RAID 0 and TV Tuners

[Humodour]

Hey guys, what do you know about RAID 0? When configuring my new computer I had this option and took it.

 

So that's 2 identical hard drives at 7200 RPMs with 500gb in RAID 0 (performance) configuration. It also says 3gb/s which I presume is to do with speed as well.

 

Anyway, what will be the performance gains of RAID 0 compared to a normal HD (e.g. a single one of these drives)? What about an SSD?

 

Also, how do TV tuners work and what fun things can I do with it?

[Humanoid]

I can't really tell you much more than Wikipedia, but for gaming it's generally considered not worth the effort - data is a few years old but I remember some tech sites doing a test and finding load time gains of 5% or less. Put against the risk of data loss and it doesn't seem a good deal. In RAID 0, failure in any one disk means total data loss - a two-disk RAID 0 array more or less doubles the risk, three disks triple it, etc.

 

Of course, for non-gaming purposes the utility would differ - not sure what else you do so I can't answer that.

 

Gaming summary:

Double the cost

Double the noise sources

Double the chance of failure

Up to 5% increase in game loading times

 

 

SSDs are completely different in that it's the almost instantaneous random reads that make the difference in gaming.SSDs are one of those "once you try it you'll never go back" type things - highly recommended.

 

 

 

 

TV tuners are TVs without the display and are PVRs without a disk. Putting one into a PC therefore turns it into both a TV and PVR with the usual functions - record, pause live, etc.

 

Typically they come with dual tuners so two channels at a time, whether watching both, recording both, or a combination thereof. Some older ones might be one analogue tuner and one digital tuner, which is kind of pointless now so make sure it's dual digital tuners.

[Gorth]

My own experiences with RAID 0 is probably different from the above, but it really depends on what you need it for. Speed gains can be anything from 0 to about 80% depending on the number of read/write transactions you do. Lots of random read/write transactions are significantly faster IMO which is why you would never use anything less than RAID 10 on a server for example (I.e. a either a mirrored stripe set or a striped mirror set. 10 is reputedly better than 01, but I they both have in common that the striping, i.e. RAID 0, is what gives the performance boost). If you mostly play nethack then it would be overkill and the gain nonexistent .

 

Edit to add: I once, many years ago had a Hauppauge (Sp?) PCI tv tuner card with TTV and Radio. I absolutely loved it, but it eventually became outdated and retired.