Well, I've been running my array a couple of days now and it's rock solid
stable. It took several reboots and a lot of downloads to get Windows 7
finally up to date, registered and all my apps installed. This computer is
blazing fast now. I've never seen dialog boxes so snappy and installations
move so quickly. CrystalDiskMark says the random read/write speeds suck
but my subjective experience is that not only does the desktop show up
quicker during boot but afterward the system tray icons appear within
moments compared to several minutes previously and the hardrive light
doesn't run on and on for the next five minutes.
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) is pretty cheap too if you get
smaller but still fast drives that are used. My original drive I bought
several weeks after Seagate originally released the first of the 7200.12
series cost me $65 and the 3 I added were ~ $30 each.
Highly recommended with the only caveat being its harder to get the SMART
data even on drives not connected to the array like my Caviar Black backup
drive. During bootup the Ctrl-F screen for the RAID BIOS says the SMART
info is good or something to that effect. I've been using PassMark's
DiskCheckup v2.1 and it complains that there aren't any SMART drives to
check. Anybody know of a utility that I can get the SMART data from
individual drives like this? I'd appreciate any recommendations you have.
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Opera's e-mail client
Main Machine:
Generic Steel Case
ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 Mobo
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (Default speed)
OCZ DDR3 1333 (2x2=4)
Palit GTX460 1 Gig (OC'd to 865 MHz)
WD Cariar Black 640 Gig
Lite On 22X DVD Burner
ASUS 21.5" 1080P Monitor
fold...@home (11,000 PPD)
Game Box:
Cooler Master CM690 Mid-Tower
Gigabyte 785G/SB710
AMD Phenom II X2 555 C3
Corsair Dominator RAM 2 gigs
PowerColor HD5770 1 gig
Seasonic 550 watt PSU
4 Seagate 7200.12 500 gig (RAID 0)
LiteOn DVD Burner
