Next-Gen Velociraptors

[cbn]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: MichaelD
I fondly remember playing around with 3, 18GB, 15K rpm SCSI drives in RAID0 years back. Man, was that a fast setup! :Q Was it worth the money? Hell no. But watching XP load in about 10 seconds is a feat that you just can't put a price on, you know?

I have a 150GB VRaptor for my OS/Games and a big drive for storage; I feel it's the best of both worlds...these days, anyway.

SSDs are too new, too expensive and too unproven at this point for me. For me, they aren't worth the investment at this time.

I would love to see a 15K Raptor. I'd buy one before I'd buy an SSD, knowing the SSD would spank it. I'd be "sure" the Raptor would be running a year from now. Not so sure about that SSD...degrading performance over time, etc.

What was your previous hard drive for your OS/Games before the 150 GB VRaptor?

It was a 320GB Seagate SATA drive (7200.10 model). I can honestly say that the difference is VERY obvious. Every "test" from OS load times to game level load times to file searches, the VRaptor is a fast little drive. That said, I erase Temp Internet Files/Defrag/etc a couple times a week. I keep it clean so it stays fast.

I can say this much: If you put a VRaptor on any decent system (2GHz CPU/1GB RAM) and do a CLEAN install of the OS, it will fly. You just can't beat rotational speed when it comes to "this system feels fast" measurement.

The HD is by far the slowest component in the system. A few milliseconds here or there (faster RAM/faster bus) you won't see. But when you're talking 33% faster rate (7200 vs. 10k rpm) getting the program data into the system to begin with, THAT you will see. Gotta load from scratch to really appreciate it though.

What about a really big Hard drive (1TB) vs 300 GB "Raptor".

If close to 300 GB of data was placed on each drive which would be faster? (ie, the larger 1TB drive has more of its data on the outside of the platter so even if it spins slower the read/write arm is covering more area)

 

[TidusZ]

Just thought I'd add that I have 105gb free on my 280gb velociraptor, and that's just vista + games, and I have a lot of games not installed since I wanna leave some space on the drive. 150gb wouldn't really be enough for me.

 

[Rubycon]

Turn off system restore in Vista to see that free space jump way up!

 

[TidusZ]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Turn off system restore in Vista to see that free space jump way up!

OMG.. just freed up 41gb. Thanks for the tip. Do you know if there is a way to have system restore on but for it to only save 1-2 points at a time? It's not a totally useless feature, but ya, not worth 41gb, tyvm.

 

[Rubycon]

In XP you could set how much space you wanted to allocate to SR. Not sure how to do it in Vista. It's disabled here. Never liked or trusted SR anyway. If I hose it I can boot off BOOTP and restore last image off Acronis server in minutes.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
In XP you could set how much space you wanted to allocate to SR. Not sure how to do it in Vista. It's disabled here. Never liked or trusted SR anyway. If I hose it I can boot off BOOTP and restore last image off Acronis server in minutes.

As much as I dislike posting anything pro-MS, I actually had SR work the one time I needed it to roll back after some driver install fubar'ed my OS. As you say, I was not expecting SR to save me any time/effort but it took maybe 20s and I was back to functional again. Could have been a fluke, and SR is definitely no substitute for backups, I still make those weekly religiously.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: TidusZ

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Turn off system restore in Vista to see that free space jump way up!

OMG.. just freed up 41gb. Thanks for the tip. Do you know if there is a way to have system restore on but for it to only save 1-2 points at a time? It's not a totally useless feature, but ya, not worth 41gb, tyvm.

You can simply adjust SR reserved space to a lower percentage.

 

[TidusZ]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: TidusZ

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Turn off system restore in Vista to see that free space jump way up!

OMG.. just freed up 41gb. Thanks for the tip. Do you know if there is a way to have system restore on but for it to only save 1-2 points at a time? It's not a totally useless feature, but ya, not worth 41gb, tyvm.

You can simply adjust SR reserved space to a lower percentage.

I looked around for a bit and couldn't find any option for that so if its there its not terribly well placed. I've decided to just go without.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: TidusZ

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: TidusZ

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Turn off system restore in Vista to see that free space jump way up!

OMG.. just freed up 41gb. Thanks for the tip. Do you know if there is a way to have system restore on but for it to only save 1-2 points at a time? It's not a totally useless feature, but ya, not worth 41gb, tyvm.

You can simply adjust SR reserved space to a lower percentage.

I looked around for a bit and couldn't find any option for that so if its there its not terribly well placed. I've decided to just go without.

Like many things in Vista it gets changed, hidden, or removed without up front explanation.

I found this article that explains setting it using CLI.

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I fully agree. Mainly asking to see if you went from a Raptor to a VRaptor. I currently have a 150 GB Raptor but doubt it would be worth upgrading.

I just went from a Raid 0 74gig raptors (one 2.5 years the other 3.5 years old) to a single VRaptor 150 gig. Same performance but without the horrible loud grinding noise.

One of the 74gig ones was the old 8mg cache first gen. It says something when my 5400rpm laptop drive can beat it in read speeds (well the first 74 gig anyways ). In Raid 0 their performance is still really good though, keeping them for game installs volume, or work disk for video encoding.

 

[cm123]

Originally posted by: cm123
Would not be at all surprised to see WD V-Raptor become SSD based...

