2 x WD Caviar Black

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Rossi~

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Right so i've decided on either 60gb Vertex 2E or the Intel X25-M 80Gb for OS, now for the other data..
I'm thinking 2 x 1Tb WD Caviar Black drives in Raid-0 and partitioned in 3

-- Media (Music & Video)
-- Downloads & Stuff
-- Ableton media (tracks, samples etc)

That said, i have a 150Gb WD Velociraptor that i was going to use for just games, though would i be better off ditching the noisey beast and having a 4th partition for just games? Will that be quicker do you think? Am going to cause issues regarding performance having more partitions?
 
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Am going to cause issues regarding performance having more partitions?
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Yes. I mean the drive is significantly faster at the beginning then the end. So put what you want faster disk access on the first 2 partitions. Put whatever does not need fast disk on the end partitions.
 
Rossi~ said:
Right so i've decided on either 60gb Vertex 2E or the Intel X25-M 80Gb for OS, now for the other data..
I'm thinking 2 x 1Tb WD Caviar Black drives in Raid-0 and partitioned in 3

-- Media (Music & Video)
-- Downloads & Stuff
-- Ableton media (tracks, samples etc)

That said, i have a 150Gb WD Velociraptor that i was going to use for just games, though would i be better off ditching the noisey beast and having a 4th partition for just games? Will that be quicker do you think? Am going to cause issues regarding performance having more partitions?
Click to expand...

Why go Raid 0 for what is basically just going to be storage?

Wouldn't having 1TB for downloads & Stuff and the other 1TB for Ableton Media and Music and Video's be alot safer for your data?

I don't see how having improved sequential access would help when accessing those items which is the only benefit to Raid 0
 
Makaveli@BETA said:
Why go Raid 0 for what is basically just going to be storage?

Wouldn't having 1TB for downloads & Stuff and the other 1TB for Ableton Media and Music and Video's be alot safer for your data?

I don't see how having improved sequential access would help when accessing those items which is the only benefit to Raid 0
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also, 1TB for DLs is a bit excessive imo, once I DL something and it's done I copy it to the appropriate folder, TV, Sports, etc., seed it for a little while and then remove it...
 
A few reasons

Music & Video is over a 1Tb
Copying from downloads directory (which is large) to Music/Media i want to be as quick as possible
Ripping and converting music to FLAC
Access/read speeds of all samples, loops etc for Ableton
Ableton export of tracks to WAV

All data will be backed up on an external 2Tb drive.
 
Ahhh you didn't mention the 2TB external back up for the Raid 0. In that case I would go for it, but without the Raid 0+1 I would have kept them separate.
 
Can someone else confirm whether or not multiple partitions will decrease overall performance, noticeably that is.
 
Yes. they will. Just put the data you use most in the first partitions and you will be fine. The reason why they will be slower is because of the gaps between the partitions. And any large gap with data following it is basically a waste of performance because the disks read and write at only 50% to 60% of the outer track performance at the end of the disk. The performance loss assumes you will not be filling each partition to the max versus a single partition where all your data is closer together with no large gap.
 
Hello, back again. Basically i'm putting in the upgrade order tonigh hopefully. Just want to confirm something.
Is it worth creating a partition (first partition of the disk) on the RAID-0 Caviar Blacks for my games, or shall i keep my Velociraptor 150Gb for games? Will i see much or an improvement in speed on the RAID partition over the Velociraptor?
 
Hi Rossi,

I am not here to disturb your plan, but consider

tigerdirect (raw price, must add other fee)

wd5000aaks (40) x 3 = 120 (make sure 500GB single platter)
wd5000aaks (40) x 4 = 160 (make sure 500GB single platter)
wd6400aaks (60) x 3 = 180 (old favorite, the old version has very fast seeks relative to many drives, short-stroke will make it even better. however, do not know how new version performs)

newegg
WD 1TB Black 1002-model 64mb (90) x 2 = 180

If you have 3 or 4 drives config, you can do many alternative schemes with respect to your actual usage.

For highest performance, RAID-0 partition 1 each drive 80GB 3x80GB=240GB for your games

Do note that this is RAID-0. Sometimes wrong circumstances you could lose everything and need to redo again. Therefore I said many drives allow custom scheme with backup integrated to minimize the work, if needed.

