To RAID or not to RAID?

M
Posted By
MikeGreene
Aug 4, 2003
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306
Replies
2
Status
Closed
Running Photoshop 7 on WinXP Home (SP1). Have two identical hard drives: Maxtor ATA133 250GB 7200RPM (8MB Buffer).

Which config will give me the best performance running Photoshop 7?

Option A: RAID 0 (striping 500GB).

Option B: 2 separate drives with Photoshop scratch disk on secondary and Windows paging file on primary.

Thank you in advance for any accurate guidance!
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GH
Gary Hummell
Aug 4, 2003
A further consideration is what plan you might have when (not if) the RAID 0 stripe is broken. RAID 0 arrays are substantially more likely to crash than individual drives. The crashes are almost never recoverable.

Lastly, unless you are working with huge files, I doubt that you will complete a PS project noticeably quicker with RAID 0.
8
86
Aug 5, 2003
I agree with Brent.

I have four HDD’s:
1 as System & apps;
2 in RAID O
1 as scratch; page; backup (seperate partitions)

RAID 0 FLIES!!
I deal with 16 bit A4 – A1 300ppi images with layers, etc so files can grow to mammoth sizes. Even with just a little 20mb file it’s nice having it open in 1 second! Writing time is super fast also.

As Gary points out, you’re treading on thin ice though.
Backup important files to a seperate disk is essential!

Master Retouching Hair

Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

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