1 HDD in SATA2 or 2 HDD's in SATA RAID?

[Salvador]

With my motherboard, I only have one SATA2 port and two SATA ports that can be run in RAID. Which would be faster? Running one SATA2 drive in the SATA2 port or two SATA2 drives in SATA ports with RAID 0?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

To answer the question, the drives in RAID 0 would be faster, because there is little difference between speeds of SATA2 & SATA. If either setup is going to be the only hd(s) in the system, I would just get a large drive and not worry about doing RAID. I run RAID myself, but under your circumstances, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
To answer the question, the drives in RAID 0 would be faster, because there is little difference between speeds of SATA2 & SATA. If either setup is going to be the only hd(s) in the system, I would just get a large drive and not worry about doing RAID. I run RAID myself, but under your circumstances, I wouldn't recommend it.

No. They'd be the boot drives. I'm going to get a 80gb SATA2 drive and I'm thinking about getting 2 and running them in RAID. The only issue is that I don't have two SATA2 connectors on the motherboard, so I'd have to hook them up via the SATA connector.

I've run PATA in RAID before, but didn't know how much quicker SATA RAID was.

I always run a separate storage drive and use external hdd's for anything really important. I've learned that lesson. I was backing stuff up on cd and then DVD, but now I just have too much stuff, so I use external hdd's (I have two of them with mirrored data).

 

[Salvador]

Ok.. Another question then. Would it be beneficial to use a SATA2 hdd for booting instead of a PATA hdd? Is there a big difference?

 

[sun818]

I think the specs on the drive itself may be more indicative of performance. RPM, on-board cache, number of spindles. For example, a 5,400 RPM SATA2 HDD would likely lose to a 10k PATA HDD.

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: sun818
I think the specs on the drive itself may be more indicative of performance. RPM, on-board cache, number of spindles. For example, a 5,400 RPM SATA2 HDD would likely lose to a 10k PATA HDD.

Here's the drive. I'm either buying one or two. I'm just going to mainly use these drives to boot the OS from and software of course. I'm not going to use them for storage. Would it be worthwhile to run two of these in SATA RAID or should I just use one of them on the SATA2 connector? Or, should I just keep my 8mb cache PATA WDJB hdd?

BTW.. The mobo is a 939Dual SATA2. It has two regular SATA connectors that I can run in RAID and one SATA2 connector with its own chipset.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: Salvador
Ok.. Another question then. Would it be beneficial to use a SATA2 hdd for booting instead of a PATA hdd? Is there a big difference?

PATA drives have AAM frequently and are slower. Theoretically the STR of the HD is not maxxed out yet by IDE so they should be the same.

However it's safe to conclude that SATA300 and SATA150 do not have much of a difference. Even my HDTach benches with my 7200.9 and 7200.10 confirm this.

I know people love to ask if SATA makes things faster, but if you want to simply compare IDE vs SATA vs SATA2 you need to compare apples vs apples. It's hard to say when PATA drives are slightly different. A lot of times when I hear people asking these things, it's also because they have 2 generations of drives (i.e. older drive on PATA and considering a new SATA drive). Questions like these should point out models and what not so we have an idea. It's almost like asking if Socket 462 is faster than Socket 939.

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Salvador
Ok.. Another question then. Would it be beneficial to use a SATA2 hdd for booting instead of a PATA hdd? Is there a big difference?

PATA drives have AAM frequently and are slower. Theoretically the STR of the HD is not maxxed out yet by IDE so they should be the same.

However it's safe to conclude that SATA300 and SATA150 do not have much of a difference. Even my HDTach benches with my 7200.9 and 7200.10 confirm this.

I know people love to ask if SATA makes things faster, but if you want to simply compare IDE vs SATA vs SATA2 you need to compare apples vs apples. It's hard to say when PATA drives are slightly different. A lot of times when I hear people asking these things, it's also because they have 2 generations of drives (i.e. older drive on PATA and considering a new SATA drive). Questions like these should point out models and what not so we have an idea. It's almost like asking if Socket 462 is faster than Socket 939.

Another option is to buy one of these Seagate drives. Is the Seagate any faster than the WD? The only reason why I'm looking at the 80gb drive is because they are cheaper and it's the smallest SATA2 drive with the 16mb cache.

The PATA drive that I'd be comparing to these drives is a Western Digital WD1600JB (160gb) 8mb cache 7200rpm drive. It's older, but it's not that old.

