Velociraptor 600GB Vs Carvair Black

SoildSnake · 12 Sep 2011

1) First up i heard the Velociraptor had issues with a whine sound is this a wide spread problem? Overall how is this drive?

2) I want to improve my current set up; i would have an SSD for the OS; then one of the following for my data. My uses are virtual machines, downloads, database (table space), and probably some programs (since my SSD is only 60GB). Price is not an issue so long as the performance gains are worth it. So my choices are:

Velociraptor 600GB With 2TB 5400RPM drive for data (which i already own)
Caviar Black 1TB With 2TB 5400RPM drive for data (which i already own)
Two 5400RPM Raided Drives (which i already own)

3) Any ideas how performance would be listed with these options? I have heard that the raptors are obsolete since new 7200RPM drives are so fast but would that be the same for my uses; where access time and RPM is more important and where transfer rates are not? And i heard this is why raiding eco drives wont be good for my needs?

Thanks

Evoss · 12 Sep 2011

Tbh the difference isn't mind blowingly different. You would also be better of with a Samsung F3 then a Caviar Black.

SoildSnake · 13 Sep 2011

So when using the second drive for additional programs for my SSD, virtual machines and a SQL/postgres database/table space the WD 1 or 2TB Caviar Blacks perform that same as a Velociraptor 600GB? Seems hard to believe when the raptor is 10K RPM with faster access times no?

413x · 13 Sep 2011

you could do what I did, 2x 300gb vr in raid, same storage, mine don't make any whining

SoildSnake · 13 Sep 2011

I don't want to do that; taht cost more, I'll have to deal with raid and using up more sataports; which i use for caddies. Besides i'm not sure if databases / postgres will benefit from raid

RimBlock · 14 Sep 2011

Really need more info on uses.

VMs: How many at once, doing what sort of access, how many people connecting ?
Database: Used for what, what sort of load, multiuser environment or just for storing a video collection

.

You also do not mention how important the data is and if you have any backups.

In multi user or multi VM environments you are going to want to take notice of IOPS the drives can handle. This is one area where SSD is very good. If the VMs / DBs are just for home then no need to worry so much.

I am a bit confused as you mention in the first post that price is not an issue then in the last post you mention price being a consideration.

Best bet would be 60GB SSD for boot, large SS for most other things and the 2TB drive for backups. Very expensive but the best solution if money is not a consideration.

Failing that, if the data is important and you have no backups then stay away from raid 0. A WD Black is a good bet. I have 4 in a striped array on my NAS (fully sync'd with a backup set of green low cost drives). I have never had any issues with them. Good, robust and fast. I have never used the Samsung F3s so cannot comment on them.

The Raptors are fast, hot, noisy and power hungry. If finances permitted I would be more inclined to go for 2x 1TB WD Blacks and raid them. Use the 2TB drive for backup of the array. If you are out of SATA ports then get a 2TB black and back that up with the 2TB drive you already have.

If you are not too concerned about the data or have robust backups somewhere else then you could raid 2x 2TB 5.4k drives for a performance boost and double space but the boost may not be much more than a good new single 7.2k drive.

RB

SoildSnake · 15 Sep 2011

1) Thank you very much for you informative answers. I think i will buy 2 1TB Blacks or may be 2 2TB blacks and raiding them via Asus Drive Xpert. RimBLock you posted in my other tread about disabling Raid for certain dual boots; would this be possible with Drive Xpert

2) How noisy are these drives; when idle/seeking any more so than the 150GB Velociraptor?

3) Would I get a database/general PC performance increase if i were to put the data base (table space) and certain programs on that raid array to spread the load? Its for home use but i do a lot of things at the same time

RimBlock · 16 Sep 2011

SoildSnake said:
1) Thank you very much for you informative answers. I think i will buy 2 1TB Blacks or may be 2 2TB blacks and raiding them via Asus Drive Xpert. RimBLock you posted in my other tread about disabling Raid for certain dual boots; would this be possible with Drive Xpert

Sorry, not familiar with that software so cannot really comment.

SoildSnake said:
2) How noisy are these drives; when idle/seeking any more so than the 150GB Velociraptor?

The VR is rated at 30->37 dBA
The Black is rated at 29->34 dBA.

To give an idea, 10dBA is a doubling of volume. 30dBa is often compared to a quiet night time bedroom and 40dBA to a quiet library. Sound volume is also not compound so 4 drive does not equal 4x the sound levels.

My 4x1TB Blacks are in a server chassis so it is hard to tell. I had one in my desktop PC before and didn't notice it but I have a fair bit of ambient noise around.

SoildSnake said:
3) Would I get a database/general PC performance increase if i were to put the data base (table space) and certain programs on that raid array to spread the load? Its for home use but i do a lot of things at the same time

Again, depends on the usage. If it is for home use then you are unlikely to get the shear volume of writes to the SSD that would cause issues with the finite write count to cells. Depends on the SSD as well and if you are more concerned with write or read performance or a combination of both. A stripped set of 2x WD Blacks may get you 200MB/s if you are lucky depending on hardware, overhead and data patterns. The VR has 3.4ms read and 4.2ms write seek times. The Blacks have a average seek of 4.2ms but putting more than 1 together is unlikely to have any significant impact on those timings as the disk still needs to rotate to reach the sector to be read and is limited by the slower spindle speed.

Bottom line is that for you a SSD will be faster, quieter and should be able to handle the multiple requests but is newer tech with higher failure rates than hds. The VR is fast but hot and noisy. The blacks give more storage and are quieter than the VR.

If you wanted to be fancy and have a challange and do not mind a bit of latency between writes and updates then you could write to a DB on the Blacks and then consolidate the writes in to one(ish) replicated transaction to a DB copy on the ssd which could be read from. Fast writes without the worry of wearing out the SSD so fast, very fast reads but with some latency. Would need to find out the optimum replication timings though to minimise writes whilst giving reasonably fast SSD DB updates. Clearly if you are only doing 10->100 writes a second then you are less likely to see any great impact compared to 1000 writes a second. Again all down to data writing patterns. If one piece of data is changes 20 times a second then why not just write that data once to a SSD copy after the second is over. Of course you may not have control over the client software using the databases so it may all be infeasible anyway but without more info we really cannot tell. Just another thought to add in there

.

RB

thingemajib · 16 Sep 2011

spent a few hours playing with a 2tb caviar black in a usb enclosure (only temporary untill i get it back to my desktop). Obviously i cant say anything about speed, but noise wise it seems to be fine. Not amazingly quiet (the 500gig seagate 7200.12 back at home is quieter but not by much) but its sitting exposed next to me, and it makes a loud whine as it spins up but it dies down once it gets upto speed, the clicking is fairly soft as well