[Rev2Liv]

Hello ya'll

I'm running a Mac Mini Server right now w/2 internal 500GB 7200rpm HD's in RAID 0.

I also have a G-RAID mini running to the Mac Mini via FireWire800. It has the Oxford 936 chipset,

I upgraded the internal drives to 2 Seagate Momentus XT 500GB 7200RPM drives in a RAID 0.

For a boot drive, which would be faster? the internal RAID 0 or my external setup?

[reader50]

I'd guess at the internal RAID 0 being a bit faster. They're slower notebook drives, but they are on SATA2 interfaces. The external RAID uses better drives, but with a 100 MB/s cap imposed by the interface. So the internal drives just need to exceed 50 MB/s each in order to win.

If you want speed, get a fast SSD as an internal boot drive. Use the external drives for mass storage.

[Rev2Liv]

Thanks for the reply. It's my understanding that the Mac Mini Server does not have a hardware RAID controller whereas the ext G-RAID Mini does.

Is FW800 a bottleneck for the throughput speeds for a simple 2 drive RAID0 setup?

[Waragainstsleep]

Yes. Internal will be faster. Probably quite a bit faster. A single internal drive is faster than a FW800 drive. The striping in the G-RAID isn't going to make it any quicker at all.

[mduell]

FW800 is a bottleneck for a single 3.5" drive.