andrerocha09
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does anyone here have one, how are they for use with vista 64bit?
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15k rpm. scsi drive! good/bad?
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You've got to be more specific than that. They've been making 15k scsi drives for quite a few years now and a 15k scsi drive fro 7 years ago won't come close to the performance of a 10k Raptor. In fact last I checked the general concensus was to go with either the Velociraptor or an Intel X25 if you are looking for the fastest workstation drive setup without having to spend $800+ on a RAID card and a new 15k Cheetah for a marginal performance boost above either of those drives.
DeathFromBelow
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I've got three older 73 GB 15,000 RPM Cheetahs. I have Vista on a 64 GB SSD, I use the SCSI disks for applications and video editing scratch space.
Get a velociraptor or a couple 640 GB Western Digital AAKS or AALS drives. You'll get similar performance at a fraction of the price. There aren't enough performance benefits to justify the cost of SCSI hardware for consumer users.
Get a velociraptor or a couple 640 GB Western Digital AAKS or AALS drives. You'll get similar performance at a fraction of the price. There aren't enough performance benefits to justify the cost of SCSI hardware for consumer users.
Phoenix '97
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It's more important if the SCSI controller you're using is compatible with Vista 64.
I've had a nice setup with 3 15K drives and a 10K, with applications spread out so that any two loading at the same time would be on different drives. The drives, having FDB motors, were okay in terms of volume when idle, but the seeks were kind of loud. The machine was very quick when loading applications, though.
If you look on eBay you might be able to find a 15K 36GB drive, used for maybe $30, however you'll need a SCSI controller, plus an 80 to 68 pin adapter if the drive has an 80 pin connector, and cable.
I've had a nice setup with 3 15K drives and a 10K, with applications spread out so that any two loading at the same time would be on different drives. The drives, having FDB motors, were okay in terms of volume when idle, but the seeks were kind of loud. The machine was very quick when loading applications, though.
If you look on eBay you might be able to find a 15K 36GB drive, used for maybe $30, however you'll need a SCSI controller, plus an 80 to 68 pin adapter if the drive has an 80 pin connector, and cable.
andrerocha09
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hmm thanks for reply. i was thinking on the newer drives like the 147gb Fujitsu:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822116064
benchs show that even the velociraptor is faster than a ssd, so i was thinking, what about a 15k rpm drive!?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822116064
benchs show that even the velociraptor is faster than a ssd, so i was thinking, what about a 15k rpm drive!?
Velociraptor is faster than that drive in terms of read/write speeds. No one should be putting money into anything SCSI these days honestly. The 600gb 15k SAS drives are faster, but I would stick with a Velociraptor for desktop usage. Also, the Velociraptor is only faster than certain SSDs. Go look into the Intel ones. They are about 2x as fast in terms of read speeds (and lets not forget 100x faster access times).
I was actually referring to the Cheetah 15K.7s since the Savvios haven't hit that capacity. To be honest, if you need lower access times than read/write speeds (referring to hard drives, not SSDs here), you would probably be adding drives to your workstation/server. In normal desktop usage, higher read/write speeds help more than lower access times.
147GB Savvio 15K.2s are avaialbe ... ST9146752SS
Understood ... I've been using a RAID 10 Array of Savvio 10k drives, since their release, for tasks that benefit from I/Ops ... my reply was actually directed to the OP in support of yours ...
As you know the Savvio 15K.2 will shread the VelociRaptor in I/Ops benchmarks ... hence their read/write performace doesn't degrade as rapidly as VelociRaptor when you begin to load them with mulitple tasks ... but thats not a normal desktop usage pattern.
I meant 600gb.
Yeah, we use them in pretty much all of our servers at work.Understood ... I've been using a RAID 10 Array of Savvio 10k drives, since their release, for tasks that benefit from I/Ops ... my reply was actually directed to the OP in support of yours ...
As you know the Savvio 15K.2 will shread the VelociRaptor in I/Ops benchmarks ... hence their read/write performace doesn't degrade as rapidly as VelociRaptor when you begin to load them with mulitple tasks ... but thats not a normal desktop usage pattern.
