raptor HD's and raid.

[silvermotion]

for the money i have to invest right now, i have the choice of getting 2 WD raptor 10k rpm 36gb's drives in striped in raid-0, or getting one 74gb. (two 74gb's is out of the question, since i have another 120 and 250 for storage)

a few questions i have for those who knows or have tried.

I know there is a lot of hype about raid, and i know for sure a real 100$ raid controller card will outperform a 5$ chip soldered to a motherboard. will i see a significant increase in performance and read/write speeds if i striped 2 36gb compared to 1 74 gb alone? (plugged to the onboard raid controller on my P4C800)

also, will a raptor be much faster than lets says a maxtor 160gb 8mb 7200rpm ata133 hd? (both not in raid)

is there any sites that have benchmarked similar configurations?

big thanx, i just want to get what best. Right now i can sell my 160gb to a friend @ 150$ CAN, and i will have to shell out an extra 220$ to get 2 raptors 36gb or one 74gb. I want to do it, provided that its worth it.

 

[Novensu]

I purchased a Raptor 36GB drive for use in a non raid setup and this drive really smokes. I just use a single raptor as my boot drive and the performace has been well worth it, It would be even better if it were a stripe 0 setup. I think www.newegg.com has the drives for around $100 a piece.


~N

 

[NleahciM]

You'll get better performance from a single 74gb raptor than from two 36gbs in raid 0. You'll have worse thoroughput - but you pretty much never max out your thoroughput anyways so it doesn't really matter. Definitely get the single 74.

 

[silvermotion]

isnt 2 drives in raid0 supposed to be faster than a single one? i should get the 74gb, even though for the same price i get 2 36gb's?

tanx for thoughts guys (or perhaps gals), keep hem comin'

 

[djnes]

Originally posted by NleahciM
You'll get better performance from a single 74gb raptor than from two 36gbs in raid 0. You'll have worse thoroughput - but you pretty much never max out your thoroughput anyways so it doesn't really matter. Definitely get the single 74.

Are you smoking something when you posted that? Seriously man, this is one of the worst posts I've ever read. Look up RAID0 and then think about the answer again. 2 Raptors (see sig) in RAID0 will absolutely smoke a single one.

 

[silvermotion]

thats what i thought DJNES thank you.

and what about comparison between ATA133 raid0 and SCSI320 raid 0? i know 2 SATA raptor will be in between when it come to read/write speeds, but how much faster than ATA? (or how much slower than scsi?)

 

[fugu]

if you're comparing the same drive in a single drive setup or a raid 0, your sustained transfer rates will be greater with raid 0 but your performance won't increase much at all. your seek times will probably even go up a tad (a bad thing), and you run a higher risk of something going wrong. imo not worth it

http://www.storagereview.com/php/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0

in this case since you're comparing the 74 to two raided 36 gig drives, the 74 might actually outperform the raid because the new 74 is a much faster drive

http://storagereview.com/articles/200401/20040126WD740GD_sp.html

 

[fugu]

Originally posted by silvermotion
thats what i thought DJNES thank you.

and what about comparison between ATA133 raid0 and SCSI320 raid 0? i know 2 SATA raptor will be in between when it come to read/write speeds, but how much faster than ATA? (or how much slower than scsi?)

the single 74 gig 740GD raptor is tied for the fastest desktop drive out there. go with it rather than a raid of the slower 36 gig models

 

[silvermotion]

that was very informative, a 74gb it is then.thanx for the benchmarks.

ill get a second one later if i still want a raid setup

 

[titan151]

Yeah I would choose the 36's out of the two. You don't need a lot of storage space. I keep larger files on a standard ide drive and load my OS and games on the raptors. Chances are you have a couple ide drives anyways so might as well use them. Consider checking out scsi drives. I found 9.1 gig drives on ebay (15,000 rpm) for around 30 bucks. Get your self four of those and a controller and you should be breaking the sound barrier. All for alot cheaper then raid. That said I am happy with my raptors they max at about 90mbs write and 100mbs read. Any more then that has been hard to get.

 

[rive22]

the single 74 gig 740GD raptor is tied for the fastest desktop drive out there. go with it rather than a raid of the slower 36 gig models

is the 74 gig raptor by itself faster than the hitachi or quantum 15,000 rpm drives? beside fluid dynamic bearing motors for lower sound and a larger space to shorten movement on the drive, what makes the new raptor so much faster than the 36gig raptor? they are both 10k drives.

