Quote Originally Posted by 'Sam DeathWalker',index.php?page=Thread&postID=177166#p ost177166
Basically this means that Silencer is correct that you want media that has low access times over media that has high transfer bandwidth.

So, a pair of cheap 36G raptors in raidzero is not sufficient, but you can use that for basic WoW storage at little cost.
Erm... not sufficient for what, exactly? o.O

Most people here are running 4/5 instances of WoW on a single computer that isn't anywhere near to cutting-edge specifications. While I feel that it's best to avoid cutting corners in building a multi-boxing rig, I also think that you need to figure out a point of diminishing returns. You alluded to this when you said get the best you can afford, but I do not think that that is necessarily the best approach. I think the best approach is to determine what you want to be able to do, then consider which is the most reasonable solution. ie, if you want to run four 800 x 600 tiled windows on a 1600x1200 display and you want all of the effects cranked up, you'll need more processing muscle than someone with the same setup who has the graphics cranked to minimum.

But I think there's a point at which spending more money for the ultimate setup only gets you a very small incremental improvement, and after that you're just wasting money. If you have the cash to burn and/or really want to go that route, I understand (I like to splurge on hardware myself). But I'm not sure just how much improvement you'll get from four striped 10k raptors over a much more modest setup. I get good performance running with a couple of inexpensive 400GB SATA drives, with each one hosting two full WoW folders. I could probably squeeze out more performance from striped SSDs or a fast RAID array, but it would make almost no difference in terms of what I'm trying to accomplish with my group. It's fun to know that you're running that much horsepower under the hood, but it's not terribly practical IMO.

When/if I redo my multiboxing setup, I'm likely to go with four inexpensive SATA-II drives instead of a single high speed RAID array. If I stop being lazy and decide to run everything out of a single WoW directory, then it's likely that I'll stripe two inexpensive SATA-II drives. Either way, it would work for me without being unreasonably expensive. I think any multiboxer should look at it that way-- where is my performance "sweet spot"? After that, if you are inclined to spend money for high-powered hardware, more power to you (literally, even!).