Ah ... missed that reference ... guess its getting late ... I've only seen press releases for the 15K.7s at this point ... looking forward to a good review.
$800 for an SAS adapter? Lol, this isn't 2001, maybe it would cost that much if you were having it shipped direct from Taiwan. Everybody else can get one for 50 bucks:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Promise-FastTra...286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:15|39:1|240:1318
And for the drive itself, you will pay no more than a raptor, and a hell of a lot less than high end SSD. Considering that a Cheetah beats out even the SSD's on Tom's HD Charts, how could that possibly not be a worthwhile investment for an enthusiast?
SCSI ftw. I don't even know why anybody brings up SATA in a discussion about max performance. Old habits die hard, I guess. People love their obsolete Raptors.
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DeathFromBelow
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A 300 GB Velociraptor costs $229 from the egg (with free shipping at the moment, btw), gets great single user performance, and doesn't require a special controller. I don't think the extra complexity and cost for SCSI/SAS is worth it for most typical users. Sure, the V-raptor isn't as fast, but I don't think its noticeably slower in most typical user situations either.
You may have a point, but what's "noticeable" to enthusiasts is not the same as what's "noticeable" to the general public. The performance margin between the Raptor and Cheetah is at least as large as the margins between many other high end components, such as RAM, GPU's, and processors. It is not uncommon to find people arguing and taking sides over very small differences.
What's all this talk about "extra complexity"? On a board where people build their own rigs from scratch, configure RAID, install water and Peltier cooling, overclock voltages and custom build their cases. Suddenly you've forgotten how to install a PCI-E add-on card or what, lol?
There is something in people's psychology which makes them disinclined to the notion of adopting SCSI for non-enterprise tasks. It is that simple. The attitude is inherently irrational, as a factual, point-by-point study of the issue reveals. People are leery of SCSI and try to come up with any excuse to justify their bias. I've searched the net and every thread made on this issue going back to 2003 is the same.
Someone realizes that the "vaunted raptor" isn't the end-all, be-all of performance in the HDD class, and proposes a comparison between high end SATA and high end SCSI. Then the detractors jump in and start making all sorts of excuses and start whining about all sorts of things, none of which really hold up to scrutiny. It's quite funny to see this "group think" mentality in action. Personally, I'd love to see people snap out of their trances and tear down the invisible barrier which prevents them from seeing SCSI for what it truly is: The bleeding edge of performance in data storage, for all tasks and purposes - not, contrary to the whiners, "just for servers".
It is no different than triple channel DDR, quad core CPU's, or triple SLI. All of the above are readily accepted by enthusiasts. But mention getting an SAS controller for your gaming rig and it's as if a ghost entered the room.
To put it perspective, going the SCSI route with storage doesn't even require the same time or financial investment as water cooling or triple SLI, both of which are common place among high end users.
So snap out of it, eh? Tear down that wall!
P.S.
$230 for Raptor at the egg? Hmm, not Bad.
But how about $12 shipped for a Cheetah at the bay?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-HP-Chee...286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:15|39:1|240:1318
Add a controller for 25 bucks and you're good to go:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ADAPTEC-ASR-212...286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:15|39:1|240:1318
Now, are there any newbs who still want to complain about the price of SCSI?
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DeathFromBelow
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No, for game load times and other common single user tasks its comparable to latency on a killer NIC vs a decent onboard NIC.
Those people are stupid.
PCI-E has made things easier, but I've got expensive PCI-X gear with limited compatibility. In general I'd rather not have to use add-on controller cards, especially when the performance difference is minimal.
P.S.
$230 for Raptor at the egg? Hmm, not Bad.
But how about $12 shipped for a Cheetah at the bay?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-HP-Chee...286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:15|39:1|240:1318
Add a controller for 25 bucks and you're good to go:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ADAPTEC-ASR-212...286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:15|39:1|240:1318
Now, are there any newbs who still want to complain about the price of SCSI?
Wow, a whole 18 GB... great... I could almost fit a couple games on there.
