Fastest HD system for desktop?

[omniphil]

Hello, its time to upgrade my HD system in my home machine, everything else is lightyears ahead, the HD technology still makes my system chugs as the rest of the system is always waiting for it.

Current system is a athlon 64 3000+, msi mainboard, x800 graphics, 1 gig of ram, and ibm deskstar 80gb ide hd (7200 rpm)

My question is, what the fastest hd/controler I can put in my system my maximize performance for mostly for reading data? Speed is the main focus, I have a server at home and really dont need space on my personal computer, so an 80gig drive would be plenty of space.

I have read alot about raid 0 and it would seem that with read test its faster to just have one drive, writing data is where the performance seem to pick up with raid 0, So I was thinking of just 1 WD raptor 10k rpm 74gb sata hd. But i'm also wondering if there are any good caching controllers out there for sata that might have dimms slots or something like that, and would that even help? Would a hardware raid 0 do any better?

Is scsi a cost effective option for desktops? I know they have some 15k rpm drives, but wondering how scsi would impact a single use application, IE this is not a server...

Again, I'm looking mainly for read performance, I am a gamer and this is what this machine gets used mostly for...

What would you do?

 

[CalvinHobbes]

http://www.storagereview.com

 

[Woodie]

On a value level, you can't justify SCSI over SATA. (Mind you, I have a 10K SCSI as my boot drive, and a 7200 SATA as my Data drive).

Yes, a 15K scsi will match or beat a 10K SATA, but not by much for the single user. Since speed is of such importance, go w/ the pair of 10K SATA drives in RAID 0. I don't know that you'll actually notice much difference over the non-RAID single drive, but you'll have the comforting knowledge that it's there.

Reminder: RAID 0 is NOT redundant! If either drive dies, then you whole system is dead.

HDTach results:
Seagate ST318404LW 0002 18.4GB SCSI -- Avg Read: 32.0 MB/s
Maxtor 6 Y120M0 YAR5 122.9GB SATA -- Avg Read: 48.8 MB/s

 

[Sqube]

Woodie, if all he's looking for is speed, why would you suggest RAID 1 over RAID 0?

 

[Woodie]

Oops...Sqube is correct. I'll edit.

Note though, RAID 0 is not redundant.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: omniphil
Fastest HD system for desktop?
Is scsi a cost effective option for desktops?
What would you do?

1. 15k rpm SCSI
2. No
3. A 74GB Raptor

 

[CalvinHobbes]

I just got a raptor for my new game system. It is fast but I don't know how fast exactly. I'd need to run some benchmarks. Windows XP loads in about 10 seconds.

 

[JBT]

The Raptors are fast drives. Actually pretty comparable to SCSI HDD's in a single user environment. My 74GB Raptor is noticibly faster than my 200 GB Seagate 7200.7 If you are on a budget go for a Raptor or a newer 7200 RPM drive like the Seagate 7200.8 or Maxtor Maxline III 16MB cache drives.

RAID 0 is pretty much a waste and un noticible for desktops unless you do alot of video work.

 

[jose]

1. 15k rpm scsi
2. yes, can't stand to work on an ide machine
3. 15k Maxtor Atlas 36g or 73g

Regards,
Jose

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: omniphil
Fastest HD system for desktop?
Is scsi a cost effective option for desktops?
What would you do?

1. 15k rpm SCSI
2. No
3. A 74GB Raptor

:thumbsup:

Also, for very read-heavy I/O loads with multiple I/Os running in parallel (such as a webserver), RAID1 is faster than RAID0. RAID1 is the best type of RAID for read-only loads, since you can service X reads in parallel with an X-disk RAID1. The problem is that you can only service 1 write at a time (and, in fact, it's worse than that, since you have to wait for every disk to do the write before you can continue doing anything else). This is why RAID10/01 and RAID5 are more popular redundant storage options.

 

[omniphil]

What about adding a promise 256mb sata cache controler on top of the 1 raptor drive? You think it will make any difference?