 

[fugu]

Originally posted by rive22
is the 74 gig raptor by itself faster than the hitachi or quantum 15,000 rpm drives? beside fluid dynamic bearing motors for lower sound and a larger space to shorten movement on the drive, what makes the new raptor so much faster than the 36gig raptor? they are both 10k drives.

it's pretty much equal with the 15k maxtor drive for top workstation/desktop performance.

i don't know what makes it faster, but rotational speed isn't everything. if you look at the newer 10k scsi drives they blow away the older 10Ks even thought they're the same rotational speeds. same is true for the 15k drives, my x15-36LP is slower than the 15K.3, the fujutsu 15K drive, and the maxtor one

 

[tracerwilly]

i posted in a previous thread last week some numbers from another thread in this forum regarding the raptor. i also ran hdtach on my cheetah(see sig) for comparison that the individual was requesting. IMHO, the raptor is a very good drive. my numbers were only 12% better than the single raptor in sata. having said that, i find it very difficult to believe that a single 74 gig would be faster in any area than the 2 36 gig raptors in raid 0. i guess it would probably be a price issue for me but it seems like that is not your case. do the do - go RAID.

p.s. - numbers again for cheetah
access time 6.7 milliseconds
read burst speed 91.4 megabytes
read speed 42.2 megabytes

 

[PS-RagE]

Wow. I'm glad to hear this. My new workstation (that I should have in two weeks) has four 74G Raptors in RAID 10. I'm used to RAID 0+1 in my workstation and since it has been down, I've been using my HTPC with single Barracudas. Can really tell the difference

 

[fugu]

Originally posted by tracerwilly
having said that, i find it very difficult to believe that a single 74 gig would be faster in any area than the 2 36 gig raptors in raid 0. i guess it would probably be a price issue for me but it seems like that is not your case. do the do - go RAID.

the fact of the matter is that increased sustained transfer rates don't do a whole lot for day to day performance.

 

[tracerwilly]

o right... i did fail to ask what will u be using your system for that u would need 2 36 gig raptors in raid versus a single 74 gig drive?
i don't use my comp for little more than gaming and upgrading LOL.

 

[rive22]

hmmm, good info. cause im in the market for some faster drives too and i was thinking 15k'ers. But i'm starting to think otherwise.

 

[burningrave101]

It depends on the area that your talking about and what you mainly use the PC for. Some think the 74GB will smoke two 36'ers in RAID0 and it will beat it in read speed. Or at least it should. I havn't exactly seen any 74 vs. 2x36 raptor reviews lately but everyone seems to think the 74GB raptor kills two 36's anyways . Read speed isn't affected a whole lot by RAID0. RAID0's performance comes in write speed. When your loading files, your OS, or a game RAID0 will be much quicker then a 74GB raptor by itself. Write speeds are increased by around 30% in RAID0.

 

[fugu]

Originally posted by burningrave101
It depends on the area that your talking about and what you mainly use the PC for. Some think the 74GB will smoke two 36'ers in RAID0 and it will beat it in read speed. Or at least it should. I havn't exactly seen any 74 vs. 2x36 raptor reviews lately but everyone seems to think the 74GB raptor kills two 36's anyways . Read speed isn't affected a whole lot by RAID0. RAID0's performance comes in write speed. When your loading files, your OS, or a game RAID0 will be much quicker then a 74GB raptor by itself. Write speeds are increased by around 30% in RAID0.

again, take a look at some of the benchmarks i posted. the raided maxtors have increased transfer rates but actual perfornamce only increases by less than ten percent in every test besides the boot up one. if you then look at the 360GD vs the 740GD, the 740GD is faster by 20-25% in the SR performance tests. so with a raid you can probably boot faster and copy large files more quickly, but the 74GB will probably feel and perform better in every day office, workstation and gaming use patterns

 

[rive22]

again, take a look at some of the benchmarks i posted. the raided maxtors have increased transfer rates but actual perfornamce only increases by less than ten percent in every test besides the boot up one. if you then look at the 360GD vs the 740GD, the 740GD is faster by 20-25% in the SR performance tests. so with a raid you can probably boot faster and copy large files more quickly, but the 74GB will probably feel and perform better in every day office, workstation and gaming use patterns

holy crap dude. i just looked at those benchmarks. that 740GD really is smokin man! damn, and i was gonna buy the 360.

 

[burningrave101]

Originally posted by fugu
again, take a look at some of the benchmarks i posted. the raided maxtors have increased transfer rates but actual perfornamce only increases by less than ten percent in every test besides the boot up one. if you then look at the 360GD vs the 740GD, the 740GD is faster by 20-25% in the SR performance tests. so with a raid you can probably boot faster and copy large files more quickly, but the 74GB will probably feel and perform better in every day office, workstation and gaming use patterns

Well could we see some RAID performance on the 36GB raptors before we decide that because RAID performance on Maxtor drives isn't that great then it isn't that great on the raptors ither which just isn't true. There was just a raptor review not too long ago with two 36GB raptors in RAID0 vs some other drives along with a Seagate barracuda in RAID0 and the barracuda didn't benefit hardly at all while the raptor in RAID0 smoked it. It was like 25-30% faster then the single 36GB raptor in the benchmarks for write speeds and other areas. I think you will notice load times in games cut down more in RAID0 than you will in response times of the 74GB during gameplay. And if your working in any applications like photoshop where you load large images RAID0 will be alot quicker.

EDIT: Heres the link -

http://accelenation.com/?ac.id.217.3

 

[rive22]

http://accelenation.com/?ac.id.217.3

good benchmarks!

 

[mayakindaguy]

this is an interesting post as I have 2 36 raptors on the way. I was under the assumption that the RAID 0 of the 2 36 would be better for things like rendering, but have read many conflicting reviews.