You'll get good access times, but actual transfer speeds are going to suck with that drive.You'll also need the SCSI cable.
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Do you actually have any idea of how fast those drives are?P.S.
$230 for Raptor at the egg? Hmm, not Bad.
But how about $12 shipped for a Cheetah at the bay?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-HP-Chee...286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:15|39:1|240:1318
Add a controller for 25 bucks and you're good to go:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ADAPTEC-ASR-212...286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:15|39:1|240:1318
Now, are there any newbs who still want to complain about the price of SCSI?
If you're preaching on how great SCSI is, at least do some research. SCSI is not for desktops. You can get FC drives on eBay for nothing too...doesn't mean they are any bloody good. SCSI is dead anyway (replaced with SAS). Desktop usage is mainly about read speeds, so, unless you spend a lot on very high end SAS drives (and a controller card for it), consumer level drives will beat them out in that regard. Having used both the 147gb SAS drives and Velociraptors, the Velociraptors were considerably faster (if you want lower access times, go get a SSD). Ancient SCSI drives are dirt cheap for a reason you know...
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First off that is an ancient model of 15k Cheetah if it is still being offered in an 18GB size. Second that drive wouldn't even come close to the performance of a Raptor, SSD, or Modern SCSI/SAS drive. That would be like buying a 36GB Raptor or worse and saying it was performance competitive with the 300GB Raptor just because they spin at the same speed. Second, yes you are looking at around $800 for a SCSI RAID array, but 'someone' couldn't be bothered to actually read my prior post past the words "SCSI" before replying. For a good SAS controller you are looking at the same price for a good SATA RAID controller which is easily $200-300 plus at least that again for a pair of 15k drives for your array. The workstation model Fujitsu's were pretty good last I looked and actually I wasn't contending that they wouldn't be faster. Logic would follow that a modern (read not a 15k SAS drive off ebay that is 5 years old) SCSI/SAS drive that is tuned for workstation usage patterns will beat a Raptors seek times and sustained read/write by a marginal amount. The reason you get 15k SAS is for high IOPS performance and random seek which is why we still use them in performance. The reason you get a Raptor is for high workstation performance. The lastest gen Raptor shares the same parts as a WD Enterprise 10k SAS drive with a sata interface onboard and tuned for workstation usage patterns, so the line is pretty blurred between SCSI/SAS and SATA these days.
What I would question is if the substantially higher cost for the top end 15k drives that would actually show a notable speed difference is worthwhile when compared to the price of getting one or more Intel SSDs or Velociraptors. On the IOPS performance of 15k SAS vs. SSDs... yeah no comparison there an Intel SSD will bury even a 15k drive for IOPS, and Intel SSD can push 800+ IOPS compared to 150-175 for a top end 15k SAS drive, you have mechanical limits here.
What I would question is if the substantially higher cost for the top end 15k drives that would actually show a notable speed difference is worthwhile when compared to the price of getting one or more Intel SSDs or Velociraptors. On the IOPS performance of 15k SAS vs. SSDs... yeah no comparison there an Intel SSD will bury even a 15k drive for IOPS, and Intel SSD can push 800+ IOPS compared to 150-175 for a top end 15k SAS drive, you have mechanical limits here.
Just an FYI. 15k RPM drives are not for desktops. Drives spinning at that speed actually can cause hearing loss if you stay around them much. They are meant for datacenters where nobody is in the room most of the time. Even if you are working in there over 10 minutes, you should wear hearing protection.
Huh? That sounds like an urban myth to me. The SPL on a 15k drive still falls well below the level that causes hearing loss, especially the fluid bearing models they've been selling for the last 3-5 years. You are much more likely to have permanent hearing loss from the fan noise in a datacenter combined with the turbulence noise thrown out by most high velocity chillers as that can easily climb into the range that will cause lasting hearing damage over time.
