hard drives & raid - benchmark and compare!

[suspekt]

I have always been a fan of SCSI for RAID, but I dunno.... after playing around with the two 65-dollar Seagate 7200.9 NCQ SATAII 160s for a week, I'm pretty damn impressed and I may have to rethink that. Can you get more speed with a dedicated caching controller on PCIE and/ or with SCSI? Yes, but not for the cost of ZERO (NF4 onboard RAID) on the controller and $130US for the drives.

 

Seeing these benchmarks, I should have gotten four and run a RAID10 !!!!!!

Not bad for cheap stuff....

Well you get the best bang for the buck

 

But the I/O performance isn't anywhere near that of new 15k drives. And access time is higher.. but for a workstation with the moderate multi-tasking it does, all that shouldn't matter too much. For a dedicated webserver/fileserver/put-in-your-heavy-duty-server-here this is where you see the difference in I/O performance... especially with many types of seek, reads and writes at the same time.

[suspekt]

I've got two raptors in raid 0 (74GB). What is the reccomended striping size? Also, will moving to raid 5 increase performance at all?

For the best write and read performance, RAID-0 is what you would want to use. Always be sure to backup your important data, cause if something goes wrong (hardly ever does but just in case), and one of your drives crash, then the whole array (all the drives you are running in RAID-0) will be unaccesseble.

 

RAID-5 is if you want redudancy and it uses parity bits, so you will have severly limited write speeds, and read speed, well, they are adequite. This is if you have very important data that you cannot loose... like your business files for example.

 

If you have 2 drives, the recommended striping size is 16kb, and the cluster size 4kb (standard NTFS cluster size). Always it is good to know that to be certain you get the best performance, test your array with different striping sizes and see what works best for you. The 16/4 works good if it is your boot array (with Windows for example), and if you mostly use big files (like music, video editing etc.) then 64/16 should do you good. A middle road here is 32/8... you will find different opinions and tastes throughout this whole thread... but I think almost all people agree that you use a cluster size that is 4 times smaller than the striping size.

 

Example: Striping size 64kb / 4 = 16kb cluster size

 

If you are planning to use striping size of 16kb, you get the 4kb cluster size automatically when you format as it is the NTFS standard.

[red930]

but I think almost all people agree that you use a cluster size that is 4 times smaller than the striping size.

 

Example: Striping size 64kb / 4 = 16kb cluster size

 

If you are planning to use striping size of 16kb, you get the 4kb cluster size automatically when you format as it is the NTFS standard.

Just remember that the 4 to 1 ratio is recommended specifically for a two drive RAID-0 array.

 

As you add more drives the stripe should increase if the cluster stays the same.

 

For a four drive RAID-0 array you might want to use a 128K stripe with a 16K cluster.

[BadWillHunting]

Just remember that the 4 to 1 ratio is recommended specifically for a two drive RAID-0 array.

 

As you add more drives the stripe should increase if the cluster stays the same.

 

For a four drive RAID-0 array you might want to use a 128K stripe with a 16K cluster.

 

So what do you think of a 3-drive RAID0? 32k or 64k on a NV4RAID controller under XP (32-bit)? Just curious.

 

I've also noticed that only Angry and a handful of others here like RAID5s. Come on folks, is the I/O penality for parity that bad when you run more than 3 drives?

[BadWillHunting]

Well you get the best bang for the buck

 

But the I/O performance isn't anywhere near that of new 15k drives. And access time is higher.. but for a workstation with the moderate multi-tasking it does, all that shouldn't matter too much. For a dedicated webserver/fileserver/put-in-your-heavy-duty-server-here this is where you see the difference in I/O performance... especially with many types of seek, reads and writes at the same time.

 

True dat. Of course, the noise of drives over 7200rpm is a lot for me, plus the lack of capacity that you get from those high-end drives. I kind of focus on content creation, so the el-cheapo "good" performance matters more to me. I'll fill up that 320gig stripe setup in a few months... so I really should have gotten 250s or 300s in the first place, just didn't want to spend a lot to experiment.

[Mdebrito]

My Strip size is 64K and Cluster 4K can this be the problem of my Burst speed poor performance ?

 

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/4921/18ws2.jpg

[Angry_Games]

So what do you think of a 3-drive RAID0? 32k or 64k on a NV4RAID controller under XP (32-bit)? Just curious.

 

I've also noticed that only Angry and a handful of others here like RAID5s. Come on folks, is the I/O penality for parity that bad when you run more than 3 drives?

er...I don't like RAID-5 at all...I just run it once in a while to show you guys the benchmarks, then I wipe it and run RAID-0 lol

 

 

look at my latest RAID-5 shots...110MB/s reads but only 2MB - 8MB/s writes...at least it doesn't FEEL as slow as the crappy SI3114 controller in software RAID-5

[Gilbert]

True dat. Of course, the noise of drives over 7200rpm is a lot for me, plus the lack of capacity that you get from those high-end drives. I kind of focus on content creation, so the el-cheapo "good" performance matters more to me. I'll fill up that 320gig stripe setup in a few months... so I really should have gotten 250s or 300s in the first place, just didn't want to spend a lot to experiment.

 

BadWild,

 

Not to be rude, although I am not sure that you know what you are talking about.

