4x Cheetah 10,000RPM in Raid 0 (how fast?)

[pederson_76]

I searched for a while and couldn't find anything on this so my apologies if it has already been asked.
But just how fast do you think 4 10,000RPM cheetah drives(146GB each) in raid 0 would be? I can get ahold of 4 of these drives for very cheap, thats why I'm wondering.
I am fairly new to Raid but I would think it would blow my current setup of 2x 640gb @ 7200rpm out of the water

 

[Smoblikat]

I searched for a while and couldn't find anything on this so my apologies if it has already been asked.
But just how fast do you think 4 10,000RPM cheetah drives(146GB each) in raid 0 would be? I can get ahold of 4 of these drives for very cheap, thats why I'm wondering.
I am fairly new to Raid but I would think it would blow my current setup of 2x 640gb @ 7200rpm out of the water

When my 10K velociraptors were working one of them competed with my dual 640's RAID0. Two of them was overkill, 4 is a MASSACURE.

 

[janas19]

When my 10K velociraptors were working one of them competed with my dual 640's RAID0. Two of them was overkill, 4 is a MASSACURE.

Hell yeah.

Can you get the 4, put 2 in Raid, and sell off the other two?

 

[pederson_76]

Ha, I could.
Why, you interested? lol

 

[janas19]

Lol naw, just trying to make a helpful suggestion

 

[Don Karnage]

I always wanted a 15K cheetah

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I still have my Ultra 320 card and 15k drives

 

[Coup27]

I think some more relevant questions would be:

1) Do you need 600GB of very fast storage?

2) How much are they? You maybe better off with a decent SSD + regular HDD for storage.

My computer is right next to me and I certainly wouldn't want to listen to 4 Cheetah's all day long.

 

[exdeath]

Very very fast. Raptor or Cheetah are the fastest things you can get besides SSD.

Ive run Cheetah X15/Raptor RAID0 exclusively since the first generation 18GB Cheetahs in the late 90s all the way until SSDs.. It was almost like having SSD over a decade before SSD came out.

Sequential will probably be around 350-400 MB/sec with 4 150GB class drives, but it's the 3ms seek time and 10k-15k rotational latencey that really counts. Along with powerful servos that sound like ripping burlap doing random seeks without hesitation.

 

[exdeath]

My computer is right next to me and I certainly wouldn't want to listen to 4 Cheetah's all day long.

But its such a beautiful sound. Especially listening to them spin down for the 10 mins following a shutdown. And the loud running on cereal sound the servos make when completing a defrag in less than 60 seconds Sometimes I swear my computer was swaying from the momentum of those armatures flying around so hard.

 

[pederson_76]

haha, no sound doesn't bother me. i can get 4 of them for $60.

 

[Coup27]

Well you're not going to get an SSD for that money. exdeath you can see from my rig I like a quiet but generally powerful rig. I couldn't imagine those 4 beasts in it lol

 

[exdeath]

FWIW I've never had a Raptor or Cheetah die on me. The last dino drives to be evicted from my house were a set of Raptors over 7 years old, and are probably the worst abused (WoW, running 24 7, etc) and still running like new. In fact it still has the original XP install from when I built it, and still boots to desktop in about 8 seconds flat with the drives going dead silent idle the moment the taskbar pops up.

 

[kbp]

Well.... If you get them post some numbers!!

 

[exdeath]

What card are you using? If these come with a card, keep in mind that a PCI card is limited to 133 MB/sec and even a 64 bit PCI card is going to be limited to 266 MB/sec. I doubt you have a 64 bit PCI slot let alone a 66 MHz 64 bit PCI slot to fully make use of 4 drives in RAID0, and with U320 LVD being depreciated for SAS I'm not sure if you can even get a PCI Express U320 RAID adapter.

 

[pederson_76]

Yeah I think I'm gonna go for it. I searched on google earlier and couldn't find numbers anywhere on this. It should be impressive I would think.

 

[exdeath]

Yeah I think I'm gonna go for it. I searched on google earlier and couldn't find numbers anywhere on this. It should be impressive I would think.