Dually, valid point that WD doesn't make SAS drives at the moment but they have bought up a number of companies over the past 5 years that possessed the technology to. The main one that comes to mind is Komag which made parts for nearly all of the major drive makers (and very likely owned the R&D on a lot of the parts and manufacturing processes as well). WD already is in the enterprise market for SATA drives and has been looking at the idea of entering the enterprise SSD market according to most trade pubs. It would be a smart move on their part as the enterprise drive market competition has thinned out quite a bit. That and it is clear that mechanical drives will be dead and buried for any tier 1 enterprise disk implementations within 5 years if the prices come down as much as everyone is predicting.
rays87turbo
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Nothing wrong with SCSI drives. I've run Vista 64-bit vista with a 10k rpm Seagate U320 drive. Vista seems to like them just fine. Using an adaptec 29160 I get better than a 5.0 user rating wtih the SCSI drive. I love playing with older enterprise hardware. I've been having a field day with scsi stuff lately....may not be cutting edge, but on the used market its getting really cheap. I got 2 compaq arrays recently with about 20 36GB drives, half U320, and half U160, all for $40. You can't even buy a new 300gb sata drive for that. Of course we don't want to compare power usage between these and sata drives
LOL, where in the world have you been in the last 10 years?
I've got 2 Cheetah 15k.5 15,000RPM SAS drives in my office, sitting in my DESKTOP computer sitting right next to me. I CANNOT hear them. Nor can the dog in the office either. Nor the other 3 people near me. I am young, and my hearing is great- Don't know what in the world you are talking about...
OP, since you brought it up, my drives and controller are for sale. PM me if interested. I've got benchmarks posted in the for sale section. The drives are awesome for an OS drive. I've used both SSD and these SAS drives in Raid0 and it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. Noise really is NOT a factor with these drives. Maybe 3-5 years ago, it may have been true, but i've had 7200rpm drives that are louder than these.
Charles Darke
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I've got a pair of 15k5s and they are very quiet. Since they were my first 15krpm drives, I was expecting them to be louder, but things appear to have improved a lot in the last decade!
Thanks for the warning. I'll keep that in mind. I'll make sure to wear my helmet too.
Drudenhaus
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I loled.
I would recommend going with SAS instead of SCSI if you don't already have components. SCSI is going away and SAS is here to stay.
Bonus: If you have (or are upgrading to) an X58 system, you can get get a board with SAS and you won't even have to buy an add in card.
pervisanathema
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pervisanathema
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I don't think us "people" were primarily arguing if SAS is fundementally faster, obviously a 15k drive is going to outdo a 10k drive in a benchmark. The point of contention is if its worth dropping down the kind of money required to goto a SAS/SCSI drive setup rather than just getting a top end SSD, Raptor, or a couple of the fatest 7200rpm SATA drives in a RAID set.
pervisanathema
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DeathFromBelow
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Where did you get the idea that people here are saying SAS is bad? People were commenting on the guy who posted the old 18 GB SCSI drive + controller and saying it got great performance.
There are some great SAS drives out there and even some older SCSI/SAS hardware that get great performance, no doubt. I just think the average user is better off buying V-Raptors rather than trying to put together a system using older SCSI/SAS hardware or spending a shit-ton of cash on newer SAS drives. The performance benefits don't really justify the cost. A 300 GB V-Raptor is typically about half the price of a new 300 GB 15,000 RPM SAS drive.
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I agree..... I'm laughing at the morons proclaiming that SCSI/SAS drives are absolutely not for desktops. ROFL
They are not sold in crap consumer desktops is all. Pretty much every PRO workstation made has them as default or an option. I'm talking desktops like the Dell Precision, HP xw, Suns, etc. Any real high performance professional desktop offers 15K SCSI/SAS drives. My Dell Precision 690 came with 4 Fujitsu MAX 146GB 15K SAS drives. I can barely hear the machine running and the performance is incredible.
Lot of FUD and people who have no clue what they are talking about giving opinions.
They are not sold in crap consumer desktops is all. Pretty much every PRO workstation made has them as default or an option. I'm talking desktops like the Dell Precision, HP xw, Suns, etc. Any real high performance professional desktop offers 15K SCSI/SAS drives. My Dell Precision 690 came with 4 Fujitsu MAX 146GB 15K SAS drives. I can barely hear the machine running and the performance is incredible.
