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Real World Performance

D

D3v1an7

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 22, 2003
Messages
1,256
Ok, my friend and I have been going back and forth about this for a while.

He is building a new computer (a64 3400, NForce3 250, etc) and wants to go with a SATA RAID 0 array. Our point of conflict is the performance difference between using dual 10,000 RPM Raptors and using dual 7,200 RPM WD drives with 8MB caches.

He believes that the performance increase will be so profound using the raptors that it is worth the sacrifices of higher price and smaller drives.

My stance is that while the Raptors will be faster, it won't be so noticeable that he wouldn't be just as happy using larger, less expensive, 7200 rpm drives.

Who is right?

EDIT: Opinions are as welcome as facts. Thanks
 
He will see a performance advantage with the Raptors (much shorter seek time, faster transfer from higher rotational speed). Whether it's worth the difference depends on how often his programs go to the HDDs, how patient he is on bootup and program load, and how deep his wallet is. How much RAM he has is also an issue, because if his system is paging memory to the hard drives, the Raptor's advantage will be more apparent.
 
Those benchmarks are hardly real-world indications. I have a dual 10k RPM SCSI setup myself. They offer very little performance over a 7200 RPM setup in real-world, general usage. Copying files and loading large applications are another story, but for general, everyday use, there's no tangible improvement in performance. That extra RAM sure helped a lot, though. RAM is thousands of time faster in terms of both transfer rates and in access times, so invest in an adequate amount of RAM first, and then consider increasing the hard drive speed.
 
Originally posted by xonik
Those benchmarks are hardly real-world indications. I have a dual 10k RPM SCSI setup myself. They offer very little performance over a 7200 RPM setup in real-world, general usage. Copying files and loading large applications are another story, but for general, everyday use, there's no tangible improvement in performance. That extra RAM sure helped a lot, though. RAM is thousands of time faster in terms of both transfer rates and in access times, so invest in an adequate amount of RAM first, and then consider increasing the hard drive speed.
Click to expand...

Those benchmarks look at read and write speeds, burst speeds and seek time along with general application usage. Like i said, they will be alot better in RAID0 for areas where RAID0 afflict performance. How long it takes your PC to boot, How long it takes you to load Far Cry and Ut2004, How long it takes you to load up a large model in 3DS Max and Photoshop, or How long it takes you load a huge spreadsheet in Microsoft Works is all real world performance where RAID0 will make a big difference. Normal people though pot around in Microsoft Word and look at in-game performance, and how long it takes them to load their web browser and say that RAID0 doesn't affect performance hardly at all.

Load times in Far Cry are horrible sometimes if you dont have a really fast machine and RAID0 with 36's will really give a nice boost.

Burst speed and access time is where you see the real world improvement in common windows everyday usage. And RAID0 doesn't affect those areas hardly at all. But if you look at Read and Write speeds they are alot faster in those benches.
 
the major improvement that 10k drives would give you in desktop browsing (seek time) is negated by running them RAID0.
 
Originally posted by jagec
the major improvement that 10k drives would give you in desktop browsing (seek time) is negated by running them RAID0.
Click to expand...


Why
 
Originally posted by blackrino9
Why
Click to expand...
seek time goes up slightly in RAID0, since there are two drives that need to do the seeking. Seek time is a statistics thing really, and the average seek time goes up with two drives. RAID0 is great for sustained data transfer like loading large files, writing large files, etc, but for burst transfer and seek time it's the same or slower as one drive.
 
In the benches i've seen the burst speed is usually slighty lower and the seek time the same or slightly higher for RAID0 configurations. +\- they are both so slight you would never be able to notice it in real life.
 
i have a big question about "real world" HD performance as I am in the process of building a very similar machine to your friend.

A64 3200
Nforce3 250 mobo
9800 pro
Audigy Z2
RAM??

and then the HD question??

Should I get a single 36GB Raptor, and a big IDE drive for file storage

or

2 80GB SATA Barracudas or something similar and run them RAID0, and then get a IDE for file storage if I even need it

or

get SCSI card, and a 10 or 15K RPM drive to boot and play games from, and a big IDE or even SATA drive for storage???
 
I owned a single raptor 74gig before moving up to a raid 0 setup and I must say the seek times didn't change. It's still just as speedy. Raid did not cause IE to load any faster but those big ass Far Cry levels load A WHOLE LOT faster than the single raptor drive. I love the speed and I'm never going back! $500 for 140gigs is VERY steep though, but that was the whole point of this computer, I wanted to really treat myself this year.

Annnyway, you shouldn't see a performance decrease. Depending on what you are doing sometimes there will be an improvement in speed and sometimes there wont be one.

As far as getting a large 7200 spin IDE disk over a Raptor I must say the Raptor performs much better in multitasking situations than the normal 7200rpm drives.
 
I would suggest putting the RAM first and then deciding what your needs are for your HDDs. If you really aren't going to need the performance of the Raptors (which is in itself debatable) and are on a tighter budget, you could go 2 smaller 7200 drives (like the 60 or 80gb) RAID 0 and a larger drive for storage. That will run about $200. This is if you must have RAID0 which according to certain articles may or may not be worth it in real world performance. Whether to get SATA or IDE drives is also of consideration and I suggest you read up on the sticky's before u make your own conclusion, because there are some pitfalls with SATA drives. I personally went with hype and got 2-36gb Raptors for booting and I have a 160gb Maxtor IDE for storage. Total cost ran over $300 for the three. Will the price to performance ratio be worth it? Probably not. Will there be any significant improvement in redundant tasks? Probably. However, I am still waiting on my cpu and will not be able to draw my own absolute conclusion until later this week.
By the way, good stickies Czar. Only read through half of it. Awful lots of info to absord.
 
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