Higher Speed or More Space?

[Android Vageta]

Hello peeps and peepettes ;) , I currently have 2 80gigSATA Samsungs and Im kinda getting low on storage with all my games, videos, and music(cough...all illegal...cough), and so Im getting a new harddrive, but I was wondering if whether I should get a 160gig 7200rpm(total 320gigs!:rock: ) or a 36.7gig at 10000rpm for system files and games and use the 80gigs(still have yet to figure about all these SATA ports...)as storage. I know having 320gigs would rock(see above smiley), but having a nice 10000rpm speed demon would be killer. Also, anyone have bad experiences with Western Digital considering thats who the 10000rpm drive would be comeing from? Im suprised by how much I can fit in one post...lol...thx in advance, Im loving this place... :rock: :rock:

[pointreyes]

There is a real good chance that the 36GB Raptor you get will not have Fluid Dynamic Bearings. However, the 74GB Raptor has FDB.

This is not an absolute but there seems to many of us that have WD drives that develop a whine over time. One of my newer WD drives had this happen in under 60 days. You can see what I did with that POS in my hardware diagram in my sig. Hint: It's never allowed to reside in any of my 'puters for too long. :irk:

[Android Vageta]

So I guess I should just go ahead with the 160gig then, eh?

[Android Vageta]

OOOOO...I was looking and I found this:

Link to what Ive found (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-104-227&depa=1)

If I get this can I install a SCSI harddrive? I want a 18gig 15000rpm one if possible. THX!

[pointreyes]

The Canterwoods and Springdale boards have a serious problem with SCSI: bottlenecking. What good is 320Meg/sec throughput through a 133Meg/sec PCI bus? A Raptor on the ICH5(R) is a better solution with it's 266Meg/sec throughput.

I think maybe you should risk the 36GB. If it starts to whine, sell it and hopefully the 74GB will be more affordable at that time. :p

BTW: I have two Seagate Cheetahs (73.4Gb 15,000rpm drives) on my dual Opteron (no bottlenecking with this setup) and the Raptors on the ICH5 are actually a better deal $ for $. At least based on benches I have seen of the Raptor compared to the Cheetahs. I happen to have a link to a gamepc article on the differences between the two drives in this same forum. :)

[Android Vageta]

OK, so Im not gonna go with the Raptor bacause I dont wanna sell anything and get a crap problem with that crying drive ;) , and I understand what youre saying about the 15000rpm drive, even though that would be ultra rad killer sweet :rock: :rock: . But, ATA133 only has an 133mHz bandwidth right? So even thought the 15000rpm would only have a 133mHz bandwidth, would it still be alot faster that a 7200rpm on SATA? If not then its the 160gig SATA. THX again.

[pointreyes]

Pretty much the 7200 will be slower than the 15,000 or the 10,000 but the Raptor would almost be equal to the 15,000 on a Canterwood. A killer RAID SCSI controller is truly a killer to the wallet. You see I'm using a 133Mhz 64-bit PCI-X bus on my system-that equates to around a potential throughput of 1,056Meg/sec. Yes, you read that correctly. However, the controller that I want to handle my two SCSI drives would cost......you are sitting down, right?.......a mere $1,200. :yikes: Fortunately being a database focused nutcase it was more logical to for go the RAID because I would need a lot more drives to truly build an efficient database server compared to using two SCSI and one SATA drive in that box. :) So the 133Mhz 64-bit PCI-X controller I'm using was only $150 plus the $40 SCSI cable. :rolleyes:

If you don't want to risk going with the 36GB Raptor then I guess it would have to be 7,200 rpm drives then. :)

[Android Vageta]

Well, thx for the help, Im still not completely sure, for even though my case is loud, I dont know if I can handle the winey noise. Just afew more questions before I buy; if I do get the Raptor am I guarenteed to get the noise, or may I get lucky and mine never have that? And also, does it only do so when its underload(is that the correct term?)or is it a constant thing? And LAST question, will there be a major difference in performance? Remember that I plan on putting my OS(Windows Server 2003) and games on this drive. Thanks again pointreyes! You rock m8! :rock: :bow: :cool: :thumb: :beer: :thumbs: :D