Lot of FUD and people who have no clue what they are talking about giving opinions.
Yes, I know what SAS stands for. Most people consider SAS and old U160/320 SCSI to be separate things. As I stated, I've compared some SAS and SATA drives to each other. A 3.5" 147gb 15k SAS drive was slower than a 300gb Velociraptor in terms of read and write speeds (which is what I used for comparison purposes). Sure, the SAS drive had faster access times, but for desktop usage, that isn't as important as read/write speeds (to an extent). At this point, no one should be buying anything SCSI. SAS, sure, but for a desktop, there is no reason to get SCSI. If you have money to burn, SAS is obviously the way to go (since the larger SAS drives are the fastest things around), but a bunch of SAS drives and a decent drive controllers (since most boards don't have it built in) is going ot set you back a lot, hence the reason that it really isn't for desktops. Also, why don't you look at the eBay links that I quoted. Those ancient drives are extremely slow compared to anything modern. I personally own quite a few high end drives/controllers (SAS drives, SLC SSDs, etc), so I'm not just making stuff up (happens to be my job too).
Desktop != workstation. When desktops have 16 RAM slots (I do hope you got the riser cards with it) and accommodate 2 processors, let me know. You should also run HDtach on those Fujitsu drives. They're actually the ones I used in my comparison with the Velociraptor. Guess which is faster...
SixFootDuo
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Math doesn't lie. As you can see from the benchmarks, the 15k sas is fast.
I have both the 300gb 10k raptor and a 15k sas drive, the 15k is no joke. It's extremely fast. And yes, it's faster than the raptor.
Also, I am not sure how many people are aware that Asus, MSI and maybe 1 or 2 other mobo makers have released some of their new X58 motherboards with built in SAS controllers.
Also, these controllers do allow you to setup the sas drive under "desktop" or "server" performance.
These drives are very cheap, $100 - $130 dollars on ebay for blazing fast 2ms 15k goodness. People that are really interested in the best performance will seek out one of these drives.
visit storagereview.com and check out the leaderboard.
This is the drive I personal own and it's ranked number 1,
Seagate Cheetah 146G 15K.5 ST3146855SS SAS
I have both the 300gb 10k raptor and a 15k sas drive, the 15k is no joke. It's extremely fast. And yes, it's faster than the raptor.
Also, I am not sure how many people are aware that Asus, MSI and maybe 1 or 2 other mobo makers have released some of their new X58 motherboards with built in SAS controllers.
Also, these controllers do allow you to setup the sas drive under "desktop" or "server" performance.
These drives are very cheap, $100 - $130 dollars on ebay for blazing fast 2ms 15k goodness. People that are really interested in the best performance will seek out one of these drives.
visit storagereview.com and check out the leaderboard.
This is the drive I personal own and it's ranked number 1,
Seagate Cheetah 146G 15K.5 ST3146855SS SAS
Depends on which one you have. As I previously said a few times, it is obvious that 15k drives will have faster access times, but anything that is a couple generations old (like the 147gb Fujitsu drives) will be slower in read/write speeds than the Velociraptor.
From what I've seen those controllers have awful performance (search this subforum for someone asking about their slow K9A2 SAS controller). Kinda kills the whole point.
See above posts. I also wouldn't touch any used enterprise drives on eBay.
They must not update very often if that is #1. Those are 3 generations old.
SixFootDuo
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Yeah, I wouldn't buy used as well.
There is a mix of new and used drives on eBay.
The one I bought was 129 shipped, new w/ 5 year warranty.
I love my raptor, don't get my wrong. But please keep in mind that with the new Intel core i7 builds people are doing these days, these new cpu's and systems really shine with encoding and dealing with those sorts of tasks, which in turn really points the way toward these faster sas drives that can handle these larger files much better.
At the end of the day, Raptor's are great little harddrives but they are not as well rounded a solution as a high end 15k sas workstation drive.
My friend has 2 of these drives in raid-0 and they absolutely crush his 300g raptor drive.
and I think he paid $200 dollars for his pair of brand new cheetah 15k drives.
