Comparison of RAID 0, 1 & 5

[cpjust]

Hi,
I couldn't find this kind of answer when I was looking for it before, so now that I have a RAID at home I thought I'd get the performance numbers and post them for others to see.

I used the free version of HD Tune (

http://www.hdtune.com/)

to get these numbers, so unfortunately it only tests Read speed, not Write speed, but hey, it's better than nothing.

The system I used is as follows:
Motherboard: ASUS P5K3 Deluxe
CPU: Intel Quad Core 2.4GHz Q6600
RAM: OCZ Gold DDR3 2 x 1GB DDR3-1333
Hard Drives: 3 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 500GB w/32MB cache
Video: ASUS nVidia 8600GT (540MHz) 512MB DDR3 (1.4GHz)

Here are the performance numbers on Win 2008 server for a single HD, 2 HD's in RAID 1, and 3 HD's in RAID 0 & 5:

RAID   | HD Write | Vol Write | Min     | Max     | Average | Access     | Burst Rate | CPU
Level: | Cache:   | Cache:    | (MB/s): | (MB/s): | (MB/s): | Time (ms): | (MB/s):    | Usage:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 None  |    No    |     No    |  50.0   |  104.9  |  85.1   |    12.2    |    65.0    |  3.0%
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   0   |    No    |     No    |  78.5   |  106.5  |  98.9   |    9.5     |    65.2    |  5.4%
   0   |    No    |     Yes   |  208.9  |  297.4  |  260.7  |    9.4     |    1028.9  |  9.6%
   0   |    Yes   |     No    |  74.4   |  106.3  |  99.6   |    9.5     |    65.5    |  5.4%
   0   |    Yes   |     Yes   |  208.6  |  296.3  |  262.8  |    9.5     |    1232.9  |  9.8%
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   1   |    No    |     No    |  46.7   |  105.7  |  76.8   |    12.5    |    64.3    |  3.3%
   1   |    No    |     Yes   |  38.5   |  99.6   |  64.4   |    12.2    |    800.4   |  3.5%
   1   |    Yes   |     No    |  51.5   |  106.4  |  71.3   |    12.1    |    64.3    |  3.3%
   1   |    Yes   |     Yes   |  39.1   |  91.4   |  64.7   |    12.2    |    1009.6  |  3.9%
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   5   |    No    |     No    |  43.4   |  60.8   |  57.6   |    10.7    |    65.0    |  4.1%
   5   |    No    |     Yes   |  78.0   |  171.2  |  131.5  |    10.8    |    1206.9  |  6.6%
   5   |    Yes   |     No    |  44.9   |  60.4   |  57.3   |    10.8    |    65.5    |  4.2%
   5   |    Yes   |     Yes   |  78.6   |  170.8  |  130.2  |    10.8    |    1129.0  |  6.1%
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[wahnula]

cpjust,

Thanks for posting the results of your research...good job!

There is a RAID performance reference chart here:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/comp.htm

Not numerical values like you provided, just a simple "number of stars" rating, but you can see that your results are typical.

Tony

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