6 ms·

> RAID isn't about connecting drives, it's about not losing data. RAID-0 is used as a way to get faster performance from spinning disk drives, as you can retur

> RAID isn't about connecting drives, it's about not losing data. RAID-0 is used as a way to get faster performance from spinning disk drives, as you can return parts of each read request from different (striped) drives. You also get better write performance, as your writes are split across the drives.

lsc 11y ago
uh, this shouldn't be voted down. Now, I don't use RAID for performance, I use raid for reliability, like parent said, and I've never actually been in a position where it would make sense, but people do use raid0 to increase performance. It happens, even if it's not nearly as common as using raid to prevent data loss.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Back in the day, folks would RAID0 AWS EBS volumes to get the level of performance they needed (this was long before SSD EBS volumes).
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    This is still (AFAIK) the recommended way to get higher IOPS out of Azure SSDs.
  - bigiain 11y ago
    Now you're making me feel old - when "back in the day" and "AWS" get used in the same sentence... :-)
- burntwater 11y ago
  High-end video servers used in the entertainment industry typically use RAID 0. My last project, for example, used 10 250GB SSDs in RAID 0.
  - ersii 11y ago
    What kind of video servers are you talking about? For ingesting from a feed/camera in? Streaming out video? Curious.
    - bigiain 11y ago
      A friend of mine does a lot of programming and installations using Dataton Watchout - where they use 4 or more 4K projectors stitched together into one big image. He's regularly got war stories about problems with the latest batch of SSDs not playing well in RAID0 causing stutters on simultaneous playback of multiple 4K video streams.
      - im2w1l 11y ago
        Is there an advantage compared to putting each stream on a different drive?
        burntwater 11y ago
        It's possible, and probably advantageous to a point. Eventually you'll hit bottlenecks somewhere, at which point you throw more servers at it.
    - burntwater 11y ago
      While these servers can ingest video feeds, they wouldn't (typically) be saving the incoming feeds. These servers play out video over many projectors blended into a single seamless image. If you've watched the past few Olympics opening ceremonies, you most certainly saw the projections. My recent project, which was relatively small, played back a single video over 4 blended projectors. Each video frame was a 50MB uncompressed TGA file, 30 times a second. On a more complex show, you could be trying to play back multiple video streams simultaneously. D3 - http://www.d3technologies.com/ http://www.d3technologies.com/ and Pandora - http://www.coolux.de/products/pandoras-box-server/ http://www.coolux.de/products/pandoras-box-server/ are two of the big players in the industry.
- mirimir 11y ago
  I like RAID10. It's almost as reliable as RAID1, and you get about half the capacity and performance boost of RAID0. With four drives, RAID10 gives you the same capacity as RAID6. It's only ~30% slower, and it rebuilds much faster after drive failure and replacement. With more drives, you get 100% of added drive capacity for RAID6 vs 50% for RAID10, but rebuild time gets crazy huge.
- otakucode 11y ago
  Sure. My first purchase of SSDs were 3 80GB Intel SSDs which I put into RAID-0 and used for my primary system drive on my gaming machine. RAID-0 provides very-near 100% performance boost per drive added. Of course, it also provides the same bonuses to the likelihood of total data loss... but that was a risk I was OK with taking (and which never bit me!).
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Mine was the same drive, my first SSD was the first 80GB Intel one, and just over a year of use, it started reporting itself as an 8MB drive. You never know for sure what will remain good, or be good consistently.
dajonker 11y ago
RAID 0 does not have any level of redundancy, so you might as well remove the 'R' in RAID and replace it by 'S' for striping or something. However, people would probably get confused if you start calling it SAID.
- bigiain 11y ago
  Complaining about industry-standard terminology like this is mostly a waste of time. The sort of people who need to know that but don't aren't going to learn it from a post on HN, and the sort of people who'll read it on HN mostly don't need to be told.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    Sad but true. I gather that RAID0 has been the default for notebooks with two drives. And for the first 1TB MyBooks.
- tracker1 11y ago
  0 == no redundancy...

lsc 11y ago

uh, this shouldn't be voted down. Now, I don't use RAID for performance, I use raid for reliability, like parent said, and I've never actually been in a position where it would make sense, but people do use raid0 to increase performance. It happens, even if it's not nearly as common as using raid to prevent data loss.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Back in the day, folks would RAID0 AWS EBS volumes to get the level of performance they needed (this was long before SSD EBS volumes).
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  This is still (AFAIK) the recommended way to get higher IOPS out of Azure SSDs.
- bigiain 11y ago
  Now you're making me feel old - when "back in the day" and "AWS" get used in the same sentence... :-)
burntwater 11y ago
High-end video servers used in the entertainment industry typically use RAID 0. My last project, for example, used 10 250GB SSDs in RAID 0.
- ersii 11y ago
  What kind of video servers are you talking about? For ingesting from a feed/camera in? Streaming out video? Curious.
  - bigiain 11y ago
    A friend of mine does a lot of programming and installations using Dataton Watchout - where they use 4 or more 4K projectors stitched together into one big image. He's regularly got war stories about problems with the latest batch of SSDs not playing well in RAID0 causing stutters on simultaneous playback of multiple 4K video streams.
    - im2w1l 11y ago
      Is there an advantage compared to putting each stream on a different drive?
      - burntwater 11y ago
        It's possible, and probably advantageous to a point. Eventually you'll hit bottlenecks somewhere, at which point you throw more servers at it.
  - burntwater 11y ago
    While these servers can ingest video feeds, they wouldn't (typically) be saving the incoming feeds. These servers play out video over many projectors blended into a single seamless image. If you've watched the past few Olympics opening ceremonies, you most certainly saw the projections. My recent project, which was relatively small, played back a single video over 4 blended projectors. Each video frame was a 50MB uncompressed TGA file, 30 times a second. On a more complex show, you could be trying to play back multiple video streams simultaneously. D3 - http://www.d3technologies.com/ http://www.d3technologies.com/ and Pandora - http://www.coolux.de/products/pandoras-box-server/ http://www.coolux.de/products/pandoras-box-server/ are two of the big players in the industry.
mirimir 11y ago
I like RAID10. It's almost as reliable as RAID1, and you get about half the capacity and performance boost of RAID0. With four drives, RAID10 gives you the same capacity as RAID6. It's only ~30% slower, and it rebuilds much faster after drive failure and replacement. With more drives, you get 100% of added drive capacity for RAID6 vs 50% for RAID10, but rebuild time gets crazy huge.
otakucode 11y ago
Sure. My first purchase of SSDs were 3 80GB Intel SSDs which I put into RAID-0 and used for my primary system drive on my gaming machine. RAID-0 provides very-near 100% performance boost per drive added. Of course, it also provides the same bonuses to the likelihood of total data loss... but that was a risk I was OK with taking (and which never bit me!).
- tracker1 11y ago
  Mine was the same drive, my first SSD was the first 80GB Intel one, and just over a year of use, it started reporting itself as an 8MB drive. You never know for sure what will remain good, or be good consistently.

dajonker 11y ago

RAID 0 does not have any level of redundancy, so you might as well remove the 'R' in RAID and replace it by 'S' for striping or something. However, people would probably get confused if you start calling it SAID.

bigiain 11y ago
Complaining about industry-standard terminology like this is mostly a waste of time. The sort of people who need to know that but don't aren't going to learn it from a post on HN, and the sort of people who'll read it on HN mostly don't need to be told.
- mirimir 11y ago
  Sad but true. I gather that RAID0 has been the default for notebooks with two drives. And for the first 1TB MyBooks.
tracker1 11y ago
0 == no redundancy...