 

[Salvador]

Ok. I need to make a decision here. I think I'm either going to go with one 250gb Seagate 250 16mb cache SATA2 hdd and use it on the SATA2 connector or go with two of the WD 80 gb 8mb cache SATA2 hdd's and use them in RAID0 on the SATA1 connectors.

What should I do? I can get the Seagate for $50 shipped with a combo deal and the 2 WD drives for $74 with another deal.

I don't plan on using any of these drives for anything important. Just the OS, software and temporary storage. I will have backup drives for the important files.

Also, I know that Seagate has a 5yr warranty (even with Newegg OEM). Does anyone know what the warranty is on the WD 80gb OEM drive that I listed above in this thread?

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: Salvador

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Salvador
Ok.. Another question then. Would it be beneficial to use a SATA2 hdd for booting instead of a PATA hdd? Is there a big difference?

PATA drives have AAM frequently and are slower. Theoretically the STR of the HD is not maxxed out yet by IDE so they should be the same.

However it's safe to conclude that SATA300 and SATA150 do not have much of a difference. Even my HDTach benches with my 7200.9 and 7200.10 confirm this.

I know people love to ask if SATA makes things faster, but if you want to simply compare IDE vs SATA vs SATA2 you need to compare apples vs apples. It's hard to say when PATA drives are slightly different. A lot of times when I hear people asking these things, it's also because they have 2 generations of drives (i.e. older drive on PATA and considering a new SATA drive). Questions like these should point out models and what not so we have an idea. It's almost like asking if Socket 462 is faster than Socket 939.

Another option is to buy one of these Seagate drives. Is the Seagate any faster than the WD? The only reason why I'm looking at the 80gb drive is because they are cheaper and it's the smallest SATA2 drive with the 16mb cache.

The PATA drive that I'd be comparing to these drives is a Western Digital WD1600JB (160gb) 8mb cache 7200rpm drive. It's older, but it's not that old.

That's insane. You can currently get a 320GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA for $59.00 from outpost. Check hot deals for more info.

 

[Salvador]

I threw in a curve ball. I ended up going with the WD 16mb Cache 250 gb drive instead for $44 after coupon. I didn't go with the Seagate because the last Seagate that I bought (SATA 150) wasn't as quiet as some of the Seagate's that I had in the past. All of the WD drives that I've had have been virtually silent.

The Fry's deal is nice, but with shipping+tax, it kind of kills Fry's deals for me. I didn't feel like paying $27 more for 70 more gb's and retail packaging. That's why I went with the Newegg deal since they are having the $20 off $100 promo.

You know.. I thought that it would be great having a Fry's in the area, but it sucks because it's an hour drive each way for me. It's cheaper to have something shipped than to drive down to Fry's. Because Fry's is in Illinois now, I have to pay sales tax if I have it shipped from Outpost/Fry's. Shipping + tax sucks.

Anyway.. Thanks again for the replies.

 

[LikeLinus]

The Seagate uses Perpendicular though, that's why It's a better value.

You may also look at this:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article246-page3.html

It's louder than the Seagate and Samsung drives it's tested against.

After listening to the smooth idle of the Raptor, the Caviar SE sounds bit coarse. In addition to airflow noise, a midband whine from the drive motor is audible. The tonal nature of the noise makes it seem louder than the 22 dBA/1m we measured. Additionally, our sample had a faint high-pitched metallic squeal that faded in and out seemingly at random. Because we had only one sample. there no way to tell whether the noise is representative of this model and/or the Caviar line as a whole. It could admittedly be specific to our sample.

 

[imported_Baloo]

sata and sata2 both use the same cables and connectors

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus
The Seagate uses Perpendicular though, that's why It's a better value.

You may also look at this:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article246-page3.html

It's louder than the Seagate and Samsung drives it's tested against.

After listening to the smooth idle of the Raptor, the Caviar SE sounds bit coarse. In addition to airflow noise, a midband whine from the drive motor is audible. The tonal nature of the noise makes it seem louder than the 22 dBA/1m we measured. Additionally, our sample had a faint high-pitched metallic squeal that faded in and out seemingly at random. Because we had only one sample. there no way to tell whether the noise is representative of this model and/or the Caviar line as a whole. It could admittedly be specific to our sample.

It's probably a bad drive. I've had one noisy WD drive and a noisy Maxtor. I RMA'd both of them for noise. The Seagate SATA that I have is not really that noisy, but it's not as quiet as the WD's that I have. The Seagate makes noise when seeking. None of my prior Seagate drives do this.

Both drives are probably pretty close. Since I already have a Seagate SATA drive, I thought that I'd give the WD a shot.