Is there a free tool that will benchmark things like HD access speed, processor etc… that will give me a more meaningful score than ‘5.0’ that windows gives? (wtf does ‘5.0’ mean? “How fast is your hard disk?” “It’s 5”)
ETA: Mainly I want to know if my raid0 twin HDs are performing properly.
If they aren’t there might be something configured incorrectly somewhere.
You may have already checked this, but in Task Manager under the Performance tab there is an option to open the Resource Monitor. This will list all processes and their disk read/write speed.
Try Sandra.
I know you didn’t ask this question, but just in case you were not aware, with raid0 you’ve increased the likelihood of losing all of your data (striping, no parity, increased number of drives that can fail). I only point this out because some people think raid is synonymous with data integrity.
To put your mind at ease: I am well aware of this. I have willingly put my data ‘at risk’ for the benefit of speed. It’s a home PC and if I lose anything I will just re-install.
And it’s still as safe (probably safer) than when I had a single drive with no raid configuration.
Anything I need to keep is backed up or on installation CDs or are subject to my own equivalent of raid1 (My photos for instance - I have them in three places, my raid drive(s) and two external USB drives - one of which is not permanently plugged in)
Taking into account just the single drive against the two drives in a RAID 0 set, I’m not sure that’s true.
I think (I am not a statistician, but I believe they will back me up) that in any given time period, the probability that one of two drives will fail is higher than the probability that a single drive will fail. The probability that both drives will fail is lower, but that doesn’t help in RAID 0, where if any drive in the set goes all the data is lost.
This means that for RAID 0, the more drives you have the greater the possibility of a drive failure trashing your data.
Having said that, there are places I’d make (and have made) the same decision. Data that is non-critical, easily restored, not needed for 24/7/365 availability, etc. can be backed up somewhere else and restored if and when needed. Meanwhile, give me all the speed I can get.
Since he’s talking about a specific case, not general statistics, it would depend on the relative reliability of the drive he used to have vs expect life of the new ones.
Replacing a ten year old drive with two modern drives in Raid0 could certainly increase reliability.