WoW copies, single, multi, HDDs, raid

[thinus]

I am planning to run 4x WoW on a single machine (slave machine) while running a single instance on my main machine.

I have 2x 250GB SATA2 HDD in my slave machine with a motherboard capable of RAID. So I am looking at a few options on my slave machine, RAID0, RAID1, 2x WoW per non-raided disk or a single WoW instance.

All 4 classes will be different. How limiting is the single instance?

Anyone have any performance results from raided disks?

[Parsous]

My recommendation unless you need different video settings, and aren't going to be using something like Maximizer is to use a single directory and setup the HDD's in a Raid-0.

Unless you need the redundancy of raid-1 (Most gamers don't since a crashed HDD typically just means "Let's reinstall on the new drive") I'd ignore that avenue. Raid-1 is only useful if you do other things besides game on your system that would hurt you if you lost it (I.e. your memoirs :P), and didn't back it up.

Each account accesses it's own keybinds/addon config even when running from the same directory so this shouldn't be a problem. It also minimizes work needed on patch day (Depending on your computer skill/setup, this can be anything to a few files/directorys to cloning the entire thing again, etc.)

[Kayley]

*Hijack*

Does performance increase or decrease (same?) if you ran multiple clients from the same install path.

(example)
c:/wow/wow.exe - load that 5 times.
compared to say...
c:/wow1/
c:/wow2/
c:/wow3/
etc

[laeelin]

I like 2 hard drives w/Raid 1, and quarter stroking the HD's

Low price.
Lots of speed.
HD crash protection.

Raid 0 writes faster than Raid 1, but it does not read faster.

So for gameplay it's just as fast as raid 0 except you trade 1/2 of your space for total data protection.

Take a large SATA 7200rpm drive and quarter stroke it for better gameplay results than a much more expensive 10k rpm drive. (note: the 10k will still blow the other drive away when it comes to loading huge files, aka, uncompressed video/etc.)

But then I normally spend ~$500 on computers, I watch the price/performance curve much more than anything else.

I got tired of spending $2+k on a system and then being able to get the same system for ~$500 a year later.

[blackwatch]

Same... I'd go with 2 drives/multi-drives.

[Parsous]

If you have an actual raid controller (NOT an onboard MB one, they're almost always crap and while the performance is typically increased it's nowhere near a real controller) a raid-0 will have better read performance then a raid-1.

[laeelin]

If you have an actual raid controller (NOT an onboard MB one, they're almost always crap and while the performance is typically increased it's nowhere near a real controller) a raid-0 will have better read performance then a raid-1.

Not if you have an even number of drives (aka, 2)


Edit:
Talking about specifically gaming....
For gaming it's the access time that most important.

If you look at benchmarks, Raid 0 wins.
If you look at real life usage, it's so close to a tie that it is basically even.

If your doing 3d rendering(or whatever), thats another story.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Take a large SATA 7200rpm drive and quarter stroke it for better gameplay results than a much more expensive 10k rpm drive. (note: the 10k will still blow the other drive away when it comes to loading huge files, aka, uncompressed video/etc.)

But then I normally spend ~$500 on computers, I watch the price/performance curve much more than anything else.

I got tired of spending $2+k on a system and then being able to get the same system for ~$500 a year later.

Truth spoken here. In case you don't know what quarter-stroking is (not obvious), here's the theory it is based upon: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=322

[thinus]

In case you don't know what quarter-stroking is (not obvious), here's the theory it is based upon: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=322

Quarter stroking is what you do when you just lost a large amount of money and you are about to put your last coin in the slot machine.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

In case you don't know what quarter-stroking is (not obvious), here's the theory it is based upon: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=322

Quarter stroking is what you do when you just lost a large amount of money and you are about to put your last coin in the slot machine.

Which is indicative of your not having been playing the slots at the bar where free drinks are served, which would negate your caring enough about that last quarter to stroke it.