fastest drives for RAID0

esiemi · 24 Jan 2008 at 03:27

hi guys

whats the fastest drive for raid 0 apart from raptors, will be using it as c:\ drive. btw at least 160 gb each.

how good is this? Western Digital RAID Edition 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD2500YS)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-104-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=768

also i have a P965 DS4 mobo, is the onboard raid any good or should i consider a raid card.

thanks.

rpstewart · 24 Jan 2008 at 09:07

Those WD drives are OK but the single platter 250Gb Seagate 7200.10s are faster.

The onboard RAID on the DS4 is fine, just make sure to use the Intel controller rather than the JMicron one.

esiemi · 24 Jan 2008 at 10:13

which model is single platter? how do i know they single platter?

rpstewart · 24 Jan 2008 at 10:22

This one is the single platter one.

Yeggstry · 24 Jan 2008 at 10:26

I can vouch for the speediness of the single platter

In fact when I build my new computer at the end of next month I plan on getting 2 and doing RAID 0 with them

esiemi · 24 Jan 2008 at 14:08

thank guys

mick4545 · 25 Jan 2008 at 00:22

Why is a single platter preferable to a multi?

Mick

rpstewart · 25 Jan 2008 at 08:40

The rate at which data comes off a drive is determined by how much passes under the read head in a unit of time. That is in turn dependent on two things 1) the spindle speed of the drive and 2) the data density on the platter. The higher the data density the more data passes under the head per revolution. For a given capacity a single platter drive will have a higher density than a multi platter drive - the original 250Gb 7200.10 had 167Gb platters whereas the newer models use the 7200.11s 250Gb platter. This means that the single platter ones are faster.

Currently 250Gb is the largest single platter drive available (Seagate and the Samsung S250), Samsung have 333Gb platters available but they're still only available in the 750Gb and 1Tb drives.

mick4545 · 26 Jan 2008 at 14:30

Thanks for clearing that up. Looks like my next drive will be single platter.

Mick

mick4545 · 27 Jan 2008 at 15:19

Been thinking about this. Multi platter drives have have multi read/write heads yes? Each platter has its own r/w head doesn't it? If that is so, why is single faster?

Mick

rpstewart · 27 Jan 2008 at 15:27

A single platter drive is only faster than a multi platter drive of the same capacity. A 250Gb 7200.10 will benchmark at the same speed as a 500Gb, 750Gb or 1Tb 7200.11 because they all share the same platters. The multi-platter drives are faster to a certain extent - a 1Tb 7200.11 will be far faster over the first 250Gb than the .10 due to that 250Gb being over the outside edges of 4 platters rather than the whole diameter of a single one.