NMFTM
September 12th, 2010, 12:57 AM
This is would normally be the kind of thing I'd do my own research on. But I sort of have a lot of balls up in the air right now and would like to order a new HD ordered by at least Monday morning.
I currently have two Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&cm_re=samsung_spinpoint_1tb-_-22-152-185-_-Product) drives fake raid0'd together for all of my needs. From data storage to my multiple booted OS's.
I took a 750GB Western Digital drive out of my external enclosure but upon performing tests, it can apparently only read at about 65MB/s while my 2TB raid0 can read at about 140MB/s, according to Ubuntu's Disk Manager benchmarks.
I planned on using the 750 as my primary and dedicating the raid0 array for data usage only. But, I don't want to downgrade to something that's read time is almost 50% slower. So, I'm looking for a new 750GB drive to use as my primary.
I don't know if the read rates on my Spinpoint F3 fake raid0 array is because they're raid'd together or because they're just faster drives in general. Because I've never done test on them independently and currently don't have the time to repartition and test it out. I've had people tell me that fake raid0 with a JMicron controller (they're supposedly kinda crappy) will give me everything from worse, to neutral, to superior performance than if they were not fake raid'd.
I was looking at getting a WD Caviar Black because for being their high performance drives many of them aren't terribly expensive. But, I don't currently have the time to research if other companies that aren't as name brand of them sell drives with similar performance for a much lower price.
Also, what about the new SATA 6gb/s drives? Would it be worth it to get one? They're not that much more expensive than 3gb/s ones. But, what I'm concerned about is that I'd need to get a SATA 6gb/s PCI-E card. After checking Newegg most of them (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000410&IsNodeId=1&Description=sata%206gb%2Fs&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20) are over $100. But there are some that are in the $20-50 range. Are these cheaper ones just as good as the more expensive ones or do the cheaper ones not give you the full speed that sata 6gb/s is capable of? Also, is it even worth it to upgrade to 6gb/s if I'm not going to be using a solid state drive?
If I do this I'll probably end up putting my OS's on the new 750GB drive, my virtual machines on the slower 750GB drive, and my data on the 1TB fake raid0 array. That way I'll be able to do a lot of multitasking without all the burden being put on a single drive.
Unfortunately researching HD's isn't easy because they don't give you speed in terms of transfer rates or access times. Only seek time and latency, which Disk Manager's benchmark tool doesn't show you. Plus, most people only look at the RPM and storage ratings and buy the cheapest drive available because they falsely assume that all 7200RPM drives perform the same and it's only the storage capacity that matters. Which seems to be how most companies market their drives.
I currently have two Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&cm_re=samsung_spinpoint_1tb-_-22-152-185-_-Product) drives fake raid0'd together for all of my needs. From data storage to my multiple booted OS's.
I took a 750GB Western Digital drive out of my external enclosure but upon performing tests, it can apparently only read at about 65MB/s while my 2TB raid0 can read at about 140MB/s, according to Ubuntu's Disk Manager benchmarks.
I planned on using the 750 as my primary and dedicating the raid0 array for data usage only. But, I don't want to downgrade to something that's read time is almost 50% slower. So, I'm looking for a new 750GB drive to use as my primary.
I don't know if the read rates on my Spinpoint F3 fake raid0 array is because they're raid'd together or because they're just faster drives in general. Because I've never done test on them independently and currently don't have the time to repartition and test it out. I've had people tell me that fake raid0 with a JMicron controller (they're supposedly kinda crappy) will give me everything from worse, to neutral, to superior performance than if they were not fake raid'd.
I was looking at getting a WD Caviar Black because for being their high performance drives many of them aren't terribly expensive. But, I don't currently have the time to research if other companies that aren't as name brand of them sell drives with similar performance for a much lower price.
Also, what about the new SATA 6gb/s drives? Would it be worth it to get one? They're not that much more expensive than 3gb/s ones. But, what I'm concerned about is that I'd need to get a SATA 6gb/s PCI-E card. After checking Newegg most of them (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000410&IsNodeId=1&Description=sata%206gb%2Fs&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20) are over $100. But there are some that are in the $20-50 range. Are these cheaper ones just as good as the more expensive ones or do the cheaper ones not give you the full speed that sata 6gb/s is capable of? Also, is it even worth it to upgrade to 6gb/s if I'm not going to be using a solid state drive?
If I do this I'll probably end up putting my OS's on the new 750GB drive, my virtual machines on the slower 750GB drive, and my data on the 1TB fake raid0 array. That way I'll be able to do a lot of multitasking without all the burden being put on a single drive.
Unfortunately researching HD's isn't easy because they don't give you speed in terms of transfer rates or access times. Only seek time and latency, which Disk Manager's benchmark tool doesn't show you. Plus, most people only look at the RPM and storage ratings and buy the cheapest drive available because they falsely assume that all 7200RPM drives perform the same and it's only the storage capacity that matters. Which seems to be how most companies market their drives.