 

First the noise:

 

Check out these specs:

 

http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchmark..._4=295&devCnt=5

 

It clearly shows that the 150GB Raptor is as noisy as the 74GB and quieter than your 7200.9. On a sidenote, the 15000RPM drives that I use, are not that much more louder ~3.7dBa than yours. We are not talking about 5.25" SCSI drives or the 1.5" ones.

 

Second - the space: Do you understand that a 500GB hard drive with data is a complete waste? Why in hell you need that much space and even if you do, why you need it to be fast? It is either you are storing all the crap that one can find on the internet or wasting too much space for porn. People have created LTO AIT DLT drives that you can use to backup up to 800GB on a single tape and it is CHEAPER than chasing the Terabyte dream.

 

You would be better off with 2x150GB Raptors for speed/capacity and that's the dream of every designer/photographer or anyone who edits video/audio/photos.

 

FYI: A compressed MPEG-2 stream of 1080p content runs around 1.1-1.5mb/sec ~8-10GB per true 1080p movie.

 

I just wonder ...

[Angry_Games]

Second - the space: Do you understand that a 500GB hard drive with data is a complete waste? Why in hell you need that much space and even if you do, why you need it to be fast? It is either you are storing all the crap that one can find on the internet or wasting too much space for porn. People have created LTO AIT DLT drives that you can use to backup up to 800GB on a single tape and it is CHEAPER than chasing the Terabyte dream.

 

not to be rude to you, but who the hell are you to tell someone that they are wasting their efforts?

 

you should keep your yap shut about what other people do with their hdd space if it doesn't fall within YOUR opinion of useful

 

I use 250GB+ drives and I store plenty of information...every single cd I have ever ripped to mp3, every video, driver, utility, etc that I have ever downloaded from the net.

 

Why should I go spend an hour or six downloading some big file that I already have?

 

Again, just because YOU don't think that having a huge hdd is a good idea, does not mean you can control the hdd opinion wand and make everyone else think you are the smartest individual on the forum.

 

People have created LTO AIT DLT drives that you can use to backup up to 800GB on a single tape and it is CHEAPER than chasing the Terabyte dream.

 

tape drives are slow compared to a nice fast hdd.

 

period.

 

You would be better off with 2x150GB Raptors for speed/capacity and that's the dream of every designer/photographer or anyone who edits video/audio/photos.

 

oh...so now everyone should own what a designer/photographer should (in your opinion) own?

 

as I said before....stick a sock in it when it comes to telling people they are stupid because of their likes and dislikes (and yes, you have pretty much called him stupid because you don't agree with him).

 

I've no time for useless posters and their opinions like yours so consider this your one warning that it is ok to post your opinion, but the instant you begin attacking someone because they like something different than you, you are going to get a quick and permanent vacation (see the forum rules if you haven't already read them)

[Angry_Games]

ps: your next post had better have a REAL location as per rule #10 or that vacation will come even quicker than you expected

[Redbeaver]

not to be rude to you, but who the hell are you to tell someone that they are wasting their efforts?

 

you should keep your yap shut about what other people do with their hdd space if it doesn't fall within YOUR opinion of useful

 

I use 250GB+ drives and I store plenty of information...every single cd I have ever ripped to mp3, every video, driver, utility, etc that I have ever downloaded from the net.

 

Why should I go spend an hour or six downloading some big file that I already have?

 

Again, just because YOU don't think that having a huge hdd is a good idea, does not mean you can control the hdd opinion wand and make everyone else think you are the smartest individual on the forum.

 

 

 

tape drives are slow compared to a nice fast hdd.

 

period.

 

 

 

oh...so now everyone should own what a designer/photographer should (in your opinion) own?

 

as I said before....stick a sock in it when it comes to telling people they are stupid because of their likes and dislikes (and yes, you have pretty much called him stupid because you don't agree with him).

 

I've no time for useless posters and their opinions like yours so consider this your one warning that it is ok to post your opinion, but the instant you begin attacking someone because they like something different than you, you are going to get a quick and permanent vacation (see the forum rules if you haven't already read them)

 

i agree wit AG............

 

 

plus, i have more than half-a-terabyte in my system and theyre about 80% full. With what? no its not porn. But all the pictures i took wit my 6mpix camera, videos from the camera, clips, documents, musics, school works, photoshops, games, etc....

 

now lets say i need to recover or take a look at some of those stuff i put in there 2 years ago? u think its better to load a tape-drive or a dvd or somethin, than just go to E: drive?

 

point is, i support Baldwild (and other people here too i bet) that having large storages can be beneficial... Tape drives are not that cheap too... i managed tons of them in the office (i work in a bank)

 

ps: i use 2x Seagate 80Gb 7200.9 for my RAID-0 and theyre.....well.... lets just say i cant tellif theyre on or not 10cm from my ears, inside my computers.....

[red930]

@Gilbert

 

To each his own!

 

That's rather rude of you to take that condescending tone with a fellow forum member.

 

Sometimes a Terabyte array is just the ticket for a particular use. I've set them up and used them before.

 

As far as storage goes, I simply buy the largest drives on sale as they appear. I've paid as little as $99.00USD for a Seagate 300GB drive with a five year warranty. You can get 100GB drives for as little as $19.99USD on sale. These drives make perfect backups, take moments to connect and are small enough to stash in your desk drawer at work or a friends house.

 

I backup my valuable data on several drives then store them in different places.

 

I just updated my backup drives with the beginning of hurricane season this week.