SATA or SCSI Raid 0

GM@N · 6 May 2007 at 15:36

I currently have a Raid 0 array using two 36GB WD raptors. I can get hold of 4 10,000rpm brand new SCSI drives if i set these up in a raid 0 configuration will i see an improvement over my current setup?

rpstewart · 6 May 2007 at 16:30

Do you have a SCSI controller already? If you don't then you'll need to buy one as well as the drives and you'll need a free PCIe (8x at least) or PCI-X (not normal PCI) slot to put it in. There's no point in getting a plain 32bit PCI card as it'll run into the 133Mb/s bandwidth limit on the PCI bus so the Raptors will still be quicker.

naro · 6 May 2007 at 18:57

dun find a point of doing so.

if you can get a cheap SCSI PCI-X or PCI-e controller, its better that you go for 15k SCSI drives than 10k.

GM@N · 6 May 2007 at 21:12

I have the 10,000 drives already they cost me nothing. I don't have a SCSI controller that's really the whole point of the post. Will it be worth me buying a controller or just keep my current setup? I have a Gigabyte DS3 i don't think that has a PCI-X slot and the PCIe slots are x1.

Olly · 6 May 2007 at 23:10

I wouldn't. If you need more space buy 150gb raptors.

If you can get the scsi drives cheap, get em and sell em on ebay !

naro · 7 May 2007 at 00:24

GM@N said:
I have the 10,000 drives already they cost me nothing. I don't have a SCSI controller that's really the whole point of the post. Will it be worth me buying a controller or just keep my current setup? I have a Gigabyte DS3 i don't think that has a PCI-X slot and the PCIe slots are x1.

if you can lay your hand on an Adaptec 29320LPE. then you'll be able to use ** SCSI drives. This is a pretty new card. I just saw it available on Adaptec's website.

more details here.
http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/scsi_tech/entry/ASC-29320LPE/

fumbles · 7 May 2007 at 01:34

Oh rubbish!

Just keep with what you have, the improvement is not worth the cost.

Trippynet · 7 May 2007 at 10:09

PCIe 1x isn't too bad as you'll still have about 250MB of bandwidth available. Given the average transfer rate of even a Raptor, you'll still gain impressive performance if you can max out that bandwidth.

rpstewart · 7 May 2007 at 11:30

True but as far as I can tell that Adaptec card doesn't support RAID so you would need to use striped dynamic volumes within Windows to achieve the same results. Now correct me if I'm wrong but I have a feeling you can't boot off a striped volume which is a bit of a bummer when it's the boot drive that you want to be quick

GM@N · 8 May 2007 at 09:21

Thanks for all the advice. I think I'll just sell the SCSI drives and buy a couple of 150gb raptors. So I'll get the extra space and a small speed boost.

naro · 8 May 2007 at 15:15

thats a good choice.

if you've got more money to spend next time, go for 15k SAS drives.. yummy..

cavemanoc · 8 May 2007 at 20:58

GM@N said:
Thanks for all the advice. I think I'll just sell the SCSI drives and buy a couple of 150gb raptors. So I'll get the extra space and a small speed boost.

Given that the sustained transfer for the Seagate 7200.10 is 78mb/s and the Raptor only has 83mb/s.... And the fact that costings look like:

Raptor: £1/Gig
Seagate: 17p/Gig

That's 5x the price for a tiny speed increase?

I know the seek time is much quicker, but I really don't think even that justifies the price - especially when you can get 4x500Gb Seagates to 2x150 Raptors...

I know which I'd get

(and I use Scsi :eek:

)