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Ultimate combo?

S

stevo.k

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
253
If cost were not of concern to you and you were going to set up a new system for the ultimate in speed and stability, what drives would you select and what RAID configuration would you use?

Here is what I'm considering:

OS on a single 150gb raptor
Programs on 2 x 320Gb Barracudas RAID 0
Data on 2x 750Gb Barrcudas RAID 1

Rationale: I've heard that XP prefers to be on a non-RAID drive, faster program access in a RAID 0 and data redundancy on a RAID 1.
 
Well, if cost isn't a concern, I'd order something from EMC or HP.

Other than that, for a home system, I'd get:
Single 150 or 74 raptor (ADFD), OS and pagefile
Single 150 or 74 raptor (ADFD), games
As many large disks as you need in raid 1 or 5 to store data.
One or more 750GB disks, in external enclosure(s) for backup. Raid != backup.
 
Assuming direct storage...
Areca 1170 in a 133mhz PCI-X slot and 24 whatever disks, doesn't matter really. R6 + 2 hot spares in hot swap enclosures or somesuch. <3
 
If cost is not a concern, 15k scsi.. Single for OS and a whole crapload of them in a raid 5 for storage.. As many as I could fit and power in my case.. Hooked to a highend controller in a pci-x or pci-e slot..

And 1 set of earplugs or noise canceling headphones to go along with it..
 
I'd rather stay away from SCSI, and stick with SATA. What about my original premise?
 
stevo.k said:
I'd rather stay away from SCSI, and stick with SATA. What about my original premise?
Click to expand...

Personally, I don't know why you would raid0 that. Assuming a more realistic cost, I would probably do 2 drives in RAID1, 4 drives in RAID10 given a software raid constraint. Given hardware raid (areca 3ware etc), 2 drives in RAID1, 4 drives in RAID5. That'll give you good performance and redundancy at the cost of having to pay for twice as many drives.
 
stevo.k said:
I'd rather stay away from SCSI, and stick with SATA. What about my original premise?
Click to expand...
The problem is you don't have any backup strategy enumerated. If you accidentally delete a file from a raid 1 array, it's gone just as much as with a single disk. You need external, off-site, unplugged, and read-only storage for real backup.

Putting your games and OS on the same Raptor would probably be faster than a Raptor and a raid 0 array. But if you've got the money to spend, buy the drives, try it both ways, and stick with the one you like better.
 
Yes I should have mentioned that I already have a 1Tb NAS in a RAID 5 array for my backups. It's slow to access so I'll run an incremental backup to it overnight.
I should also mention that I'm a heavy Photoshop user and am wondering if I should dedicate a separate partition for the scratch disk. I'll have a 36gb Raptor from my old system that I could use for this.
Also, what about a separate RAID controller board or is the onboard RAID controller on the eVGA 680i board sufficient?
 
stevo.k said:
Yes I should have mentioned that I already have a 1Tb NAS in a RAID 5 array for my backups. It's slow to access so I'll run an incremental backup to it overnight.
I should also mention that I'm a heavy Photoshop user and am wondering if I should dedicate a separate partition for the scratch disk. I'll have a 36gb Raptor from my old system that I could use for this.
Also, what about a separate RAID controller board or is the onboard RAID controller on the eVGA 680i board sufficient?
Click to expand...
I'd do 4 x WD1500ADFD drives, arranged into 2 separate 2 disc RAID-0
 
My suggestion, if money is no object..

2x 150GB Raptors in RAID 1 for OS

4x 750GB 7200.10 in RAID 10 for everything else
 
EnderW said:
he has a 1TB NAS for that

otherwise add 2 x 750GB RAID1
Click to expand...

Oh, I thought you were advising to use his NAS in the 2 Raid 0 arrays. Unclear English FTL :(
 
SCSI is realy not necassary cause SATA II is even faster.
Raptors is not necassary cause the HD's of today have fast transfers too I've got 4xWD3200YS SATAII in RAID 0 266mb/s :)
Only for reducing the access times on servers you need some noisy raptors.

