Post your hard drive benchmarks!

easyrider · 11 Sep 2007 at 19:19

smids said:
Any file smaller than the stripe is NOT RAID0'ed so to speak. i.e. it will be placed on one or the other disks.

I would highly recommend smaller stripes unless you are doing video editing. The O/S is the main stay, and for this I would recommend 32KB. 16KB requires too much defragging all the time. 32KB is a happy medium between a good OS speed increase and good gaming performance. I would not suggest running 128KB as the OS just wouldn't benefit. Most files for an OS are tiny - .dll's etc and would highly likely be below 128KB. Most are around 20KB or so. This is why I suggest 32KB. Games will still load quicker, but the large cache files may not benefit as much as if it was a large stripe. The question is, how much of playing a game is actually the map loading, and how much is the reading of DirectX files etc and other files to bring everything into motion?

Just my 2p anyway.

I opted for 128KB for my 1 TB Raid 0 setup.

This will be filled with mini DV files that are huge and will help with video editing.

I have also installed my games on this array.

But just keep windows on a single 150 GIG raptor with two partitions.

One for XP and the other for vista (if I ever decide to use it!)

Scoobie Dave · 11 Sep 2007 at 22:14

smids said:
Any file smaller than the stripe is NOT RAID0'ed so to speak. i.e. it will be placed on one or the other disks.

I would highly recommend smaller stripes unless you are doing video editing. The O/S is the main stay, and for this I would recommend 32KB. 16KB requires too much defragging all the time. 32KB is a happy medium between a good OS speed increase and good gaming performance. I would not suggest running 128KB as the OS just wouldn't benefit. Most files for an OS are tiny - .dll's etc and would highly likely be below 128KB. Most are around 20KB or so. This is why I suggest 32KB. Games will still load quicker, but the large cache files may not benefit as much as if it was a large stripe. The question is, how much of playing a game is actually the map loading, and how much is the reading of DirectX files etc and other files to bring everything into motion?

Just my 2p anyway.

Perhaps 64KB would be a nice happy medium then?

Diggsy · 11 Sep 2007 at 22:29

Here's mine. Not too shabby for a silent setup...

Locky · 15 Sep 2007 at 15:12

can i get a w00t w00t.

4x 250GB WD RE

in RAID0 64k stripe

onboard intel controller.

silversurfer · 15 Sep 2007 at 19:36

^^ Very nice, is that using that hybrid option?

Again here me trying to test a software raid, this time with the small test Nero has.

First three drives are partitions all on a samsung 160gb and F:\ is a 3x40gb 7200.7 dynamic drive

XysteR · 15 Sep 2007 at 19:52

TiZoR said:
can i get a w00t w00t.

4x 250GB WD RE

in RAID0 64k stripe

onboard intel controller.

wOOt

The late Intel controllers like 128k by the way

Locky · 15 Sep 2007 at 21:29

XysteR said:
wOOt

The late Intel controllers like 128k by the way

well i used all stripe settings, and it seems to like 16k best with 4 drives and 128k with 2 drives.

helmutcheese · 15 Sep 2007 at 22:01

Not bad for a external WD My Book, faster than some get internally

.

spooks · 16 Sep 2007 at 00:13

2x 74GB Raptors (16MB) RAID 0

Yeggstry · 19 Sep 2007 at 10:09

Just got the new Seagate 250Gb single platter (ST3250410AS) drive and got this:

Pretty good for a single drive

EDIT: This benchmark was set at ATA 150 due to the motherboard so you may get a few Mb/s more with ATA 300, but not much more.

rpstewart · 19 Sep 2007 at 10:14

Yeggstry said:
Pretty good for a single drive

<Fluff> Not arrf! </Fluff>
I've seen that drive produce slightly quicker benchmarks for other folk (maybe 5% only) but that's still comfortably quicker than any other single drive in this thread I think. I can't justify replacing my current stack of 250s with these but I can definitely see some 7200.11s coming my way.

Wiggins · 19 Sep 2007 at 11:01

1 month old Maxtor 160Gb 2mb Cache Single Drive

Scoobie Dave · 19 Sep 2007 at 12:29

rpstewart said:
<Fluff> Not arrf! </Fluff>
I've seen that drive produce slightly quicker benchmarks for other folk (maybe 5% only) but that's still comfortably quicker than any other single drive in this thread I think. I can't justify replacing my current stack of 250s with these but I can definitely see some 7200.11s coming my way.

Quite impressed with the latest 250GB HD's

When are the 7200.11 coming out?

I dont think there will be anything smaller than 500GB coming out for the 7200.11 series.

rpstewart · 19 Sep 2007 at 13:01

Scoobie Dave said:
Quite impressed with the latest 250GB HD's

When are the 7200.11 coming out?

I dont think there will be anything smaller than 500GB coming out for the 7200.11 series.

No idea when they'll be out. There *might* be a 320Gb version but certainly nothing less, the new 250Gb 7200.10 is in effect a .11.

Scoobie Dave · 19 Sep 2007 at 13:10

rpstewart said:
No idea when they'll be out. There *might* be a 320Gb version but certainly nothing less, the new 250Gb 7200.10 is in effect a .11.

So if I was to buy 2x 250GB's from OC then they would be the new ones then?

rpstewart · 19 Sep 2007 at 13:21

The model number which is quoted on the OCUK site is the single platter model so you'd be entitled to expect to receive that model.

Scoobie Dave · 19 Sep 2007 at 13:26

rpstewart said:
The model number which is quoted on the OCUK site is the single platter model so you'd be entitled to expect to receive that model.

I might ditch my Raptors and get a pair of these.

Yeggstry · 19 Sep 2007 at 15:37

rpstewart said:
<Fluff> Not arrf! </Fluff>
I've seen that drive produce slightly quicker benchmarks for other folk (maybe 5% only) but that's still comfortably quicker than any other single drive in this thread I think. I can't justify replacing my current stack of 250s with these but I can definitely see some 7200.11s coming my way.

I think the slower benchmark will be because of the fact that I'm using the drive on the ATA150 not 300 and that the rest of my machine is at least 3 years old. Even so it still doesn't make that much of a difference so if you're looking for a larger replacement drive (which I was instead of my 34Gb raptor for my OS) you can't really go wrong.

When I do finally plan on getting a new computer I'll get another one of these and raid 0 them, then look into the 7200.11s for some larger storage

Oh, and thanks rpstewart for pointing me in the direction of this

Following your recommendation I got the drive (using the OCUK of course

) and I've now got the long job of installing/updating XP and installing everything back on

Slinwagh · 19 Sep 2007 at 16:17

Two WD5000AAKS striped.

Thats using the standard Vista/Nvidia driver.

Im not sure if it is worth installing the latest Nvidia driver.

rpstewart · 19 Sep 2007 at 16:32

That's a slightly oddly shaped curve but the numbers look pretty good. I'd be tempted to leave things as they are unless you have any specific problems.