Given the interface limitation I just spelled out for you, you're better off getting a single SATA 6G SSD. You won't be able to see the full 350+ MB/sec of 4 68 pin SCSI devices without a 64 bit 66 MHz PCI slot. I don't think you can get a PCIe card that is SCSI unless it's SAS?

If all you have is a 32 bit PCI slot for an adapter for these, you'll be capped at < 133 MB/sec (more like 120 MB/sec in the real world). You might as well just get any old 500-750 GB capacity SATA drive and have the same speed and not deal with the headaches of LVD SCSI.

 

[pederson_76]

Given the interface limitation I just spelled out for you, you're better off getting a single SATA 6G SSD. You won't be able to see the full 350+ MB/sec of 4 68 pin SCSI devices without a 64 bit 66 MHz PCI slot. I don't think you can get a PCIe card that is SCSI unless it's SAS?

Ok, try not to laugh when I say this. I am using the onboard motherboard controller:thumbs down:

Ouch here it comes. ha

 

[exdeath]

Ok, try not to laugh when I say this. I am using the onboard motherboard controller:thumbs down:

Ouch here it comes. ha

Onboard U320? How is it connected? If it's hanging off the standard PCI chain forget it. If it's got a dedicated PCI-X connection to the chipset or is a SCSI controller sitting right on the main bus (HyperTransport or something for example) then you are good to go

Onboard controllers can be superior if they are done right; they can sit right on the 20+ GB/sec mainboard/chipset back bone with no intermediate bus like PCI in the way.

For example, on an old nForce 4 board, 4 Raptors RAID 0 on the Marvell ports = 120 MB/sec capped by the PCI connection to the Marvell chip. Same 4 Raptors on the nForce 4 SATA ports = 350+ MB/sec with the controller sitting right on the Hyper Transport bus in the Northbridge.

 

[pederson_76]

To be honest, I am really not sure what you mean. I am not a raid expert by any means. I am still using an Asus M4A78-E
Any ideas?

 

[exdeath]

That board doesn't have a SCSI controller. Those drives are 68 pin SCSI, not SATA or PATA/IDE. You would have no way to hook them up.

Here is what is needed for SCSI RAID for the drives in question:

You likely won't be able to find a PCI Express card with U320 connectors (they have gone SAS by the time of PCI Express). You can get a used card like the Mylex 352 above for < $50. But you will be limited to 120 MB/sec in a 32 bit PCI slot. If you can even find a PCI Express U320 LVD 68 pin card it's probably going to cost another $400 and be a niche product for transitioning legacy stuff to new stuff (eg: companies that just want to keep their old data drives in their new servers, etc).

Since you will need to spend more on the adapter, just get an SSD, faster anyway.

 

[pederson_76]

Ha, well that shows you how much I know about those drives.
Are there drives with 10,000rpm+ that are sata? I thought I saw a raptor like that earlier...
I wish I could get an SSD. They are just too expensive for me at the moment.

 

[exdeath]

Ha, well that shows you how much I know about those drives.
Are there drives with 10,000rpm+ that are sata? I thought I saw a raptor like that earlier...

Raptors are essentially Cheetahs but with a SATA interface.

When running a RAID0 with onboard SATA the only concern is how the chip controlling the 4 ports is connected. Often the Marvell or Silicon Image controller used to provide the additional ports is only connected by PCI and you have 600-1200 MB/sec worth of 4 x SATA I/II ports crippled by a total 133 MB/sec connection to the entire controller chip

A single Raptor if you've never used one will be as night and day over a regular hard drive as a SSD is over a HDD. It's more about that 3 ms seek time and 2.5" platter at 10k RPM than it is about MB/sec.

 

[pederson_76]

Ok, now I'm not sure what I want to do. I currently have 2x 640gb @ 7200rpm in raid 0. Is there a way to tell how the chip is controlling them? I will quick run a read/write test with hdtune and give you some numbers.

 

[lord_emperor]

haha, no sound doesn't bother me. i can get 4 of them for $60.

Private deal? Otherways share the details please!