2x 74gb WD Raptor 15k raid 0 vs 4x 80gb 7.2k 2.5 raid 0

[Geofrancis]

i am currently running 2x 74gb Western Digital Raptor hard drives for my main OS drive its pretty fast but LOUD and they need a fan sitting right next to them to keep them cool and 140gb really isn't enough space once games get installed

i am upgrading 4 laptop hard drives to 500gb for someone and this leaves me with 4x 80gb 7200rpm laptop drives. my questions are:

will 4x 2.5 7200rpm 80gb laptop drives be much faster than the 2x 15k rpm raptors?

can i stack 4 laptop hard drives without them overheating?

should i run raid 0 on them? 4x drives are twice as lightly to fail than 2x or sacrifice a drive and some speed and do raid 5 on my amd 785g chipset?

[Jizzler]

I'd probably just RAID-0 or RAID-5 all six of them, given their size. But that's just me, not caring about the noise and my HDD bays are fan-cooled. I'd also lean toward RAID-0 given the so-so RAID-5 performance of the SB750.

Perhaps just install the 4 x 80GB on your open ports, RAID them, and see how they bench vs the Raptors before going through the process of installing the OS on them and reinstalling apps.

[Geofrancis]

Originally Posted by Jizzler

I'd probably just RAID-0 or RAID-5 all six of them, given their size. But that's just me, not caring about the noise and my HDD bays are fan-cooled. I'd also lean toward RAID-0 given the so-so RAID-5 performance of the SB750.

Perhaps just install the 4 x 80GB on your open ports, RAID them, and see how they bench vs the Raptors before going through the process of installing the OS on them and reinstalling apps.

unfortunately my motherboard only has 4x SATA II ports so i cant hook everything in all at once. i am going to make an image of my current array but i am not sure what imaging software works with AMD raid any suggestions? and i think i remember something about copying arrays to a different drive configuration that if you do you lose performance due to sector alignment or something? not sure tho. does anyone know anything about this?

[AsRock]

Keep with what you have already. Although if your going have the drives anyways try it like why the hell not.

Having one big array is not really the best way to go as if it ever needs rebuilding it slows every thing down. I find it better to have multiple arrays than just 1.

Never let me down yet
Acronis True Image WD Edition Software
http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...19&wdc_lang=en

Although i have only tested it with Intel chipsets but been able to copy a raid array to a single drive and back to a array.

[Jizzler]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

unfortunately my motherboard only has 4x SATA II ports so i cant hook everything in all at once. i am going to make an image of my current array but i am not sure what imaging software works with AMD raid any suggestions? and i think i remember something about copying arrays to a different drive configuration that if you do you lose performance due to sector alignment or something? not sure tho. does anyone know anything about this?

So the board in your specs is the one in question? That would be nVidia (nForce 630a), not AMD. At first I thought you might be talking about a different system. Luckily it doesn't matter which system you're using

As far as the OS is concerned, it sees 148GB. Doesn't matter to it how it was formed or if it was a single drive. Same goes for the imaging software. It's sees 144GB to copy (minus free space, if it has the ability to shrink). After the array is created, all the software will evaluate is that the 144GB image will fit onto your 320GB "drive".

Can't give any specifics as to which one to use as I don't do a lot of imaging.

[Geofrancis]

Originally Posted by Jizzler

So the board in your specs is the one in question? That would be nVidia (nForce 630a), not AMD. At first I thought you might be talking about a different system. Luckily it doesn't matter which system you're using

As far as the OS is concerned, it sees 148GB. Doesn't matter to it how it was formed or if it was a single drive. Same goes for the imaging software. It's sees 144GB to copy (minus free space, if it has the ability to shrink). After the array is created, all the software will evaluate is that the 144GB image will fit onto your 320GB "drive".

Can't give any specifics as to which one to use as I don't do a lot of imaging.

lol no the motherboard in question is a Foxconn Cinema II premium with a 785g+SB750. i have set up the 4 drives with the motherboard and put a fresh install of 7x64 on it and done some benchmarks and it runs about the same speed as my 2 raptors around 130mb's. but is almost totally silent!

[Geofrancis]

i ran hd tune and this is what i got. i also noticed that all my drives were not 7200rpm one is 5400 .

[ZenZimZaliben]

Access time is an important metric as well. 14.9ms is at least double what a single raptor is.

For Large Single files it doesn't matter as much. But for games that load hundreds of assets before launching that access time can make a big difference in load times.

Also CPU Usage is important, and yours is showing some odd negative numbers. My guess is the Raptor Raid 0 setup will use less CPU power than the 4 disc RAID 0. With a Athlon X2 you may want to reserve those cycles for games instead of managing a hard drive array.

[Geofrancis]

Originally Posted by ZenZimZaliben

Access time is an important metric as well. 14.9ms is at least double what a single raptor is.

For Large Single files it doesn't matter as much. But for games that load hundreds of assets before launching that access time can make a big difference in load times.

