2x2.5" raid better than 1x3.5" for noise & per

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dbmnk
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2x2.5" raid better than 1x3.5" for noise & per

Post by dbmnk » Wed Oct 10, 2007 8:34 am

In everyday-computing, what would by my performance experience in using 2 notebook-drives in raid compared to a single 3.5" drive?

What would be my noise experiences for the two setups?

I am planning on building a silent and reasonably fast SFF computer.

As far as the case goes, I'm considering a Silverstone SG02 or 03.
MB: Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R motherboard that features Intel ICH9R southbridge RAID controller.
HD: (2.5" or 3.5") would be whatever SPCR recommends at present.
PSU: Corsair HX520W as recommended for these cases.
CPU Heatsink: unfortunately Silverstone NT06 since the Minja wouldn't fit. CPU: Intel E6750 (best performance/price).

I reckon I could soft-mount the 2.5" drives in the SUGO cases, but not the 3.5" drive.

Hope some of you have some experiences with either of my intended setups or components.

Solid Snake
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Post by Solid Snake » Wed Oct 10, 2007 10:11 am

I'm assuming you mean RAID0 which I'd advise against for any size drive. Reason: Either drive dies, you lose all your stuff. I'm running a RAID1 pair of Seagate Momentus 5400RPM/160GB and it is quieter than any Seagate, Maxtor or WD 3.5" I've ever had. The 2.5" give you more flexibility in mounting, lower power consumption, thermal output and noise.

yahui168
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Post by yahui168 » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:03 am

RAID 0 is not likely to provide noticeable performance increases.

"The real world performance increases are negligible at best"

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... =2101&p=11

lor77
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Post by lor77 » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:22 pm

Greetings to everyone.
The explanation in anandtech says it all.
I was just about to buy to two 40gb scorpio drives and create a RAID0 for running windows platform.
But now i think i will skip the disc array and buy a single 120gb Scorpio which i think will have a better overall performance than the 40gb brother.
Did the guys in anandtech used a separate Raid controller or they used the onboard one,is something i didnt got?

yahui168
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Post by yahui168 » Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:30 pm

I think they used the RAID on the motherboard. The Intel D875PBZ motherboard has onboard RAID, and there's no mention of a separate RAID controller in the test bed description.

lor77
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Post by lor77 » Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:57 pm

So they must be getting some better numbers in terms of performance if they have used a separate Raid controller,as far as im concerned.
But again most probably the increase will not be so profound as to justify the increase in cost for setting the Raid,or better a comparison with a faster drive.

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Post by Sizzle » Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:15 pm

yahui168 wrote:RAID 0 is not likely to provide noticeable performance increases.

"The real world performance increases are negligible at best"

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... =2101&p=11
A three year old article with RAID tech that was immature compared to todays ICH9R or 6XX series technology would not be somethnig I would base my decision on. I am sure there are articles on RAID using a modern RAID controller.

flyingsherpa
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Post by flyingsherpa » Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:24 pm

Sizzle wrote: A three year old article with RAID tech that was immature compared to todays ICH9R or 6XX series technology would not be somethnig I would base my decision on. I am sure there are articles on RAID using a modern RAID controller.
This.

This guy http://www.overclockers.com/articles1297/ found a huge difference using RAID0 with two raptors versus just one. Not sure if the same would be true for 2.5" drives, but it might be worth a shot. Not for me though, I would never do RAID0, too risky for my tastes. Of course I'd still love for someone to try it and report back just to satisfy my curiosity 8)

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Sat Oct 13, 2007 9:35 pm

yeah, the 0 performance difference on raid 0 claims are crap.

i have done it so many times with such obvious performance gains, it's nuts. Writing you dont, reading you do is what most modern or OLD tests show.

2.5 drives are made like crap though in terms of longevity. or designed like crap inherently. two of them in tandem kind of beg for a soon death.

I never care about such deaths though as I have a cheap 200gb backup firewire drive that stores all of my data, photos, etc.

has anyone checked out the multi floppy disk raid arrays? they actually can keep up with an older, slower hardrive in many read tasks. fun to check out.

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Post by tibetan mod king » Sun Oct 14, 2007 12:49 pm

Sizzle wrote:
yahui168 wrote:RAID 0 is not likely to provide noticeable performance increases.

"The real world performance increases are negligible at best"

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... =2101&p=11
A three year old article with RAID tech that was immature compared to todays ICH9R or 6XX series technology would not be somethnig I would base my decision on. I am sure there are articles on RAID using a modern RAID controller.
As many on SPCR know, Anandtech is legendary for their ill-informed reviews/reviewers.

