Which drives for RAID 0

887 Views 27 Replies 11 Participants Last post by scottath, Mar 15, 2009

noahmateen1234

Discussion Starter · Mar 15, 2009

I am getting 2 drives for RAID 0, but I am on a tight budget. I can afford all these setups, but I want to spend the LEAST amount for good performance because I wanna get a 24" LCD also. Prices are with tax.

Option 1:
2x Western Digital Caviar 320gb AAKS - $117.95

Option 2:
2x Seagate 7200.12 500gb - $139.40

Option 3:
2x Western Digital Caviar Black 640gb - $171.58

So option 1 looks the best to me obviously, but can anyone give me real numbers of any of these setups? Is the $22 upgrade to the .12 drives worth it?

Space is not an issue as I already have a 1tb drive for storage.

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scottath

· #2 · Mar 15, 2009

Option 4:
2* 640gb Samsung Spinpoint F1 - not sure how much in the US - but got 2 here in Australia for ~$100 each
They are very fast, large and raided is really good

640gb drive is basivally 2 320gb drives in 1....so it's like having 4 320gb drives in raid 0

noahmateen1234

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 15, 2009

if a drive has more platters doesnt that make it slower in a sense?
Like I think 4x320gb in raid 0 would be WAY faster than 2x640gb in raid 0.

Also, what stripe size would you guys recommend? I will use these drives for OS, games, and programs like ms office, photoshop, firefox and the sort. I won't be transferring many big files ever.

MNiceGuy

· #4 · Mar 15, 2009

Here are my 640 Blues using a 128K stripe:

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bobfig

· #5 · Mar 15, 2009

i would say just get 2 320 aaks. thats what im going to do soon

scottath

· #6 · Mar 15, 2009

No idea on the striping sizes - i just used the defualt....

Mine transfers from them onto an 640gb AAKS (WD) at around 108mb/s
Can duplicate files on the drives at 58mb/s
More platters (more read heads) = greater speeds - hence why raid exists....multiple platters (many single platters for example)

hoth17

· #7 · Mar 15, 2009

http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives...0gb-x-3-a.html

http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives...dness-56k.html

i went with 3 x 7200.12
they perform just about on par with the black edition for less

7200.12 = single platter, high density (500gb)

MNiceGuy

· #8 · Mar 15, 2009

Large file transfer:

640AAKS RAID0 -> single 500AAKS = ~130MB/s
single 500AAKS -> 640AAKS RAID0 = ~80MB/s

guyladouche

· #9 · Mar 15, 2009

I've always been partial to Seagates drives, but others would disagree. My main reason was for noise--the seagates I have in raid0 are SILENT. Compared to my maxtors, which are quite loud...

Performance-wise, I don't think it'll really matter what 2 drives you go in.

scottath--I don't understand what you're talking about. Multiple platters on a single HD does not translate to faster data writes--it doesn't simultaneously write or read to/from each platter.

scottath

· #10 · Mar 15, 2009

I beleive that the 640gb drives were so fast as they could do perpendicular writing or something..... anyone know more and care to explain please

Maxtor = Seagate.....just as ASRock = Asus.....just the cheap editions

noahmateen1234

Discussion Starter · #11 · Mar 15, 2009

also another question.
so i am thinking the 2 500gb 7200.12 are gonna be the way to go. can i make a partition like 40gb for JUST the OS, then have a partition of 900gb or w/e to have my games and programs and stuff on? Would that be better for performance? Then I could make the stripe size on the 40gb partition like 16kb and then 128kb on the big partition.

Is that worth it? Otherwise I can make just one big partition, or like a 200gb partition for OS, progs, and games and then a 750gb partition for whatever else.

hoth17

· #12 · Mar 15, 2009

you can make as many partitions as you want; however, performance would not increase because they are still on the same hdd.

