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hard drives & raid - benchmark and compare!


Angry_Games

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The WD1500AH is a model "for gamers", while the enterprise version is known under the name WD1500AD and comes with TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) marchitecture.

For RAID it's the WD1500AD you would want to use, as it has a limited error recovery that is well suitable in an RAID enviorment. These drives will not start error-checking/rebuilding for a long time while the other drives in the array are doing say a read or write as usual. (Potential RAID-death)

 

I think there is a timeframe that is allowed for error checking and recovery in RAID, but that amount of time could possibly depend on what controller you are using, and the BIOS version. But too long recovery time should make the array inoperable.

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For RAID it's the WD1500AD you would want to use,

But not with the onboard RAID solutions provided by nVidia and others.

 

You will need a hardware RAID controller card to see any benefit from these drives.

 

The "regular" desktop drive is the choice for onboard RAID.

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I'm building a server right now with an HP Smart Array 641 RAID controller. The controller is built around an ASIC that is basically an Intel PIII with 64MB of cache.

 

It is capable of doing things that an onboard solution just doesn't have the hardware for.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quicksp...na/12067_na.pdf

 

The onboard RAID solutions are considered "software" RAID by many since they can function as a standard controller or a RAID controller.

 

The "special" RAID functions of the drive will only work on a controller that can take advantage of it and right now none of the onboard solutions have that capability.

 

It might be worth the extra money if you want to hedge your bets against the future but at the rate that people replace drives I'm not sure I would make that bet.

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I've been noticing some strange sounds coming from my new array and wondered if Roadie, or anyone else had some insight... Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB x 2 in RAID 0 on the sil controller. They squeak. Occasionally they make a beep sound, more squeak than beep really. Every 10 - 45 minutes of sustained writing causes them to squeak, just once. I have no errors nor can I detect any problems with the drives.

 

Can anyone give me a number for an exterminator, I have a mouse in my hard drive!

 

Striping info as follows:

Stripe 16k / Cluster 4k

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Well I complained to Seagate, on the email tech support, and they had this to say...

 

================

 

Hello

 

Thank you for your inquiry

 

The problem you have is the power supply of your computer.

you are not getting enough power to the drive .

 

Please check the power supply of your computer to be at least 450w for 2

SATA drives

 

Best Regards,

 

Jorge K.

Seagate Technical Support

 

=======================

 

I have to say they do offer fast email support! I sent the complaint in at 3:15 pm or so and got a reply at 12:20 am... not bad...

 

So instead of taking out my new 1TB array or worse yet my Raptors.... I turned up the 12v rail on the PSU... seems it was laking about .22v according to Speed fan... i know not the most reliable way to read the voltages... Bios said it was down by just .12v also not the most reliable way to test voltages... anyway I turned it up so bios reads 12.09v and speed fan reads 11.97

 

Should I turn it back down quick before something explodes, or feel great since the beeping /squeaking has stopped, at least for now anyway! I really thought I was getting a voltage meter for x-mas... lol

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ExRoadie:

 

Yes hardware is the way to go. Those 4 raptors was enough for my budget this time :)

So you running that basically in an ordinary PCI slot or is it in a PCI express slot?

 

My 12V rail is at 12.29v in MBM, and that is with 4 SATA drives and one optical. Have to get me a multimeter :)

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