RAID 0 is a well proven performance winner. But it is not a good choice if you value your data. With a good controller / driver, RAID 1 will give you additional read performance (two spindles with identical data and the controller/driver will use both drives when reading). Unless you are running an Oracle database or doing heavy duty HD video editing, RAID 1 works very well. Two 2.5" drives will be much much quieter than the comparable 3.5" drive.

For my new build, I am using all 2.5" drives (Hitachi 7K200 7200rpm 16MB cache). It is very fast and very quiet. I can hear a faint whirring and sometimes some ticking when the drives are seeking. It is way better than 3.5" drives. And the higher spindle count gives me very nice read performance. The drives are hooked up to a 3ware 9550sx which has its own cache too.

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Re: 2x2.5" raid better than 1x3.5" for noise &

Post by Arvo » Sun Oct 14, 2007 12:59 pm

dbmnk wrote:PSU: Corsair HX520W as recommended for these cases.
off-topic question: Why to use 520W PSU for 50-100W system? I'd go with PicoPSU or similar :)

tibetan mod king
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Post by tibetan mod king » Sun Oct 14, 2007 1:06 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:yeah, the 0 performance difference on raid 0 claims are crap.

i have done it so many times with such obvious performance gains, it's nuts. Writing you dont, reading you do is what most modern or OLD tests show.

2.5 drives are made like crap though in terms of longevity. or designed like crap inherently. two of them in tandem kind of beg for a soon death.

I never care about such deaths though as I have a cheap 200gb backup firewire drive that stores all of my data, photos, etc.

has anyone checked out the multi floppy disk raid arrays? they actually can keep up with an older, slower hardrive in many read tasks. fun to check out.
Many drive manufacturers offer 2.5" drives that are built for continuous usage. Hitachi for a long time offered their "E" drives that were the "Enterprise" editions of the "no-E" Kxxx consumer drives. For example, today's E7K200 is the continuous duty version of the 7K200:

http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/e ... 2eac4f0a0/

Beyond 7200rpm, Seagate and Fujitsu have long offered enterprise 2.5" drives that run at 10K (and now even 15K). These are not "crap" drives. But they are quite a bit louder than 7200/5400 2.5" drives.

Keep in mind that using off the shelf hardware, you can fit 1.5-1.8TB into one drive bay using 2.5" technology. 50-80% more density (vs. 1TB 3.5") is very popular in the enterprise. With 10K/15K drives, you get more space and more IOPs. It costs more to go with 2.5" drives vs. 3.5", but you also get more.

In my personal usage of 3.5" and 2.5" drives I have seen a higher failure rate in 2.5" drives, but that is over the past 5 years. In the past 1-2 years, the failure rates are about the same. Which would lead me to believe that most 2.5" drives today are not built as poorly as the consumer 2.5" drives of the past.

tibetan mod king
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Re: 2x2.5" raid better than 1x3.5" for noise &

Post by tibetan mod king » Sun Oct 14, 2007 1:14 pm

Arvo wrote:
dbmnk wrote:PSU: Corsair HX520W as recommended for these cases.
off-topic question: Why to use 520W PSU for 50-100W system? I'd go with PicoPSU or similar :)
It all depends on the graphics card (now and in the future), doesn't it? Likely the HX520W is recommended so the customer can pretty much plug in whatever graphics card they want and not worry about changing the PSU.

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Post by Arvo » Sun Oct 14, 2007 2:01 pm

Considering motherboard selection (Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R) and SFF it's highly unlikely that any separate graphics card will be used at all :)

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Post by tibetan mod king » Sun Oct 14, 2007 2:45 pm

Arvo wrote:Considering motherboard selection (Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R) and SFF it's highly unlikely that any separate graphics card will be used at all :)
If I've learned one thing from being a ruler, it is that the future is unpredictable. Sometimes it is best to prepare for possibilities now, even if those possibilities seem remote.

dbmnk
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Re: 2x2.5" raid better than 1x3.5" for noise &

Post by dbmnk » Tue Oct 16, 2007 2:27 am

thanks for the great comments, looks like a pair of 7K rpm 2.5 in raid1 might do it. and ftw they can be softmounted in a sugo case.
Arvo wrote:
dbmnk wrote:PSU: Corsair HX520W as recommended for these cases.
off-topic question: Why to use 520W PSU for 50-100W system? I'd go with PicoPSU or similar :)
the power is of no importance, only noise is! This supply supposedly should be very quit, offer modular cables and feature an exhaust fan as recommended for the SUGO03 case. I have no knowledge of picoPSU, but most powerbricks i've had always produced alot of electromagnetic noise, which inherently is worse than fans.

yahui168
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Post by yahui168 » Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:05 pm

Here's a recent article on RAID performance. Tomshardware's reputation has steadily declined over the years due to bias and quality so take it for what it's worth. Cheers.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/17/ ... rocessing/

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