Fastest HD interface in a full P4C800 E D

[LM]

Hi all.

I am planning to buy a new hard disk. A fast data transfer speed is
helpfull for video editing. Where should I put it, there is room for it
but what way is fastest?

There are following disk already:
80G parallel Ide drive, boot disk.
120G in parallel promise controller. This is fast so I plan to use it
as a source or target drive,

Information:
P4 3GHz
P4C800 ED
1G ram
XP pro

The question again. Do I buy a sata disk for Intel controller or a
parallel disk with a large buffer for Promise controller. Or what?

(Tomshardware guide mentions some fast and hot hds but they are out of
question.)

I am thankfull of any information

Regards LM.

 

[Paul]

Hi all.

I am planning to buy a new hard disk. A fast data transfer speed is
helpfull for video editing. Where should I put it, there is room for it
but what way is fastest?

There are following disk already:
80G parallel Ide drive, boot disk.
120G in parallel promise controller. This is fast so I plan to use it
as a source or target drive,

Information:
P4 3GHz
P4C800 ED
1G ram
XP pro

The question again. Do I buy a sata disk for Intel controller or a
parallel disk with a large buffer for Promise controller. Or what?

(Tomshardware guide mentions some fast and hot hds but they are out of
question.)

I am thankfull of any information

Regards LM.

There is one picture on this page, of 120MB/sec write speed
while using RAID0 on the Southbridge. The Southbridge has
a 266MB/sec bus to feed it, while the Promise is limited
by the PCI bus to 133MB/sec.

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59309

There are more results here:

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88434

This pic, "2 X 74GB Western Digital Raptors in RAID0 on ICH5R"
shows 140MB/sec read. At least this proves there is no 133MB/sec
limit imposed inside the Southbridge and its SATA ports.

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16980&d=1110844372

For info about the STR (sustained transfer rate) for disks,
consult

http://www.storagereview.com/comparison.html

Select "maximum transfer rate", to see performance at the
beginning of a disk, and the "minimum" one to see performance
at the end of the disk.

Since the PCI bus is a bottleneck for most of the options
you could think of using with this computer, no amount of
hardware RAID controller, SCSI U320 controller etc., will
manage more than 100-110MB/sec across PCI. Thus, the SATA
ports on the Southbridge are the best you can do. Even
if you use gigabit networking to a server device, you still
won't beat the 140MB/sec result posted above. (The Gigabit
interface is full duplex, but for most practical applications,
transfer in a single direction will be the limiting case.
I suppose you could always try two RAID0 on an external
server, and do both src/dest via the network. A local pair
of Raptors and a remote RAID0 pair on a server, is another
possibility.)

If you really need fast arrays (uncompressed HD), then you
should start from the bottom up, with a server motherboard.
For example, in the next couple of months, there is an Asus
board with the 975 chipset (P5WDG2-WS), and it will have two
PCI-X slots on the motherboard (i.e. the 975 part isn't
important, it is the bridging trick and PCI-X slots that
matter). While there is no tech info on how the PCI-X slots
are bridged, it is possible four PCI Express lanes feed the
bridging device. Thus, that motherboard, with its FSB1066 bus
and single LGA775 socket, would make a good desktop workstation
for what you are trying to do. Then you could shop for older
PCI-X disk controller cards, or use one of the PCI Express
video card slots for an Areca SATA RAID.

Don't forget your backups It is RAID0 after all...

HTH,
Paul

 

[LM]

There is one picture on this page, of 120MB/sec write speed
while using RAID0 on the Southbridge. The Southbridge has
a 266MB/sec bus to feed it, while the Promise is limited
by the PCI bus to 133MB/sec.

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59309

There are more results here:

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88434

This pic, "2 X 74GB Western Digital Raptors in RAID0 on ICH5R"
shows 140MB/sec read. At least this proves there is no 133MB/sec
limit imposed inside the Southbridge and its SATA ports.

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16980&d=1110844372

For info about the STR (sustained transfer rate) for disks,
consult

http://www.storagereview.com/comparison.html

Select "maximum transfer rate", to see performance at the
beginning of a disk, and the "minimum" one to see performance
at the end of the disk.

Since the PCI bus is a bottleneck for most of the options
you could think of using with this computer, no amount of
hardware RAID controller, SCSI U320 controller etc., will
manage more than 100-110MB/sec across PCI. Thus, the SATA
ports on the Southbridge are the best you can do. Even
if you use gigabit networking to a server device, you still
won't beat the 140MB/sec result posted above. (The Gigabit
interface is full duplex, but for most practical applications,
transfer in a single direction will be the limiting case.
I suppose you could always try two RAID0 on an external
server, and do both src/dest via the network. A local pair
of Raptors and a remote RAID0 pair on a server, is another
possibility.)

If you really need fast arrays (uncompressed HD), then you
should start from the bottom up, with a server motherboard.
For example, in the next couple of months, there is an Asus
board with the 975 chipset (P5WDG2-WS), and it will have two
PCI-X slots on the motherboard (i.e. the 975 part isn't
important, it is the bridging trick and PCI-X slots that
matter). While there is no tech info on how the PCI-X slots
are bridged, it is possible four PCI Express lanes feed the
bridging device. Thus, that motherboard, with its FSB1066 bus
and single LGA775 socket, would make a good desktop workstation
for what you are trying to do. Then you could shop for older
PCI-X disk controller cards, or use one of the PCI Express
video card slots for an Areca SATA RAID.

Don't forget your backups It is RAID0 after all...

HTH,
Paul

OK. A lot to read. Thanks.

So it is serial Ata, and specially those serial connectors which are
nearer the Southbridge? I think I'll have to buy one sata disk for
Southbridge. It seems that I could use an other of such disks for
better speed, but you cant get everything. I hope Southbridge works in
non-RAID configuration?

Building new pcs is always fun. I have started to think about a new pc,
but very fast pcs tend to be very expensive also. And run hot.

Last time I looked at some PCI-X card it was quite pricey, has that
changed?

Regards
LM

 

[Paul]

OK. A lot to read. Thanks.

So it is serial Ata, and specially those serial connectors which are
nearer the Southbridge? I think I'll have to buy one sata disk for
Southbridge. It seems that I could use an other of such disks for
better speed, but you cant get everything. I hope Southbridge works in
non-RAID configuration?
Yes.


Building new pcs is always fun. I have started to think about a new pc,
but very fast pcs tend to be very expensive also. And run hot.

Last time I looked at some PCI-X card it was quite pricey, has that
changed?

Regards
LM

There is a Highpoint card here for $255. There are actually
several different RocketRaid cards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816115025

I'm really surprised there don't seem to be any products with
the SIL3124-2 (SATA II version) on them. That is SiliconImage's
PCI-X four port chip. I suppose with no cheap motherboards for
PCI-X, there is no reason to flood the market with cheap cards.

Paul