Savvio 15K.2 73gb 6GB/s

Dr. Pain

Dr. Pain

Dr. Pain

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Has anyone got any experience of these drives?

I can get a bunch of them brand new for around £65 each and was thinking of getting 12 for a nice little home SAN for vmware purposes.

Thoughts?

I know I could get some 64gb SSD's instead, but im not convinced that mlc is reliable even for heavy home lab use.
 
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given that Intel made the warranty 5 years on the 320 series SSDs surely they would be a better option even if you have reliability concerns?
 
Icm76 said:
given that Intel made the warranty 5 years on the 320 series SSDs surely they would be a better option even if you have reliability concerns?
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The price on those intel SSD's doesnt really compare though does it?

I only referred to SSD for approximately the same price to capacity ratio.

Which would get me a 64GB Kingston SSD V+
 
I think the 120GB & 160GB 320s are only 10% more per GB than the drives you're proposing to use, and surely you will save a small fortune in electricity to make up for the initial outlay (if you need equal capacity to the 12 HDDs)
 
You do know they are SAS right? And that the connections are physically the same, but the card / board will need to specifically support SAS drives? Just a thought in case you were not aware . . . .
 
PhillyDee said:
You do know they are SAS right? And that the connections are physically the same, but the card / board will need to specifically support SAS drives? Just a thought in case you were not aware . . . .
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Yes, I have an LSI 2600 24 bay 2.5" enclosure for them to go in.

So... back to the Savvio drives...!
 
I while back I considered using some cheap Savvio 10K.2 drives I had chance of for my development server.

In the end I used Velociraptors instead because:

  1. The performance is supposed to be very similar (Savvio 10K.2s are getting a bit long in the tooth).
  2. The cost per GB was significantly lower.
  3. Velocirapters should be a lot easier to sell on at a later date.
 
Got two of them in Raid 0 here for my OS, blazingly quick compared to my Seagate10's, cant help you other than that i'm afraid.
Considering there 15k drives they are pretty much silent as a bonus. (though 12 may be a different story!)
 
Dr. Pain said:
So despite being 15K they are really quiet?

Quieter than say a velociraptor?!
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I couldn't say im afraid, there a little nosier than my WD 640gb Black's but not massively or annoying

I would say they do give off a fair amount of heat though! certainly wouldn't want them in a environment with no moving air! :)
 
Dr. Pain said:
I know I could get some 64gb SSD's instead, but im not convinced that mlc is reliable even for heavy home lab use.
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The biggest issue with consumer SSDs in that environment is TRIM and garbage collection, which often don't work in RAID etc.
The garbage collection logic on the Vertex 2 means you end up with about 80MB/s after a while, which is the peak throughput of that part of the chip. The newer controllers are superior to this.

There's a good article over at Anandtech which describes the issue:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4159/ocz-vertex-3-pro-preview-the-first-sf2500-ssd/6
 
Regarding Velociraptors: I've owned three, bought from different batches over several months, all used only when on a UPS, handled gently during purchase and collected rather than being sent by courier. All three developed data corruption problems after a year or so. For some reason, if they're formatted then they continue to work okay.

I wouldn't trust them in a RAID. I've heard at least one story of a company which standardised on Velociraptors for workstations and had an extremely high failure rate - I can't remember which forum it was.

Since WD started their rubbish insta-park feature (still ongoing even today?), and wdidle3 not doing its job at all when I tested it on my Green drives a year or two ago, I have been put off WD drives for a long time.

RAIDing 15k drives would probably better than SSDs for use in a test VM lab. SSDs would be very nice, I'm sure, but overkill. You only need basic kit for a home VM lab - it doesn't need to be speedy at all. Think of the electric bill.
 
Say I did go SSD.

There is no command queueing, no SAS support, they wouldnt run at 6GBs, but what would happen over time?

The IOPS on one SSD is HUGE, but over time what would happen?

No TRIM, no garbage collection etc, would SATA SSD drives in a SAS drive enclosure grind to a halt after a while?

Anyone think that £65 for a 73GB Savvio 15K.2 is good value for monies?
 
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I believe these drives are EOL these days (needs confirming though). Price seems pretty reasonable, at work we get the 15K 146GB Savvio's and they are about £140.
 
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