Velociraptors or WD640?

E

Ed Blown Vert

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 21, 2007
Messages
418
I have been searching and reading and when I think I have made a decision. I find another post to sway me. So I guess I will post up.

My current disks are getting full. So I am looking to add more.

My Raid 1 is currently partition into 3. OS, Games and Data. (Yes I know, not the best way) My Raid 0 is my work area and for backup

My goal is faster loads of the OS and Games.

1. Raptor 300 Partitioned for OS and Games?
2. (2) 640 Raid 0 for OS and Games?

The Raid 1 will end up for just data.

Any other suggestions?
 
I would think that RAIDed 640s would outperform a single Velociraptor, but I'm sure someone here can answer that for sure.
 
Here are my results with 2x WD640s striped (these are the blacks, w/32m cache) on an ich9r controller (same as yours) and same proc as yours but mine is at 3.0 not 3.5.

Look at the last image I posted to see the short stroked performance (attained by making a smaller partition for the OS in intel matrix just after creating the array). I've seen one person with a larger OS partition than me (300gb versus 161gb) who attained the same performance. Personally I'd go with 300gb for the OS a second time around.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1384618

The advantage you'll get with the VR is better seek times, but as you can see with my bench, these 640's are nothing to complain about. I do that transfer rates with this setup smokes a single VR. My boot times and game loads and other IO processes are very fast. The advantage with the WD 640's is that they'll cost less, give you more storage, better transfer rates, at the cost of longer seek times. But we're talking 9ms on the OS, not 14ms like some drives.
 
Thanks guys.

mryerse, those numbers are sweet. But what I keep reading is if you want fast loads. Seek time is what you want. But your 8ms is right by a Raptor.

Where are you running your games from?
 
Yeah, seek times help with bootup and loading certain apps, but I think that the WD 640 seek times (on a short stroked config) are good enough that it's not worth the cost of VR anymore. Honestly I don't have any games loaded, not enough time for that right now. But I would put them on the OS drive of 300GB so that they load quickly. The remaining space I have as a Data partition where I store all my TV Shows and Movies, Music, and Pictures. I don't like many partitions and would prefer one but having a small one like this gives you performance and is worth it.
 
I agree.. Short stroking definitly squeezes additional performance from that config
 
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