Also CPU Usage is important, and yours is showing some odd negative numbers. My guess is the Raptor Raid 0 setup will use less CPU power than the 4 disc RAID 0. With a Athlon X2 you may want to reserve those cycles for games instead of managing a hard drive array.

i did notice the access time and thats what i loved about the raptors but that being said i have owned them for about a year and that noise is starting to bug me. i am going to connect them back up and benchmark them and see how much of a diffrerence there is

my cpu is a 1055T x6 so that should be fast enough and i thought you only needed alot of CPU for raid modes that have parity like 5 or 6?

[timta2]

I could be wrong but I don't think WD ever made a 15,000 RPM 74GB Raptor. It does say "2x10k" in your signature so maybe it was just an error, or wishful thinking

How about posting the HD Tune benchmarks for your Raptor RAID for comparison?

[Geofrancis]

Originally Posted by timta2

I could be wrong but I don't think WD ever made a 15,000 RPM 74GB Raptor. It does say "2x10k" in your signature so maybe it was just an error, or wishful thinking

How about posting the HD Tune benchmarks for your Raptor RAID for comparison?

wishfull thinking lol... i was looking at 15k sas drives going real cheap on ebay shame the controllers are a small fortune.

[AsRock]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

i did notice the access time and thats what i loved about the raptors but that being said i have owned them for about a year and that noise is starting to bug me. i am going to connect them back up and benchmark them and see how much of a diffrerence there is

my cpu is a 1055T x6 so that should be fast enough and i thought you only needed alot of CPU for raid modes that have parity like 5 or 6?

Try getting HD Tune pro amd lower the Automatic acoustic management of the Raptors and see how they do. How ever i don't know if it stay that way with a trail version od HD tune Pro.

Or even try Winaam.

[Geofrancis]

[AsRock]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

http://i55.tinypic.com/2100yzk.png

Raptors are much better..

To learn more about aam go here
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...stic,2084.html

[CyberDruid]

If the noise is getting to you try some Scythe Anti Vibration mounts. I know they are for 5.25 bays but they do dampen the sound. I ran 6 Raptors in RAID 0 for quite a while and I kind of like that thumpity sound they make.

[Goodman]

Raptor 74GB are Sata 1 only...

Anyhow why not just buy a cheap SSD 60+GB it will be much faster then your Raptor's in raid0 those drives are so hold that even a single 1-2TB HDD would perform as good as your Raptor in raid0 if not better lol!

If you can't afford a SSD buy a big 7200 HDD , my 1TB HDD does 106.3MB/s average all the time just higher access time but who is going to notice a few 1000 of 1 second or is it 1 000 000/1?
Anyhow some 2TB HDD can get 110-125MB/s average now put two of those in raid0... at your Raptor's all day long...
HDD are so cheap now that i wouldn't waist time on older Raptor tech which is obsolete this days

[Geofrancis]

Originally Posted by Goodman

Raptor 74GB are Sata 1 only...

Anyhow why not just buy a cheap SSD 60+GB it will be much faster then your Raptor's in raid0 those drives are so hold that even a single 1-2TB HDD would perform as good as your Raptor in raid0 if not better lol!

If you can't afford a SSD buy a big 7200 HDD , my 1TB HDD does 106.3MB/s average all the time just higher access time but who is going to notice a few 1000 of 1 second or is it 1 000 000/1?
Anyhow some 2TB HDD can get 110-125MB/s average now put two of those in raid0... at your Raptor's all day long...
HDD are so cheap now that i wouldn't waist time on older Raptor tech which is obsolete this days

i have had the raptors for over a year they are still much faster than 1 large 7200rpm drive when it comes to small files and for loading stuff that is what you need. i know an ssd would kick both their asses but they are still £115 for 120gb

i copied my normal OS to the 4x laptop drives using Acronis True Image and after a day of using them i can feel that they just not as fast especially starting windows up i can notice the extra time. but its almost totally silent and I have 320gb compared to 140gb for the pair of raptors so i think i am going to keep using the laptop drives for now and Ebay the raptors i could then use the cash to invest in an ssd.

[timta2]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

i have had the raptors for over a year they are still much faster than 1 large 7200rpm drive when it comes to small files and for loading stuff that is what you need.

Yes, I've noticed that people who bash the 10K drives often don't realize how important seek times and access times are. Unless you are using a SSD or 15K drives, the Raptor/VeliciRaptors are unbeatable when it comes to quickly loading small files. In games I'm usually in the room right behind the guy with a SSD.

[NdMk2o1o]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

i have had the raptors for over a year they are still much faster than 1 large 7200rpm drive when it comes to small files and for loading stuff that is what you need. i know an ssd would kick both their asses but they are still £115 for 120gb

i copied my normal OS to the 4x laptop drives using Acronis True Image and after a day of using them i can feel that they just not as fast especially starting windows up i can notice the extra time. but its almost totally silent and I have 320gb compared to 140gb for the pair of raptors so i think i am going to keep using the laptop drives for now and Ebay the raptors i could then use the cash to invest in an ssd.

Good luck, you will need it running a 4 drive raid0 array, it's twice more likely to fail compared to your raptors and slower to boot (no pun intended) I see no logical reason to change