PATA: 5400 vs 7200... 2mb vs 8mb Opinion Wanted!

[lordroy]

I am planning on upgrading the 8 hard drives I have in my current server...

They are all 40G WD 5400 2mb drives...

I have not had any problems with them, have run for 4+ years without a single one dying on me.

Now, I am going to want something in the neighborhood of 250g drives...

These are just files, mostly movies(700mb), mp3s(5mb), and various other data that I need to store...

Considering that most of the time they will just be sitting there, only 2-3 users on the network, does it matter what speeds and or cache I have on them? I have been doing well with what I have, but I NEED MORE SPACE!

Advice and Opinion wanted.... thanx

-=R=-

[MJCfromCT]

Can you even buy 5400RPM drives anymore?

7200RPM is the de-facto standard nowadays, along with 8mb cache drives. IMO, for any sort of file storage, a 7200RPM 8mb cache drive should be the baseline for your options. You may want to go up to 16mb cache, but that might not be much of an improvement for the increase in price.

You can get 250GB 7200RPM 8MB cache drives for <$100 a piece...like I said, this is probably your best bet if you are on a budget.

[lordroy]

actually 5400 2mb drives are not as scarce as you might think, they run cool and quiet, and are usually cheap to buy and replace.

ill start looking around for the comparison...

-=R=-

[MJCfromCT]

I could see 5400RPM drives having the advantage over 7200RPM drives when it comes to heat, but in terms of noise, there are many 7200RPM drives that are quite quiet.

A link you might be interested in:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144392

A Western Digital 320GB PATA drive, 7200RPM, 8MB cache. IMO a pretty "standard" drive, for $95.

[lordroy]

Very tempting...

I guess I have to make a decision in the next month or so...

Hard to keep moving stuff around...

But my original questions still stand...

Does 5400/2mb 7200/8mb drive speed/cache really matter for static drives that are accessed very little over time... really matter?

I mean, I understand if you have a game machine, which, I use what I have below as that, you need speed and cache...

But for just holding files with occasional drive access... speed is more bottlenecked by the 10/100 nic right?

-=R=-

[MJCfromCT]

For a setup like you will be having, I think it will be a tough balance between speed and reliability. 5400 RPM drives, like you said, run quite cool, and this is one of the things that has made them so reliable (4 years and no failures, right?). However, with a 7200 RPM drive, although you will get increased heat, improved airflow could help offset this problem.

In terms of real-world data transfer rates of 7200RPM drives, check out this link:

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/250_3.html

If we take an average of the max and min rates, we are looking at speeds around 55 MB/s. On a 100mbit connection, you can get a max theoretical of 12.5 MB/s (if my math is correct), so real world transfer rates over a 100mbit connection would be even less than this.

I guess this says that over a 100mbit connection you really won't take advantage of the transfer rates of a 7200RPM drive. The increase in cache to 8MB might help you fetch the data quicker, but you'd still be limited by the network connection.

[drizzt81]

Does 5400/2mb 7200/8mb drive speed/cache really matter for static drives that are accessed very little over time... really matter?

But for just holding files with occasional drive access... speed is more bottlenecked by the 10/100 nic right?

-=R=-

exactly. Unless you are running GbE, 'recent' 5400 rpm drives should easily saturate the network connection.

[tdg]

I'd really go 7200 RPM drives, 8 MB cache as that is the mainstream spec, and the competition here keeps the prices low. A couple years ago I would have recommended 5400 RPM drives before the use of fluid bearings was big, as the 5400 RPM would cut the wear down on the old style ball bearings used. But nowadays the increased reliability and better materials I think kind of outweighs anything gained by a low RPM drive. 7200 RPM, 8 MB is the norm here now.

Also like previously said if you run on a 100 Mbit network that will be your bottleneck no matter what. My main fileserver has 14x 36 GB 10K SCSI drives in a large array, pretty damn fast locally, but my 100 Mbit network slows it down to ~ 9 MB/sec :(

[lordroy]

I guess the Western Digital 320GB PATA drive, 7200RPM, 8MB cache might be my answer then.

With the advance of technology, I just hope that it these 320s will run as long as my 40s have...

I cannot imagine having 320x8 drives in my old A7V133 box I use for fileserver...

carry the one... hmmm 2.5+ TB ... ill never fill all that up...


(ya right, said that with the 40x8)

-=R=-

[-=Antimatter=-]

I have one of those WD 320 8mb PATAs in an external enclosure, and it's pretty darn near silent. The price/size point these days is right around 300GB, hard to beat 320 for $95.

[boucher91]

I can tell on my network that the better the drives are the more responsive the other pc,s are connecting to it...
use many various drives ,some scuzzy, ata 3.0 ,ata 100/133....

[Madwand]

I sounds to me that the OP is saying that performance doesn't really matter to him, yet he's trying to come to terms with published drive specs for a purchase decision. In this case, of course, performance doesn't really matter.

But in cases where there is a lurking suspicion or opportunity to take advantage of greater performance, I'd point out that the key bottleneck here -- 100 Mb/s networking, is also easily improved. An inexpensive GbE switch and add-on GbE NICs, should they even be needed, will break the 10 MB/s or so bottleneck, and typically raise the performance 2x-3x to around 30 MB/s.

So... when network file transfer speeds actually matter, go gigabit first, and then worry about the drives if at all.

delta percent (10 MB/s, 30 MB/s) = 200 %
delta percent (30 MB/s, 40 MB/s) = 33 %
delta percent (30 MB/s, 50 MB/s) = 67 %

etc...

The biggest leap is the 1st one, going from 100 Mb/s "fast" ethernet to gigabit.

[drizzt81]

If performance is not a big issue, I would consider looking for the drives with the longest warranty, i.e. Seagate or Maxtor Maxlines or WD RE.

Depending on whether or not the drives are going to be RAID-ed the WD5000KS may be a smart investment thanks to its low power consumption and quietness, though it only comes with a 3yr warranty.

Another issue to consider may be idle power consumption: http://www.storagereview.com/comparison.html
The less power consumed, the less heat produced, which may translate into a longer lifetime. Additionally, it may positively affect your electric bill.

[RavenD]

Does 5400/2mb 7200/8mb drive speed/cache really matter for static drives that are accessed very little over time... really matter?

I mean, I understand if you have a game machine, which, I use what I have below as that, you need speed and cache...

But for just holding files with occasional drive access... speed is more bottlenecked by the 10/100 nic right?

-=R=-
Depends on how many users you're going to have accessing your file server at once. If its more than one, the 5400/2mb drives would choke your transfer rates very quickly.

[Madwand]

Depends on how many users you're going to have accessing your file server at once. If its more than one, the 5400/2mb drives would choke your transfer rates very quickly.

Not if you made everyone line up and access the same data in turns :)

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1080622