There is a mix of new and used drives on eBay.
The one I bought was 129 shipped, new w/ 5 year warranty.
I love my raptor, don't get my wrong. But please keep in mind that with the new Intel core i7 builds people are doing these days, these new cpu's and systems really shine with encoding and dealing with those sorts of tasks, which in turn really points the way toward these faster sas drives that can handle these larger files much better.
At the end of the day, Raptor's are great little harddrives but they are not as well rounded a solution as a high end 15k sas workstation drive.
My friend has 2 of these drives in raid-0 and they absolutely crush his 300g raptor drive.
and I think he paid $200 dollars for his pair of brand new cheetah 15k drives.
The savvio 15k.2s don't seem to improve much over the 15k.1s - one or two less watts power usage, higher STR (around 160mb/sec max versus 110mb/sec), and SAS 2.0 interface. But the important metric, the seek time, is still pretty much the same. The average latency is still 2.0ms, and the average seek time is still about 3 ms, so you're still looking at access times of about 5ms. That's the same as the 15k.1, and about the same as the cheetah 15k.
BTW, the person who said "2ms 15k goodness" is a bit misleading; 2ms is only the average latency; the seek time needs to be added to that to get your total access time. For mechanical drives, around 5ms is about the best you can hope for, at least at 15K RPMs.
You can get a 72g 15k.1 for about $150 on fleabay, and the 15k.2 72g seems to be
going for about $300 right now in retail. As mentioned, vraps are about $220ish.
If you short-stroke a vrap, I think you can get almost comparable performance, and you don't need a SAS controller. Plus you get much more space - 300gb versus 72gb. I haven't heard a vrap in person, but since it's only spinning at 10k rpms, I'm sure the rotational whine isn't as bad as a 15k drive just by definition.
If you've got sensitive ears, you'll notice these things give off high pitched whines that are difficult to muffle. I have my savvio 15k.1s in grow up japan proof25 enclosures, and I can still hear their rotational whine. Once SSDs work out all their various performance degradation problems, and they're readily available in SAS interfaces, I think I'll replace my savvios with those.
Also not mentioned, a lot of SAS controllers take their sweet time booting up their controller kernels, as SAS has to accomodate for SAS expanders and other things that a SATA controller doesn't need to deal with. So if you're looking for faster boot times, SAS drives might actually increase those. Also as mentioned, the performance of onboard SAS controllers might not be ideal. I haven't tried mine as I use my Adaptec 51645 for my SAS array, but I do have the P6T deluxe with the 2 SAS ports onboard.
BTW, the person who said "2ms 15k goodness" is a bit misleading; 2ms is only the average latency; the seek time needs to be added to that to get your total access time. For mechanical drives, around 5ms is about the best you can hope for, at least at 15K RPMs.
You can get a 72g 15k.1 for about $150 on fleabay, and the 15k.2 72g seems to be
going for about $300 right now in retail. As mentioned, vraps are about $220ish.
If you short-stroke a vrap, I think you can get almost comparable performance, and you don't need a SAS controller. Plus you get much more space - 300gb versus 72gb. I haven't heard a vrap in person, but since it's only spinning at 10k rpms, I'm sure the rotational whine isn't as bad as a 15k drive just by definition.
If you've got sensitive ears, you'll notice these things give off high pitched whines that are difficult to muffle. I have my savvio 15k.1s in grow up japan proof25 enclosures, and I can still hear their rotational whine. Once SSDs work out all their various performance degradation problems, and they're readily available in SAS interfaces, I think I'll replace my savvios with those.
Also not mentioned, a lot of SAS controllers take their sweet time booting up their controller kernels, as SAS has to accomodate for SAS expanders and other things that a SATA controller doesn't need to deal with. So if you're looking for faster boot times, SAS drives might actually increase those. Also as mentioned, the performance of onboard SAS controllers might not be ideal. I haven't tried mine as I use my Adaptec 51645 for my SAS array, but I do have the P6T deluxe with the 2 SAS ports onboard.