 

[fugu]

Originally posted by burningrave101
Well could we see some RAID performance on the 36GB raptors before we decide that because RAID performance on Maxtor drives isn't that great then it isn't that great on the raptors ither which just isn't true. There was just a raptor review not too long ago with two 36GB raptors in RAID0 vs some other drives along with a Seagate barracuda in RAID0 and the barracuda didn't benefit hardly at all while the raptor in RAID0 smoked it. It was like 25-30% faster then the single 36GB raptor in the benchmarks for write speeds and other areas. I think you will notice load times in games cut down more in RAID0 than you will in response times of the 74GB during gameplay. And if your working in any applications like photoshop where you load large images RAID0 will be alot quicker.

EDIT: Heres the link -

http://accelenation.com/?ac.id.217.3

you're still trying to equate sustained transfer rates to actual performance. read up on how storage review tests.

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200111/20011109Renaissance_6.html

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200112/20011204IPEAK_audit_sp.html

here's a thread with more info:

http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?showtopic=12103

they're pretty much the website to go to regarding disk benchmarks so i generally tend to agree with their conclusions: that in specific situations a RAID0 might be faster, but for use in a desktop (be it an office, gaming, or workstation environment) RAID0 usually won't help out too much

 

[burningrave101]

Originally posted by fugu
they're pretty much the website to go to regarding disk benchmarks so i generally tend to agree with their conclusions: that in specific situations a RAID0 might be faster, but for use in a desktop (be it an office, gaming, or workstation environment) RAID0 usually won't help out too much

I would say in office applications and certain areas of gaming yes the drive with the faster seek time would be better. But for load times and workstation environment that can't possibly be true or they havn't had very many workstations. All my PC's are built workstation style because i do video encodeing and quite a bit of Photoshop and 3ds Max 6 work. I also help build quite a few servers and larger workstations pretty often because of computer networking being one of my majors in college right now.

A RAID0 array gives a big boost when loading large files or transfering large files. The read speed on the 36GB raptors is fast enough so your not going to notice much of a real world difference between the two. Has anyone here actually went from a 36GB to a 74GB and noticed much of a real world performance difference? Not likely. In MaximumPC's recent issue of worthwile upgrades, 2 36GB raptors in RAID0 was up at the top of the list as they had been showing their extreme performance in this configuration all year.

I think the RAID0 performance is going to be alot more noticeable then a little bit quicker read and seek time for obvious reasons. They are both quick in seek times and the 74GB is faster in that area but i dont think enough to really notice.

WD was suppost to release a new 36GB version that was just as good as the 74GB except of course smaller. Somebody was saying here on Hard the other day that they thought the new ones they bought from Newegg was the new version because they were really quiet and cool but i dunno.

In MaximumPC using H2BENCHW they showed the application index for the 74GB and 36GB raptors plus the Hitachi 7K250 to be 26.4, 23.2, and 24.6 respectively. Application index is the geometric mean of a drive's performance in six "real world" application profiles, such as Word, Photoshop, and so forth.

 

[oqvist]

Okay I just got 2 36 gig Raptors to have in Raid mode? Should I be unhappy? Is there really any real performance difference to have with load times and gaming as if I had a single 70 Gig Raptor or are we talking 1 % difference here? I don´t care for reliability I have a backup drive for that.

 

[burningrave101]

Originally posted by oqvist
Okay I just got 2 36 gig Raptors to have in Raid mode? Should I be unhappy? Is there really any real performance difference to have with load times and gaming as if I had a single 70 Gig Raptor or are we talking 1 % difference here? I don´t care for reliability I have a backup drive for that.

The 74GB raptor is going to probably have faster seek times and read times than that two 36's in RAID0 but the write time performance difference is going to be alot more then just 1%. More like 20-30% or more depending on what your doing. Two drives can always transfer data quite a bit more data then just a single drive even if its a little faster initially. Load time in games will go down but in-game performance is going to be about the same as the 74GB raptor but hopefully you have enough RAM that your not hitting on the page file too often in-game anyways.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by burningrave101

I think the RAID0 performance is going to be alot more noticeable then a little bit quicker read and seek time for obvious reasons. They are both quick in seek times and the 74GB is faster in that area but i dont think enough to really notice.

like fugu's been saying, RAID0 only improves SUSTAINED transfers. Most desktop browsing/office/internet is burst transfer and seek, which are either untouched or worsened by RAID0.

You said you do video encoding/photoshop: well, there's a lot of sustained transfer there, so you'll see a difference with RAID0. But most people won't.

RAID0 isn't the godsend many people make it out to be.

 

[burningrave101]

Well with 36GB raptors the seek times and burst speed are already faster then most all 7200 rpm drives so RAID0 just adds even more performance to the time it takes to read and write large files.

If no other reason they are worth it for the new games that are out like Far Cry that take a year to load on slower machines. Even though it doesn't take a real long time on my 3Ghz P4, its still nice to have a good 30% faster load time in something like Ut2004 or Far Cry. Doom III and HL2 will probably be even worse.