2.5" 10K SAS Disks

Arthalen · 16 Dec 2011 at 13:12

I'm looking at possibly buying some of the above drives to use in a RAID 10 array. I can get a good deal on some older Seagate 10.3 Savvio disks at the moment, so was wondering if anyone could comment on noise/power usage for a desktop case?

Benchmarks look good, but anyone with real world experience?

Arthalen · 16 Dec 2011 at 13:30

goodl said:
get some earplugs #justsayin

I did say 2.5" and not 3.5" disks

Arthalen · 16 Dec 2011 at 14:42

skyripper said:
What capacity are you thinking of? As you'd probably be better off with a single SSD than SAS drives and an expensive controller to hang them on.

4x 300GB Disks, so 600GB or 900GB capacity depending on if I go RAID10/RAID5.

The intention is to put Steam/Games and Media on the array, and preserve my 60GB SSD for OS/Programs that can really make use of the SSD speeds.

I already have a spare SAS controller to put them on, thankfully, so no additional cost there.

Arthalen · 19 Dec 2011 at 09:27

Yamahahahahaha said:
What are you trying to achieve with a RAID10?

Why not 2 x 256GB SSDs in RAID1?

Because i can get 4x 300GB SAS 10K 2.5" Drives for half the price of a single 256GB SSD atm.

Stonedofmoo said:
Depends on the controller really. RAID 10 on something like a Dell PERC H200 is a horrible experience. The controller needs proper battery backed cache.

It would be a Dell PERC6/i with BBU.

Arthalen · 21 Dec 2011 at 12:38

Thansk for the feedback guys. Feel like I'm getting somewhere now.

I've just checked a few benchmarks out on the drives, where disk surface temperature was also measured.

58degC for the Savvio 10K.3 vs. 42degC for your average 3.5" 7200RPM drive.

So will definitly have to take alook at some cooling measures, methinks.

Arthalen · 10 Jan 2012 at 15:21

Just a catch up here, finally got a bracket for my PERC card, and got it all installed last night.

The disks are very quiet, the usual noticeable clicking when there doing some intense stuff (Installing Games

but tbh its no where near as bad as I imagined it could be.

Temperatures on the drives themselves fell good, all 4 drives are sat behind a pair of 120mm fans so there getting some direct airflow for cooling.

Will bench the set-up tonight, see how good it actually is