 

[bob4432]

hit the search button and you will see this has been argued numerous times. what you need is a u320 68pin 15k 36GB drive from newegg ~$200, a lsiu160 u160 scsi card - ~$35 from newegg and a u320 scsi cable with terminator - these will be from $10 on ebay to $50 for some of the longer ones.

woodie - your scores are a little slow for the scsi drive, without looking it up i am assuming it is an oler drive. the newer generations scsi drives are faster. my fujitsu 10k rpm 36gb is 58MB/s while my next fastet drive - a ibm/hitache deathstar 60gb is 48MB/s with the scsi seek time being notieably faster.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: bob4432
hit the search button and you will see this has been argued numerous times. what you need is a u320 68pin 15k 36GB drive from newegg ~$200, a lsiu160 u160 scsi card - ~$35 from newegg and a u320 scsi cable with terminator - these will be from $10 on ebay to $50 for some of the longer ones.

woodie - your scores are a little slow for the scsi drive, without looking it up i am assuming it is an oler drive. the newer generations scsi drives are faster. my fujitsu 10k rpm 36gb is 58MB/s while my next fastet drive - a ibm/hitache deathstar 60gb is 48MB/s with the scsi seek time being notieably faster.

That's the thing, though -- you can get a 74GB Raptor for less than the cost of a 36GB 15KRPM SCSI drive. And unless you get the VERY latest generation of 15KRPM SCSI, the second-gen Raptor is faster. Check out Storagereview's raptor benchmarks -- it beat all the existing SCSI drives (at its release) at desktop tasks, and it wasn't until the new SCSI drives came out that they caught up.

 

[imported_bushman]

have you read up on sata2/sas? if you're willing to wait , a pair of 80gb 8mb cache 7200 rpm sata's should be fairly fast until it comes. hot deals section shows some 200+ gb sata's for like $70. if cost is not an issue go for the 74gb raptors. apparently, they're slightly faster than 36's. these in raid 0 will rip compared to your ide. just 1 raptor alone will show a huge difference.

 

[omniphil]

Originally posted by: bushman
have you read up on sata2/sas? if you're willing to wait , a pair of 80gb 8mb cache 7200 rpm sata's should be fairly fast until it comes. hot deals section shows some 200+ gb sata's for like $70. if cost is not an issue go for the 74gb raptors. apparently, they're slightly faster than 36's. these in raid 0 will rip compared to your ide. just 1 raptor alone will show a huge difference.

Well, I guess thats my question, the raptor seems like the way to go, but will 2 in raid 0 actually be faster?

 

[Gunnman]

This is easy!

for SCSI U320 Adaptec 2200S Dual Channel should take care of you.

for SATA RAIDCore controller is the only way to go. Benches showed to be faster that U320 SCSI. (of course I need to see it to beleive it)

I love my SCSI Solution, i did the research before dropping the $1600

 

[imported_bushman]

raid 0 faster. can't say exactly how much, but if you want, do a google search for a sandra test comparing raid 0 to just one hdd. might help

 

[Gunnman]

Here is a copy paste from other my responce to this question!


RAID-0 with 2 drives on a crappy motherboard controller with no cache memory is a waste. I agree.

You need more than 2 spindles to get a real advantage and a controller with some cache onboard to cache the RAID.

For SATA you need a 3ware or raidcore controller and 4 drives in RAID-0 will rule.

I have an Adaptec U320 2200S (512M Cache) Dual Channel RAID with 4xU320 drives at 15Krpm 16M cache in a RAID-0

Why is RAID-0 better? I'll tell you. With a good controller RAID-0 rules ass because it does not have to sync any mirrors, hince the increase in speed going from RAID-5 (who cares if it is slightly cached, no speed gain and RAID-5 does perity checking which slows her down.) Bench it yourself and you will see the same.

RAID-0 rules for the enthusiests out there. If your poor? Your SOL

 

[piasabird]

You need a TV card with Hardware Encoding.

I think EVGA makes a nice card with dual TV Tuners.

EVGA is Nvidia Chipset card.

ATI may have a card with HD Encoding as well.

Some of these cards only have drivers for Win MCE Multimedia Center Edition OS, so be heedful of the fine print.

Oops this may be the wrong subject.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Gunnman
This is easy!

for SCSI U320 Adaptec 2200S Dual Channel should take care of you.

for SATA RAIDCore controller is the only way to go. Benches showed to be faster that U320 SCSI. (of course I need to see it to beleive it)

I love my SCSI Solution, i did the research before dropping the $1600

sata (74gb raptor) striping raid faster than is faster than u320 scsi raid - new gen 15krpm? i would like to see the info on that.

 

[Gunnman]

Check this out.

http://www20.tomshardware.com/storage/20031114/

Also I bought my U320 2 years ago. Getting ready for the new SATA drive technololgy. I hear it runs at 1.5GBps

 

[JonnyBlaze]

solid state is the way to go

JBlaze

 

[Gunnman]

All I want to know is how much and how soon can i get one!!!

OK found it Storageflex S60 $6000.00