I will be making a 200gb for os, and the rest for storage.

guyladouche

· #13 · Mar 15, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottath

View Post

I beleive that the 640gb drives were so fast as they could do perpendicular writing or something..... anyone know more and care to explain please

Maxtor = Seagate.....just as ASRock = Asus.....just the cheap editions

Perpendicular recording had to do with how the magnetic substrate that holds the data is oriented on the platters (perpendicular vs. horizontal--most drives had horizontally oriented substrates)--not how the data is read/written. Wiki has a nice picture to illustrate it. I looked it up a while back when "perp" drives were becoming more popular. It's more of a data density thing than disk speed thing.

I always heard that about maxtor/seagate, but was always surprised at the noise level differences between the two. The funny thing is that other people have the opposite experience as me--their maxtors are quieter than seagates. It's odd...

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guyladouche

· #14 · Mar 15, 2009

If it were me? I'd dump the OS on a separate single HD. I love my raid, and have never had problems with it so far (knock on wood), but I still don't trust it that much, lol.

noahmateen1234

Discussion Starter · #15 · Mar 15, 2009

Well I thought having a small like 50gb partition for my OS and making it a small stripe size like 16kb and then have the remaining 950gb for games, progs, and other stuff have a 128kb stripe size. Wouldn't that improve boot up times, because doesn't smaller stripe size make bootup faster?

bumsoil

· #16 · Mar 15, 2009

from those 3 choices i would get the 2 .12 500gig's, also 64k or 32k stripe is the best for gaming/ os/ general use
also, i use 64k

EDIT: GET A GPU FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!! that 8800 320 is not right for i7

noahmateen1234

Discussion Starter · #17 · Mar 15, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by bumsoil

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from those 3 choices i would get the 2 .12 500gig's, also 64k or 32k stripe is the best for gaming/ os/ general use
also, i use 64k

EDIT: GET A GPU FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!! that 8800 320 is not right for i7

Lol don't worry. I am waiting on the gpu because I can't decide between a gtx 260, gtx 285 or wait for the 4890, so I am going to wait until the 4890 comes out.

Also, the i7 rig is not up and running yet, still waiting for the case, ram, and cpu water block to arrive. Hopefully I will get a gpu before then so I can just have my rig up and running. Also, the 8800gts is fine for my 19" widescreen for now. I am going to hopefully get a 24" around the same time as my GPU, so then I can take full advantage of it. Raid seems like a more important thing now because I won't have to format or anything, since I will be starting off with these drives.

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crashnburn_819

· #18 · Mar 15, 2009

Don't the AAKS and AALS 500/640gb use two platters? I don't know about any other hard drives though.
How much hard drive space do you need? Two WD 640gb in raid 0 would be a lot of space for me.
Might consider a ssd for os and games?

noahmateen1234

Discussion Starter · #19 · Mar 15, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by crashnburn_819

View Post

Don't the AAKS and AALS 500/640gb use two platters? I don't know about any other hard drives though.
How much hard drive space do you need? Two WD 640gb in raid 0 would be a lot of space for me.
Might consider a ssd for os and games?

SSD is too expensive. The 640gb drives are 2 320gb platters. As for the 500gb I am not sure, I hope 1 platter. I don't really need more space than 250gb total but drives are so cheap that 2 250gb drives isn't much cheaper than 2 500gb drives.

I think I am getting the 500gb 7200.12 drives because they are 1 platter and slim design and from what I hear, really quiet and awesome. It is $33 cheaper than the 640gb Caviar Black so with that $30 I can use it towards a new monitor and GPU.

I will give some rep out now. Thanks!

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d0gZpAw

· #20 · Mar 15, 2009

IMO, while Samsung Spinpoint drives are great (I use them), if you choose to run RAID 0, you should use enterprise class hard drives, such as WD Black, or Seagate SV35.3/ES.2 (maybe).. just because these drives are rated for 24x7 reliability, and are backed by 5-year warranties.. if you're just running your OS/apps/games from the RAID0 stripe, then as long as you backup your personal crap regularly, you've got nothing to worry about as far as data loss (you can always reinstall, right?).

Personally I would opt for the WD Blacks.

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