Cheers

If you go for 2-drive config, then I suppose much less variations. more drives are usually faster but takes real workload to show its benefits, else 2-drives black would be equally good as well.
 
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Rossi~ said:
Music & Video is over a 1Tb
doesnt matter, you arent copying your whole music library back and forth every day, no need for RAID
Copying from downloads directory (which is large) to Music/Media i want to be as quick as possible
RAID will slow this down in the way you are doing it, copying from one partition to another on the same disk (or same RAID) is slower then one disk to another.
Ripping and converting music to FLAC
drive speed doesnt matter, processing speed will be the limit here
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having a single 2TB disk will probably not save on electricity but would perform on par with the setup you suggested in the first post. considering what you are using the disk for, it would counter-productive to have so many partitions.
Can someone else confirm whether or not multiple partitions will decrease overall performance, noticeably that is.
Click to expand...
confirmed
 
confirmed
Click to expand...

It can also increase performance to the files you use most (of course a defragger like mydefrag would be able to achieve the same result). And the reason for that is you put the files you use the most on the fastest part of the disk and files you do not use daily at the end of the disk. Again this assumes you that some files you only use occasionally and you can move these to a partition that is on the slower part of the disk..
 
Woah input :) thanks guys. The main question i would like answered now really is with games (loading speeds) is it worth sticking them on the RAID-0 under anotehr partition or just keep them on the Velociraptor?
It's only really game loading speeds and seaching through masses of samples & track exports from Ableton that i really care about. I will be getting the 64Gb C300 SSD for the OS.
 
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unless you are doing some exotic database tasks or otherwise have a reason for using more then one partition- dont. i wouldnt even use raid since you only have two disks, and dont particularly need the sequential write speed. let me explain...

my main desktop is setup with two partitions on a single WD black drive and heres how it works-

Disk 1- C:- 150gb - OS and a few select programs that need speed
Disk 1- D:- 850gb - devoted to storage of files i rarely use
programs that store temp files or swap files are kept on C: as their temp files are automatically written to C: (firefox, photoshop, some games). programs that dont make temp files on C: (or programs you can tell to not use C: ) are stored on D:. this prevents the disk from having to read program files on one partition and write temp files on another at the same time.

what this setup does is take the outter-most 150gb section of the disk and devotes it to the operating system. the outside edges of a disk are the fastest. if you set up a disk in this way, whatever empty space there is on the outter tracks of the disk is unusable by partition 2. so data that could have been placed closer to the (faster, outside) edge of the disk is forced into a slower spinning section.

copying files between one partition and another is where your speeds will nose dive as the drive has to seek back and forth between two physically separate parts of the disk. this is probably the single operation where most vibration and noise comes from, and arguably the largest contributor to disk failure.

if you are using a SSD for the OS, there is even less reason to partition this second hard drive/array into a million pieces. just use different folders instead of partitions and stop making this harder then it needs to be.
 
ghost6303 said:
unless you are doing some exotic database tasks or otherwise have a reason for using more then one partition- dont. i wouldnt even use raid since you only have two disks, and dont particularly need the sequential write speed. let me explain...

my main desktop is setup with two partitions on a single WD black drive and heres how it works-

Disk 1- C:- 150gb - OS and a few select programs that need speed
Disk 1- D:- 850gb - devoted to storage of files i rarely use
programs that store temp files or swap files are kept on C: as their temp files are automatically written to C: (firefox, photoshop, some games). programs that dont make temp files on C: (or programs you can tell to not use C: ) are stored on D:. this prevents the disk from having to read program files on one partition and write temp files on another at the same time.

what this setup does is take the outter-most 150gb section of the disk and devotes it to the operating system. the outside edges of a disk are the fastest. if you set up a disk in this way, whatever empty space there is on the outter tracks of the disk is unusable by partition 2. so data that could have been placed closer to the (faster, outside) edge of the disk is forced into a slower spinning section.

copying files between one partition and another is where your speeds will nose dive as the drive has to seek back and forth between two physically separate parts of the disk. this is probably the single operation where most vibration and noise comes from, and arguably the largest contributor to disk failure.

if you are using a SSD for the OS, there is even less reason to partition this second hard drive/array into a million pieces. just use different folders instead of partitions and stop making this harder then it needs to be.
Click to expand...

Thanks :) my view on this is so much clearer. Even if you did kick me in the nuts at the end.
 
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