And you maybe know the original meaning of RAID=redundant array of inexpensive disks
 
Youri Carma said:
SCSI is realy not necassary cause SATA II is even faster.
Raptors is not necassary cause the HD's of today have fast transfers too I've got 4xWD3200YS SATAII in RAID 0 266mb/s :)
Only for reducing the access times on servers you need some noisy raptors.

And you maybe know the original meaning of RAID=redundant array of inexpensive disks
Click to expand...

You are funny.

SATA 2 is faster than SCSI in the same way that a civic with a speedometer that goes up to 200mph is faster than a corvette who's speedometer only goes to 190mph.

And total throughput achieved by RAID 0 only helps in some instances, and sometimes the additional latency added by RAID 0 actually slows things down over a single drive. So it depends on the use the computer will be put twords if RAID 0 even makes sense.
 
Lazn_Work said:
You are funny.

SATA 2 is faster than SCSI in the same way that a civic with a speedometer that goes up to 200mph is faster than a corvette who's speedometer only goes to 190mph.

And total throughput achieved by RAID 0 only helps in some instances, and sometimes the additional latency added by RAID 0 actually slows things down over a single drive. So it depends on the use the computer will be put twords if RAID 0 even makes sense.
Click to expand...
for single user systems

no, SATA, specifically Raptors are faster than 15k SCSI drives in the same way that a corvette is faster than a semi truck, even though the semi has way more horsepower

http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?s=&showtopic=21621&view=findpost&p=221874
 
protias said:
Oh, I thought you were advising to use his NAS in the 2 Raid 0 arrays. Unclear English FTL :(
Click to expand...
no, I was saying 4 x WD1500ADFD

2 x RAID0 OS
2 x RAID0 scratch disk

back everything up on NAS

I think that would be a speedy setup, but without the OP specifying a budget, it's hard to make a good recommendation
 
I heard that, I think it was Intel, has the possibility to mix RAID 0 with RAID 5 (Or other RAID configs) on one disk for example. Using the fast RAID 0 for you OS and the safer RAID 5 (Hot swappable HD not anymore I guess) for your files.

Have to get more info about that.
 
EnderW said:
for single user systems

no, SATA, specifically Raptors are faster than 15k SCSI drives in the same way that a corvette is faster than a semi truck, even though the semi has way more horsepower

http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?s=&showtopic=21621&view=findpost&p=221874
Click to expand...

It depends on application..also why not look at the storage database instead of the forums posts?

But I am not going to devolve into an argument here. For single user performance, and for your money, right now a Raptor is your best choice. If you were willing to spring for 15k MAU's and didn't care about noise and power draw, they are slightly faster.

However, for multi user settings SCSI is still much superior to SATA.

And RAID 0 is not always a good idea, in my book usually a bad idea, but you may feel differently.
 
Thanks for the input thus far everyone. As you can see in my OP that I'm willing to pay for Raptors and big SATAII drives so my budget is substantial but not unlimited.
Generally, is it better to keep the OS on a separate phsyical drive from the programs, or just a separate partition? I also read somewhere that XP doesn't like to be installed on a RAID array. Any truth to that?
 
3 gigabyte iRam in a proper Raid1 setup...

And never leave the computer unplugged for more than 16 hours.
 
stevo.k said:
Thanks for the input thus far everyone. As you can see in my OP that I'm willing to pay for Raptors and big SATAII drives so my budget is substantial but not unlimited.
Generally, is it better to keep the OS on a separate phsyical drive from the programs, or just a separate partition? I also read somewhere that XP doesn't like to be installed on a RAID array. Any truth to that?
Click to expand...

Separate drive is better than partition, though I did partitions for years. The thing is that seeks across either partition will slow down both partitions. Thus the separate drive being better.

As for a RAID array, it is more difficult to recover from a failed RAID array than a single drive or RAID 1 array, otherwise, I don't know of any other issues with using RAID array for the OS.
 
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