No remember, however did see WD talk about that once at event and the comments made on one of the review sites, just no remember which site -

WD ENTERS SOLID-STATE DRIVE MARKET

Click HERE

 

[zlejedi]

I don't understand why WD haven't released 15k Raptors yet. Technology is already proven for years all they need is to give it Sata II interface and sell 73GB version for 200-250$ to make it significantly cheaper than Intel M SSD drives.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: zlejedi
Technology is already proven for years

They said that about steam engines also.

 

[conlan]

Originally posted by: cm123

Originally posted by: cm123
Would not be at all surprised to see WD V-Raptor become SSD based...

No remember, however did see WD talk about that once at event and the comments made on one of the review sites, just no remember which site -

WD ENTERS SOLID-STATE DRIVE MARKET

Click HERE

One more reason to wait before going SSD

 

[IBDoomed]

Originally posted by: zlejedi
I don't understand why WD haven't released 15k Raptors yet. Technology is already proven for years all they need is to give it Sata II interface and sell 73GB version for 200-250$ to make it significantly cheaper than Intel M SSD drives.

If it's closer to $250, I'd just pay the $50 more to go with the x25-m, specially if the size is virtually the same.

 

[Blain]

But would you pony up for the X25-E?
In write times, it grabs the "M" by the collar and slaps it across the face until the "M" begins whimpering.

 

[IBDoomed]

Originally posted by: Blain
But would you pony up for the X25-E?
In write times, it grabs the "M" by the collar and slaps it across the face until the "M" begins whimpering.

True but who uses these for storage? I was under the impression that, outside of a server environment, OS/gaming was 90% read 10% write ?

I've been deploying the 80gb x25-m's to my users and everyone exclaims about how fast their new PC's are and most of them are coming from 15k sas drives.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: IBDoomed

Originally posted by: Blain
But would you pony up for the X25-E?
In write times, it grabs the "M" by the collar and slaps it across the face until the "M" begins whimpering.

True but who uses these for storage? I was under the impression that, outside of a server environment, OS/gaming was 90% read 10% write ?

I've been deploying the 80gb x25-m's to my users and everyone exclaims about how fast their new PC's are and most of them are coming from 15k sas drives.

typical desktop use is pretty random write hungry. Do you use an IM program? every time you send a message it appends it to the log, and that initiates a 4k random write.

There are many other scenarios that are just chock full of those random writes, which is why people are complaining on stuttering systems, because crappy ssds simply cannot handle real world usage.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: taltamir


typical desktop use is pretty random write hungry. Do you use an IM program? every time you send a message it appends it to the log, and that initiates a 4k random write.

There are many other scenarios that are just chock full of those random writes, which is why people are complaining on stuttering systems, because crappy ssds simply cannot handle real world usage.

Intelligent caching hosts with 2+ GB fast DDR2/3 cache takes care of that problem.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: taltamir


typical desktop use is pretty random write hungry. Do you use an IM program? every time you send a message it appends it to the log, and that initiates a 4k random write.

There are many other scenarios that are just chock full of those random writes, which is why people are complaining on stuttering systems, because crappy ssds simply cannot handle real world usage.

Intelligent caching hosts with 2+ GB fast DDR2/3 cache takes care of that problem.

wait... caching to the ram? how?
besides which, cache always runs out, cache helps with bursts followed by long inactivity, they don't help with anything sustained.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: taltamir

wait... caching to the ram? how?
besides which, cache always runs out, cache helps with bursts followed by long inactivity, they don't help with anything sustained.

Hence the word "intelligent" management. It helps tremendously with multitasking and allows drives to "catch up" while the OS can still be at unity with command requests, hence no stutter, no wait. (just an empty plate that used to be full of money! )

 

[taltamir]

intelligent management by whom? the os?

 

[Rubycon]

Intelligent hosts always have their own processor, operating system and management independent of the main operating system. Arrays can be managed/updated, etc even if the system is in a non bootable state!

 

[IBDoomed]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: IBDoomed

Originally posted by: Blain
But would you pony up for the X25-E?
In write times, it grabs the "M" by the collar and slaps it across the face until the "M" begins whimpering.

True but who uses these for storage? I was under the impression that, outside of a server environment, OS/gaming was 90% read 10% write ?

I've been deploying the 80gb x25-m's to my users and everyone exclaims about how fast their new PC's are and most of them are coming from 15k sas drives.

typical desktop use is pretty random write hungry. Do you use an IM program? every time you send a message it appends it to the log, and that initiates a 4k random write.

There are many other scenarios that are just chock full of those random writes, which is why people are complaining on stuttering systems, because crappy ssds simply cannot handle real world usage.

That's why I said 90/10. =) Once the pagefile is eliminated (actually I make it 32mb because I've had windows whine about not having one), if the standard load of OS and apps is ~15gb, 10% of that would be 1.5gb, which is a heck of a lot of IM's. I did forget about IM's since we don't allow it. Anyway, email and office cache was the primary motivation of my estimate.

Crappy is also a key word there.

Of the dozens of x25-m drives I've deployed, I had one that crapped out within a week but otherwise no one has mentioned issues with them.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Intelligent hosts always have their own processor, operating system and management independent of the main operating system. Arrays can be managed/updated, etc even if the system is in a non bootable state!

oh, you mean use a quality raid controller but with only one drive... yea you could, heck that controller costs more than the drive though