things to look for in a hard drive meant for simultaneous read/write

[Gaikokujin Kyofushso]

Hi, i am thinking about putting together a "multi-purpose" server for
my house. One of the things i plan to have it doing is bittorroents
and recording some audio/news feeds so there will be lots of
writing/reading from multiple sources at the same time. What types of
things should i look for? I am not too familiar with the guts of hard
drives (asides from cache, speed, and size); would a slow 5,400 be ok?
(i would be transferring finished stuff to another drive) I just don't
want the system to be bogged down by a drive that is getting
overwhelmed by read/writes. Any help/advise would be greatly
appreciated!

Cheers

-Gaiko

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi, i am thinking about putting together a "multi-purpose" server for
my house. One of the things i plan to have it doing is bittorroents
and recording some audio/news feeds so there will be lots of
writing/reading from multiple sources at the same time. What types of
things should i look for? I am not too familiar with the guts of hard
drives (asides from cache, speed, and size); would a slow 5,400 be ok?
(i would be transferring finished stuff to another drive) I just don't
want the system to be bogged down by a drive that is getting
overwhelmed by read/writes. Any help/advise would be greatly
appreciated!

Memory and OS is more an issue here. The difference between 5400 rpm
and 7200 rpm is noticeable but not massive. If the data-sources
are all over a not too fast Internec connection, (say <=2000Mbit/s),
almost any modern HDD, including a notebook HDD (cool, quiet) should
be enough. One argument for 5400rpm is that a single disk should do
well without airflow when mounted on metal. With 7200rpm airflow
on the disk is preferrable in any setup.

Arno

 

[Bob Willard]

Hi, i am thinking about putting together a "multi-purpose" server for
my house. One of the things i plan to have it doing is bittorroents
and recording some audio/news feeds so there will be lots of
writing/reading from multiple sources at the same time. What types of
things should i look for? I am not too familiar with the guts of hard
drives (asides from cache, speed, and size); would a slow 5,400 be ok?
(i would be transferring finished stuff to another drive) I just don't
want the system to be bogged down by a drive that is getting
overwhelmed by read/writes. Any help/advise would be greatly
appreciated!

Cheers

-Gaiko

The key speed parameter you should look for is access time (not just
seek time). For good performance, the WDC740GB (10K RPM SATA) HD is
my first choice. For even better performance at much higher prices,
you'll want one of the 15K RPM SCSI HDs. For best performance at
wallet-emptying prices, look at a bunch of 15K RPM SCSI HDs connected
to a SCSI RAID card which must be plugged into a fast (e.g., 64b 66MHz)
PCI bus.

And, if you plan to spend serious money on a server, don't forget to
spend some of on items other than HDs: CPU(s), RAM (dual-channel and
lots), GbE network, maybe even a non-toy OS.

Speed cost money; how fast do you want to go?

 

[Al Dykes]

Memory and OS is more an issue here. The difference between 5400 rpm
and 7200 rpm is noticeable but not massive. If the data-sources
are all over a not too fast Internec connection, (say <=2000Mbit/s),
almost any modern HDD, including a notebook HDD (cool, quiet) should
be enough. One argument for 5400rpm is that a single disk should do
well without airflow when mounted on metal. With 7200rpm airflow
on the disk is preferrable in any setup.

Arno
--

Considering that the fastest connection you are likely to have at home
is a couple Mbps, sustained, the hard disk in your server isn't a
bottleneck if all it's doing is mail and news for your home. If you
have a DSL connection the upstream speed is the limit of you want to
send bittorrent files.

 

[J. Clarke]

The key speed parameter you should look for is access time (not just
seek time). For good performance, the WDC740GB (10K RPM SATA) HD is
my first choice. For even better performance at much higher prices,
you'll want one of the 15K RPM SCSI HDs. For best performance at
wallet-emptying prices, look at a bunch of 15K RPM SCSI HDs connected
to a SCSI RAID card which must be plugged into a fast (e.g., 64b 66MHz)
PCI bus.

And, if you plan to spend serious money on a server, don't forget to
spend some of on items other than HDs: CPU(s), RAM (dual-channel and
lots), GbE network, maybe even a non-toy OS.

If he can a billion bits/sec of bidirectional Internet bandwidth, he really
should be talking to IBM about a mainframe.

If he has the typical DSL line or cable modem, all the stuff you recommend
is gross overkill for what he wants to do.