[pointreyes]

Too bad I don't have a Raptor to test for ya. I could have then shown you the preformance of the Raptor on Windows 2003. I'm using Small Business Server 2003, 2003 Standard Server, and 2003 Enterprise Server. Will you notice a major difference? I didn't with my Cheetahs. However, when it came to high level r/w i/o they flew. Apps definitely come up faster but it's not exactly like a Porsche after driving a Geo.

The whine is iffy at best. That's why I said earlier that it's not an absolute because some people claim that they never experience the whine with their WD drives. Others of us have practically sworn off WD due to the whine. A hard drive unit that buffers the drive might help if the whine should occur. For some the whine is there only during load for others (myself included) it's constant. Note that I had WD drives that never had the whine either but they still get louder over time. I used to have a 4 drive RAID 5 configuration with WD SE drives and after a year of constant use (24/7, constant spinning) the system was getting progressively louder. I'm now running a 4 drive RAID 5, with a hot spare, and another drive for the OS. A total of six drives and they are much quieter than the WD drives ever were. None of those new drives are WD.

Personally, I think you should try the 36GB Raptor. You already know that a 7200rpm drive will not wow you and if the 36GB even slightly wows you, you might end up getting a second one later on to make a 72GB RAID0 and that is where the wow factor really comes in with the Raptors.

[Android Vageta]

Well thx pointreyes, but after all this, Ive made my final choice to go with the 74gig Raptor. its a bit more that I wanted to spend, but considering that it has more space that 2x36gig Raptors, which would cost more and doesnt have the whine, Im confident this is by far a surpurb choice. Its also alot faster than the 36gig Raptor, accually, its the fastest SATA drive out there. Well, thx again for your help, Ill be sure to post a review of it once i get it which should be sometime next week. Thx again!!!

[Snafu]

pointreyes - thanks fo rthe note on whine. Never heard of whiny drives in any reviews/comparisons on the WD 36GB 10K drives. I will keep my ear open for the whine as I am getting near the 60-day mark. Hope it does not happen (loose teh data in the raid) but if it does I hope warranty covers a replacement.


I read these the WD (74GB) was considered a winner when compared against the SCSI Atlas (10K) and on par with another SCSI at 15K. The following article compares WD 35GB 10K against the SCSI Atlas. The SCSI seems to have a slight upper hand in performance.

http://www.tomshardware.com/newsletter/vol3/17/wd360.html

The "but" is $. I would say the bang for the buck goes to WD Raptors. Still a bit pricy when compared to 7200 SATA drives but I understand they are far cheaper than setting up SCSI for your home PC.

[Android Vageta]

Snafu, what kinda boot and startup speeds are you getting with the Raptor you have?

[Snafu]

My boot times are in the 30-60 second range. Most of the time is spent on the array. If I add another drive (& I need one as a back-up) it will take a bit longer.

If it helps I have run bootvis and (I think its called) "bootXP".

I have to look into the raid some more because the Sandra bench is only 66MB/s which is about half the referenced raid with the same drives ( :scratch: ). Could be because my stripe is at 64kb instead of 16kb.

[pointreyes]

Decreasing the stripe may improve the performance but it will increase fragmentation which will thereby means more time spending defragging the drive.

Maybe try Atto to see what you get for results.

[Snafu]

What's Atto :o

[pointreyes]

What's Atto :o

It's another tool that measures the drives's throughput; however, it's not just one line of results like Sandra. :)
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showpost.php?p=245346&postcount=40

[Snafu]

Found it. Thanks :thumbs: .

The site says "...ATTO ExpressPCI SCSI cards only". Still okay to use on SATA drives?

[pointreyes]

Yes, it's safe to use.

Here's an example of the settings used to get the proper results.
http://hem.bredband.net/b247083/temp/atto.JPG