# Raid 0 partitioned vs 2 individual drives?



## jebner2 (Feb 10, 2013)

For a while now I have been woundering if i should creat a RAID 0 array of drives and then partition them so that they act as two individual drives (I need the drives to be separate) or if i should just leave them as is without messing with the raid config. also it would be a software RAID config (on laptop). I do have experience with RAID but this question has been bugging me for a long time. Thanks


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## andrewsmc (Feb 10, 2013)

Depends on your needs.... Why are you debating? Give is a bit more detail so we can help you.  Fill out system specs as well.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 10, 2013)

Why would you partition them to match the individual drives?  What is the motivation for doing that?

The only difference I think of is the average performance on one partition would be higher than the average performance on the other due to HDDs getting slower closer to the center of the disk.  If they were kept separate, they would both be at maximum performance initially and slow as they fill up.  The overall performance advantage would go to RAID0 because the performance both drives is enacted everytime a read/write operation is performed assuming the drives are equal performance.

On the other hand, you said this is a laptop.  The advantage of not using RAID0 is that either hard drive not in use can be powered down to save power.  RAID0, they're either all on or all off.


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## jebner2 (Feb 10, 2013)

The main factor for me would be speed. I would be using two seagate momentus XT laptop drives. An ssd won't work out for me because I am only on the sata 1 interface and they are too pricey per GB. I dont really care about it being ultra reliable ill make backups but I do need the drives to have separate drive letters.


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## jebner2 (Feb 10, 2013)

From what I've heard, you achieve better read/write by putting the disks in RAID0 and then partitioning them.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 10, 2013)

Why do you need separate drive letters?


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## drdeathx (Feb 10, 2013)

As long as the capacity is good for you, Raid0 will be faster.


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## Kreij (Feb 10, 2013)

Yes, placing two drives, with two partitions each, in RAID0 will give you better read and write performance to the data.

Just be aware that if one drive fails you will lose everything on both drives and partitions and have to rebuild the system in its entirety.


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## terrastrife (Feb 11, 2013)

Also if you access both partitions at the same time, you will have performance *worse *than that of a single drive.
Not particularly sure how the XT works in RAID as they were specifically optimized for Windows (boot files go in the 4GB of flash).


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