HD configurations - which is better?

[Chankama]

Hey guys. I am going to be assembling a new computer soon and need to get some feedback about hard drive configurations. Reliabiity is a must for me since I do a lot of research on my computer.

Of course, much like for a lot of people here, the $$ factor is an obvious constraint.

As for reliability, it would be ok if I lose maybe 1 weeks worth of data, but not longer.

These are my proposed configurations. Which is do you feel is better taking performance (how fast will apps run) into account.

Proposal 1: "two" 7200rpm (Seagate) in Raid 1 (2x160 GB giving 160GB total space)
Proposal 2: "one" WD Raptor 36GB drive as the boot OS drive (and other loading intensive programs); and "one" 160 GB 7200rpm (Seagate) drive

In proposal 2, the 7200rpm drive will backup the WD Raptor drive every week. So in the event of failure, I can always restore.

Which setup will give faster performance? (since Raid 1 is faster than a no raid system)

 

[Rayne]

Second one

 

[senseless]

OS Drive: 80gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache IDE
Data Drive: 200gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache SATA
Backup: Get an IDE removeable Tray and another 80gb 7200rpm cache ide drive. so you can create hd images on the backup drive and then remove the drive from the computer.


Check the image at the bottom of the post @

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47840

for my HD configuration, i have pretty much the same thing. Except a 40gb Backup drive, and a 160gb OS drive. Raid is useless to 80-90% of home users.

 

[Chankama]

OS Drive: 80gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache IDE
Data Drive: 200gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache SATA

Hey man. So you are claiming that the 80gb IDE drive is faster than the Raptor 10000rpm SATA?. Got any #'s to back this up?

Originally posted by senseless
for my HD configuration, i have pretty much the same thing. Except a 40gb Backup drive, and a 160gb OS drive. Raid is useless to 80-90% of home users.

I would imagine that Raid 1 configurations reads a lot faster (possibly slower writes) than a single drive/backup drive configuration (assuming the same rpm). Instead of using the backup drive just for storage purposes, I would imagine Raid 1 uses the "backup" drive to speed up the normal performance levels. However, I don't know how the increase in rpm of the Raptor holds up against the benefits of Raid 1 of 2 slower drives. Of course, your proposal is completely different from both of mine .

If someone could post some benches about all these configurations that we've mentioned, that would be great.

 

[senseless]

Hey man. So you are claiming that the 80gb IDE drive is faster than the Raptor 10000rpm SATA?. Got any #'s to back this up?

No, i said that the 7200rpm 8mb cache sata drives benchmark slower than IDE drives. a standard sata 200-250gb hd is going to get 45mb/s roughly. a standard ide 7200rpm 8mb drive is going to get 48,49-52,53. A raptor is going to get 60-70 mb/s. They are faster than IDE drives, but for the price per gb it isnt worth it. (All it's going to do is make your programs load 0.5-1s quicker.)

I would imagine that Raid 1 configurations read a lot faster than a single drive/backup drive configuration. Instead of using the backup drive just for storage purposes, I would imagine Raid 1 uses the "backup" drive to speed up the normal performance levels.

If someone could post some benches about all these configurations that we've mentioned, that would be great.

I build roughly 20 high end daw/video editing/gaming systems a week. this includes dual opertons, dual xeons, amd64, p4, using raptors, 16mb cache maxtors, u320 scsi drives, etc, etc. I know my benchmarks to say the least. The company i work for prides itself on building the best daws avalible.

Raid 1: A few scenarios

1) psu fan fails, system over heats surges power. Boom both drives dead.

2) mother board goes bad, you go to replace to find out that the chipset is outdated. You get a new motherboard, the onboard sata raid controller cant see the raid from the old chipset. Bye data.

3) Power surge, 2 dead drives.

4) You drop your computer when taking it to a lan party. Bye data.

5) you get my point.

having an image record of your data on a removable drive which you can take out of the bay and place in your desk is crucial. that way, if your system is damaged you can repair from the image. since the backup isnt in your computer, if you drop the backup drive you can simply replace it and make a new backup. Unless god hates you and archs a bolt of lightning 5feet through your desk and magicly hits your hd, you are always covered.

EDIT:

I'll post some pictures of the bay on a website, sec.

 

[senseless]

pictures of removable bay.

http://nessie.junkiecrew.com/~vrs/

 

[dale5605]

Erm SATA is faster than IDE...

 

[senseless]

In which universe?


Go run sisoft filesystem benchmark