7200RPM worth extra over 5400? [writing data and archive]

413x

413x

413x

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my first 1.5TB backup drive is now full, so im looking for a second

ive found that 1.5tb is the best price point for £/GB

ill be using the drive for writing data [50GB+ at a time], this is the most demanding aspect, the other functions are superficial [such as playing, reading and storing blu ray ISOs]

so im looking for a quick WRITE drive, im just not sure if rotational speed is the biggest factor, all internet searches point to notebook use

thanks
 
A 7200rpm disk will read/write about 25% faster so up to you. Whether that's a real difference will depend upon your usage and how much time you'll really save. IMO if that difference is an issue then you might as well properly cut times with RAID arrays rather than a faster spinning disk. Remember that what you're writing from may limit things anyway.
 
i will be writing from HDD to HDD the HDDs i have currently are listed in my sig

the particular hdd i was looking at is the ST31500341AS, im finding it hard to find benchmarks tho, which particular models are best for this task? or even better is there a decent website with benchmarks?
ive never used samsung drives before

ive read that RAID arrays are a lot more likely to fail.

EDT, that was the wrong model and it is my current model.. i cant find anything significantly faster for near that prive
 
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i think its between
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11
and
Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000

the hitachi is about 33% bigger than the seagate for about 33% the cost [from overclockers]

i am considering 3 options

either 2x1.5TB 7200.11 [non raid]
or 2x1.5TB 7200.11 [RAID]
or 1.5TB 7200.11 + 7K2000 [non raid]

any more advice? :)
 
possibly going to get the 1,5tb seagate 7200.11 maybe from here. my first one hasnt le me down yet, anything any better than this?
 
Slackworth said:
7200rpm will always be faster but how much by depends on which 5400rpm drive it is. Take a look at either the Seagate or Samsung 5400.
Click to expand...

Thats not correct, I have a server grade Maxtor 250GB 7.2k dating from 2006 (quick drive for time with AHCI), and in benchmarks my 1.5TB 5.4k Samsung F2 performs better all round.
 
JasonM said:
Thats not correct, I have a server grade Maxtor 250GB 7.2k dating from 2006 (quick drive for time with AHCI), and in benchmarks my 1.5TB 5.4k Samsung F2 performs better all round.
Click to expand...

this is the only chart ive found, from thi it seems like the 7200s are generally faster than the 5400s at writes
 
Just did a bench with CrystalDiskMark witht the 7200 Maxtor and 5400 Samsung

These are 100MB x 5 cycle.

Maxtor (7200)

Read Seq: 34.69 Write Seq: 42.85
Read 512k: 21.12 Write 512k: 35.32
Read 4k: 0.416 Write 4k: 2.254

Samsung (5400)

Read Seq 96.42 Write Seq 96.05
Read 512k 43.02 Write 512k 61.58
Read 4k 0.653 Write 4k 1.284

I was wrong as the Maxtor beat the Samsung for 4k writes, but lost out everywhere else.
 
al4x said:
i will be writing from HDD to HDD the HDDs i have currently are listed in my sig

the particular hdd i was looking at is the ST31500341AS, im finding it hard to find benchmarks tho, which particular models are best for this task? or even better is there a decent website with benchmarks?
ive never used samsung drives before

ive read that RAID arrays are a lot more likely to fail.

EDT, that was the wrong model and it is my current model.. i cant find anything significantly faster for near that prive
Click to expand...

RAID is the way to go IMO. Make a RAID 5 setup if your board supports it by adding another 1.5TB drive for £55. You will get much faster read/write times and you have redundancy in your system if a drive fails. The difference between 5400/7200rpm compared to RAID is a drop in the ocean. You will effectively double your HD scores and end up with about 3.7TB of safe, fast useable storage from three 1.5TB drives. Don't be afraid, ask the same question again in the Enterprise forum and see what the server boys say. RAID is now affordable, scaleable, and more importantly, reliable :)
 
rush_syndrome said:
RAID is the way to go IMO. Make a RAID 5 setup if your board supports it by adding another 1.5TB drive for £55. You will get much faster read/write times and you have redundancy in your system if a drive fails. The difference between 5400/7200rpm compared to RAID is a drop in the ocean. You will effectively double your HD scores and end up with about 3.7TB of safe, fast useable storage from three 1.5TB drives. Don't be afraid, ask the same question again in the Enterprise forum and see what the server boys say. RAID is now affordable, scaleable, and more importantly, reliable :)
Click to expand...

