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View Full Version : 640GB WD6400AAKS vs 500GB ST3500320AS

Seraphic
03-04-2008, 01:22 AM
Hi,

I'm looking to build a near 2TB raid0 array for a video workstation. However, which of the below two drives would have better performance and faster write times?

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218 - $129.99 each

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288 - $119.99 each

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Western Digital Caviar SE16

Pro: Two 320GB platters
Pro: 640GB Per Drive (596GB after format)
Pro: Only need to buy three drives to equal 1,788GB ($389.97 Total)

Con: 16MB Cache
Con: Three year warranty

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Seagate Barracuda 7200.11

Pro: 32MB Cache
Pro: Five year warranty
Pro: 500GB Per Drive (466GB after format)

Con: Firmware issue with 7200.11 drive has been going on for some time
Con: Need to buy four drives to equal 1,864GB ($479.96 Total)

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As you can see, both drives have pros and cons, but would using three drives vs four lower the speed of the overall raid? If you ask me, as of now, it would seem the better bet is to go with the Western Digital drive. As the price is almost $100 less for near the same amount of space for one and there doesn't seem to be any firmware issues.

Can anyone offer some thoughts?

Thanks
Sexual Chocolate
03-04-2008, 09:10 AM
The Samsung F1 750GB drives are $139 at the egg right now. Im running 8 of them w/o a single issue, in fact they have been great. I plan to pick up 2 more in the near future.

They have the 32MB cache you are looking for, great speed (check the Toms hardware review) and the only reported issue was with a Nvidia chipset and I believe thats been worked out.
Blazestorm
03-04-2008, 12:18 PM
I'm curious as to why you want a Raid0 configuration so big... ?

I edit on a machine with 2 raptors, but have all my footage and project files stored on a Raid5 array shared across the network... which actually loads quicker than my old 500 gig directly attached to this computer.
Seraphic
03-04-2008, 01:09 PM
The Samsung F1 750GB drives are $139 at the egg right now. Im running 8 of them w/o a single issue, in fact they have been great. I plan to pick up 2 more in the near future.

They have the 32MB cache you are looking for, great speed (check the Toms hardware review) and the only reported issue was with a Nvidia chipset and I believe thats been worked out.

Don't know that much about the Samsung drives. What kind of write speeds are you getting with them? Are you using them in any kind of raid?

I'm curious as to why you want a Raid0 configuration so big... ?

I edit on a machine with 2 raptors, but have all my footage and project files stored on a Raid5 array shared across the network... which actually loads quicker than my old 500 gig directly attached to this computer.

The main reason is that a larger amount of space gives me room to capture/edit several HD uncompressed videos at once.
Blazestorm
03-04-2008, 01:40 PM
Don't know that much about the Samsung drives. What kind of write speeds are you getting with them? Are you using them in any kind of raid?



The main reason is that a larger amount of space gives me room to capture/edit several HD uncompressed videos at once.

HDV is only 13gigs an hour, I captured it to my raptors, and transferred to raid5... then captured more as it was transferring... you have to capture in real-time anyways... so you have an hour to transfer 13 gigs... :D

Even then Raid0 should never be used for important stuff imo.

But if you're set on it, I'd go with 3 640 drives... 2 x 320 platters each... = :D
Sexual Chocolate
03-04-2008, 01:50 PM
Don't know that much about the Samsung drives. What kind of write speeds are you getting with them? Are you using them in any kind of raid?


Im using them in a RAID6 config so my write speeds are lower than a RAID0. I think you would be hard pressed to find a better deal than the Samsungs right now.

Goodluck
pc299
03-06-2008, 09:33 PM
The one issue with the WD drives is TLER... on non-RE/RE2 drives TLER is off, which means they can drop out of RAID arrays while doing extended error recovery. If you get the WD drives, make sure to find the WDTLER utility... a little googling should find it easily.

I've got a few servers with AAKS drives and had issues with drives dropping out until I enabled TLER, and now everything's working great.
Benjammer
04-26-2008, 10:08 PM
Do you know if the WDTLER utility will work on the 640GB WD drive?
I'm guessing it should.
knob
04-27-2008, 01:16 AM
WD 6400.

Just ran a quick (sandra) file system test on the WD for you: ~108MB/s average sustained write.

Price dropped on the egg -- right now $110 (free shipping).