Seagate Vs. Samsung + RAID Questions

Valo

Valo

Valo

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I thought I had settled on the components I was going to buy to build my new W2K3 R2 Fileserver, but I need some final questions answered.

My original spec I was to go with 4x 500GB Samsung SpinPoint hard disks as they're fast and quiet, I'm using one in my media centre and I'm impressed. However I'm now tempted by the Seagate 500GB 7200.10 almost the same cost but they come with the 5yr warranty (could come in handy and save some cash in the future ;) ) However the motor situation on those drives has me slightly worried as I want this build to be as quiet as possible.

Your thoughts?

I'm planning on using an Nforce 4 based motherboard, Asus A8N VM-CSM which I've got spare which has a RAID Controller on board to run the 4x 500GB disks in RAID5 now my question is am I wasting my time with the onboard controller, should I buy a proper PCI-E card Raid card like the Highpoint Rocket Raid 2310?

Any pointers would be great!
 
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Don't use the onboard RAID5, the write performance is dire due to the lack of any dedicated XOR processing for the parity. Unfortunately the RocketRaid card isn't a proper RAID5 solution either, while it's better than the NVidia controller it isn't spectacular. The entire RR range is "accelerated software" RAID, there is some assistance on the card for the XOR calculations but it's not great and certainly a long way short of what can be achieved with a proper card from Areca or Adaptec.

Unless you're willing to spend £300 on a decent RAID card I wouldn't use RAID5 for anything other than storage, the writes just won't be quick enough to live with if it has to carry the swap file.
 
Yikes! :eek: That could put a spanner in the works. I'm only planning to use RAID5 for redundant storage of music, video and photos to stream to my Desktop PC and Media Centre over GB ethernet. Will the performance be that dreadful using the onboard controller or even the highpoint card? The boot disk will be totally seperate.

What your views on the hard drive situation?

Cheers
 
If you're only using the RAID5 for storage then certainly the RR card will be fine (use an 8 pot one myself) and the onboard might be tolerable. In either case the reads will be good, RAID5 only needs XOR support for reads if one drive has failed. If you're not using the machine for any real work then I'd be tempted to go with the onboard solution to start with, you can always chuck a card in if it's too slow although this will mean reloading all the data onto the array.
 
rpstewart said:
If you're only using the RAID5 for storage then certainly the RR card will be fine (use an 8 pot one myself) and the onboard might be tolerable. In either case the reads will be good, RAID5 only needs XOR support for reads if one drive has failed. If you're not using the machine for any real work then I'd be tempted to go with the onboard solution to start with, you can always chuck a card in if it's too slow although this will mean reloading all the data onto the array.
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Cheers for that rpstewart! You just saved me from having a heart attack at the prices of the raid cards above:)

What's your take on my hard drive situation?
 
I wouldn't say the choice of disk is that vital if you're planning on accessing the content over a LAN, a four disk RAID5 array of any half decent HDD will easily outpace gigabit ethernet. If you've had a good experience so far with Samsung then there's no real reason to look elsewhere.
 
rpstewart said:
I wouldn't say the choice of disk is that vital if you're planning on accessing the content over a LAN, a four disk RAID5 array of any half decent HDD will easily outpace gigabit ethernet. If you've had a good experience so far with Samsung then there's no real reason to look elsewhere.
Click to expand...

You sir are a gent! :)

Cheers
 
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