Leopard Extreme Storage Options

[Conzar]

I was looking at configuring a Leopard Extreme PC and noticed there is only 1 storage option. The wild dog has 3.

Is it possible to have a 120GB SSD for the OS and a 2TB HDD (or 2 2TB HDDs in Software RAID-1) for data and user home directory for the Leopard Extreme?

[3Miro]

You can buy your own SSD and install it. I got a Leopard with 2TB HDD and then added a 120GB SSD, then reinstalled Xubuntu.

It would have been better if the SSD came with the machine, but it is not a big deal.

[isantop]

We only offer RAID options on the Leopard because they provide much faster IO performance than split-drive configurations.

[3Miro]

I have to disagree with isantop. You are right that RAID is faster than non-raid, but as of today, we are dealing with a trade-off between the cheap and slow HDD that offer huge storage and the expensive and fast SSD that offer small storage. Currently, the most economically viable option is to buy a small SSD (~120GB or maybe two of those in RAID) for the main OS and then one or more HDD for storage.

On my Leopard, I did install an extra SSD and now I have both the speed of SSD and capacity of HDD. I don't need an SSD for my media files, they take more space than speed to run (especially when boosted by the 32GB of RAM cache). On the other hand, I don't have to pay an arm and a leg for an SSD with more than 60 ~ 120GB storage.

Even if money wasn't an issue, one can only get 1TB of fast SSD RAID storage on the Leopard or 2TB of slower HDD RAID. The 120GB SSD + 2TB HDD wins on capacity vs option 1 and wins on speed vs option 2. It is IMO currently the optimal balance.

BTW the Leopard is an amazing machine, it is literary whisper quiet while still packing power second only to monstrous servers.

[isantop]

The Hard Drives in RAID 0 should see similar performance to a single SSD. Obviously, SSD RAID will be faster still, but if you want SSD performance and HDD capacity, the RAID is the best option.

[Conzar]

I agree with 3Miro. My current setup at home is just what he described (120GB SSD for the OS + 1TB HDD for storage). I think ideally, I want the SSD for the OS and a RAID-1 with 2 2TB HDDs. So my "data" has redudancy and my OS is fast. I don't care about redundancy for the OS b/c I can just buy another SSD.

Anyways, are the HDDs water cooled or air cooled? 3Miro, how did you handle cooling your extra HDDs?