by the DDR. To make the choice more complicated, the 8300 is
offered here in Germany with a regular hard-disk or optionally with a
RAID couple instead (stripe or mirror, you choose). So here my
questions:

- How much is the increase in performance with the new chipset and RAM
type? Is it worth spending those extra bucks for the newer version?
- What are the advantages of a Serial-ATA harddisk compared to a
regular EIDE harddisk?
- It is said that RAID 1 (mirror) is safer regarding a possible disk
failure and RAID 0 (stripe) is faster. How safer is RAID 1 and how
faster is RAID 0? Is there really a considerable chance that in a RAID
0 system one of the disks fails, breaks or has a malfunction? In this
case, is it true that you lose all your data?

I would appreciate any comments that would help me decide which one to
get.

Bye!
Marcos

Re: 8250 vs. 8300 and RAID

#104

Author: Eddie Aftandilian
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 16:20

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In alt.sys.pc-clone.dell Marcos M. Zattar <zattar@t-online.de> wrote:
> - It is said that RAID 1 (mirror) is safer regarding a possible disk
> failure and RAID 0 (stripe) is faster. How safer is RAID 1 and how
> faster is RAID 0? Is there really a considerable chance that in a RAID
> 0 system one of the disks fails, breaks or has a malfunction? In this
> case, is it true that you lose all your data?

In RAID 0, if one of the drives fails, you will lose ALL your data.
So RAID 0 doubles your chances of data loss.  In RAID 1, both of 
your drives would have to fail for you to lose your data, so you 
are halving your chances of data loss.

I would not use RAID 0 on my own system.  I've seen too many hard
drive failures to trust it.

Re: 8250 vs. 8300 and RAID

#105

Author: Marcos M. Zattar
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 18:31

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Thanks for the comment.
I've been using a SCSI system for almost 5 years and never had a
problem. Are IDE disks more prone to fail?
It is a temptation the idea of having a RAID 0, since the system gets
considerably faster. I thought of connecting a third disk, big enough
for a complete backup once a week. What do you think?

Re: 8250 vs. 8300 and RAID

#106

Author: Eddie Aftandilian
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 19:02

18 lines
2148 bytes

> Thanks for the comment.
> I've been using a SCSI system for almost 5 years and never had a
> problem. Are IDE disks more prone to fail?

Yes they are.  If you look at the specs, you'll see that SCSI disks
typically have a better MTBF (mean time between failures) rating than IDE
drives, which indicates better reliability.  I personally have seen 2 IDE
drives fail out of about 10 I have owned or used over the past 6-7 years.

> It is a temptation the idea of having a RAID 0, since the system gets
> considerably faster. I thought of connecting a third disk, big enough
> for a complete backup once a week. What do you think?

That's true, and I suppose if you back up your data consistently it
shouldn't be a problem if the drive fails.  I just do not backup regularly
and therefore would not use a RAID 0 setup.  But if you are meticulous about
your backups I think you could get away with it.  And you are right, a RAID
0 setup will give you a big speed advantage over a single disk.

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