RAID5 on an onboard controller will have crappy write speeds (~30MB/s iirc)

If you've got a decent controller It's pretty awesome though. My Array on a Hardware Perc 5/i (bought cheap on the bay) is about 3 years old now, I've grown it all the way up to 8 disks (6.5TB usuable space) and despite a couple of disk fails It's rebuilt fine when I put in a replacement disk and I've not lost any data.

Speed wise I get 300MB/s writes and around 450MB/s reads on large files. I'm usually bottlenecked by my Gigabit LAN though.
 
So is have tri buy another piece of hardwate.. it wouldn't be worth just sticking in 3 hard disks on the motherboard? That seems too much cost tbh
 
Zarf said:
RAID5 on an onboard controller will have crappy write speeds (~30MB/s iirc)

If you've got a decent controller It's pretty awesome though. My Array on a Hardware Perc 5/i (bought cheap on the bay) is about 3 years old now, I've grown it all the way up to 8 disks (6.5TB usuable space) and despite a couple of disk fails It's rebuilt fine when I put in a replacement disk and I've not lost any data.

Speed wise I get 300MB/s writes and around 450MB/s reads on large files. I'm usually bottlenecked by my Gigabit LAN though.
Click to expand...

Your PERC 5 card is excellent value for money, offering 8 channel raid for around £120 from the bay.. however, the OP was talking about 3 channels and the figures are considerably less.

I have an ICH10 onboard which will give a good improvement over singular mechanical drives. I get 167MB write across a stripe with two old F2's. Three will give well over 150MB/s in RAID 5 parity for read/write.

I also have a Megaraid 4i which is a fantastic card - currently waiting for a new range of SATA3 SSD's.
 
rush_syndrome said:
RAID is the way to go IMO. Make a RAID 5 setup if your board supports it by adding another 1.5TB drive for £55. You will get much faster read/write times and you have redundancy in your system if a drive fails. The difference between 5400/7200rpm compared to RAID is a drop in the ocean. You will effectively double your HD scores and end up with about 3.7TB of safe, fast useable storage from three 1.5TB drives. Don't be afraid, ask the same question again in the Enterprise forum and see what the server boys say. RAID is now affordable, scaleable, and more importantly, reliable :)
Click to expand...

Remember RAID is not a backup and so you should still have a second copy of all your data that is on the RAID array.
 
my board also has an ich10, 167mb/s isnt that much better than 100mb/s which i get just copying to and from my wd VR and seagate 7200.11..

is it worth it? i also may be limited to 3 drives max as
1 WD VR boot drive
1 seagate 7200.11
1 seagate 7200.11
1 seagate 7200.11
1 samsung blu ray drive
1 external esata

that is all the sata ports used lol.. but for now only 2 seagates, with all this raid talk i really am confused at what to do lol, tho i have just bought a second segate as whatever i do i think this is a good second drive and is the same as my first
 
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Ah yes, but your drives are 7200's and mine are 5400's. There is a world of difference when using faster drives with a good controller. If you google for the controller that Zarf uses (Dell Perc5e) you can find these quite cheaply on the MM or on a certain the bay of ecstacy :p for just a fraction over £100. With 8 channels available you can build serious speed and also factor in redundancy too. The good thing about buying a controller is that you always end up with loads of space/safer data. Once you lose all your data once, you have a lot more respect for it lol
 
Ah wish I had more pci e. If I got this it would stop me being able to possibly xfire in Future
 
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