Small 7200rpm Sata drives for Raid 0?

[Will]

I want to run my OS and programs on a Raid 0 volume (2 or more drives -
probably 4 if they're cheap enough). I'm attracted to the idea of using
small, older Sata 7200rpm drives for this. Yet I don't see anybody doing
this. These are single platter (apparently more reliable than multi
platter designs), have the same rpm speed as new drives but their
performance may be lacking in the cache and read/write parameters. Is this
an unwise move? Small Sata drives go for less than $20 each. $80 for a 4
banger Raid 0 setup seems attractive. Otherwise I'm looking at several
hundred dollars.

 

[1PW]

I want to run my OS and programs on a Raid 0 volume (2 or more drives -
probably 4 if they're cheap enough). I'm attracted to the idea of using
small, older Sata 7200rpm drives for this. Yet I don't see anybody
doing this. These are single platter (apparently more reliable than
multi platter designs), have the same rpm speed as new drives but their
performance may be lacking in the cache and read/write parameters. Is
this an unwise move? Small Sata drives go for less than $20 each. $80
for a 4 banger Raid 0 setup seems attractive. Otherwise I'm looking at
several hundred dollars.

RAID 0 is not thought of as /true/ RAID by some. Is this the RAID
mode you're truly interested in? Loose one of two HDDs in a typical
RAID 0 array, and all is lost because there's no redundancy.

Maybe you'd like to look at RAID 1 if you only /might/ have 2 HDDs.

How do you plan to implement the RAID, in hardware or software?

 

[Paul]

I want to run my OS and programs on a Raid 0 volume (2 or more drives -
probably 4 if they're cheap enough). I'm attracted to the idea of using
small, older Sata 7200rpm drives for this. Yet I don't see anybody
doing this. These are single platter (apparently more reliable than
multi platter designs), have the same rpm speed as new drives but their
performance may be lacking in the cache and read/write parameters. Is
this an unwise move? Small Sata drives go for less than $20 each. $80
for a 4 banger Raid 0 setup seems attractive. Otherwise I'm looking at
several hundred dollars.

So describe a typical scenario where this is a big win. Is your drive
LED constantly lit, such that fixing the storage system is a must ?

Maybe if I was copying a 4GB file, from one partition on the RAID 0,
to another partition on the RAID 0, it would be a good thing. But if
I was doing backups, I'd be doing backups to an external drive, with its
more conventional transfer rate limits. Similarly, transfers over the
network, would be limited by my Ethernet cable.

Maybe it would help with Photoshop, and saving out a file, or transferring
something to Photoshop scratch. So if you're a Photoshop user, yes,
a cheap RAID 0 would be worth a few bucks. If you worked on posters
or banners (very large files), it would probably be a must-have.

But for a lot of other day to day activities, the RAID 0 buys nothing.
The reason is, performance is dominated by seek time, rather than
transfer rate. Many things you do, are hindered by head movement on
the drive.

A SATA SSD may have a seek time of 0.1 millisecond, so can solve the
head movement problem, but SSD drives still have a lot of other compromises.
Good ones, are not cheap. And cheap ones are not good (stuttering on early
Jmicron controllers). The cheap ones don't even make good paperweights.

(An example of overkill... Up to four SSDs inside the main housing,
RAID0, 256MB RAM cache. $3,368.99 with free shipping.)

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz_z_drive_p84_pci_express_ssd

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technolog...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1252516990&sr=1-1

Since the SATA hard drives are so cheap, you can try out your idea and soon
have an answer for yourself. Some people swear by their RAID 0 setup
("my game load time is shorter"), but I wouldn't touch one with a
barge pole. Make sure you're doing daily backups, to minimize the
loss when one drive mechanism fails. RAID 0 has no redundancy.

I also find, that the average RAID user, doesn't know how to operate
or do maintenance on whatever kind of RAID they've set up. And in
some cases, they "push the wrong button" at the first sign of a
problem. Or fail to push any buttons (i.e. the users who don't know
how to check RAID status, until it is too late and the data is gone).
If you're a motivated person, and can spend the time to learn, then
the RAID concept may still be of some value.

Paul

 

[Bob Willard]

I want to run my OS and programs on a Raid 0 volume (2 or more drives -
probably 4 if they're cheap enough). I'm attracted to the idea of using
small, older Sata 7200rpm drives for this. Yet I don't see anybody
doing this. These are single platter (apparently more reliable than
multi platter designs), have the same rpm speed as new drives but their
performance may be lacking in the cache and read/write parameters. Is
this an unwise move? Small Sata drives go for less than $20 each. $80
for a 4 banger Raid 0 setup seems attractive. Otherwise I'm looking at
several hundred dollars.

For any HDs that cheap, I'd suspect them of being returns or pulls,
rather than new HDs. But then, you don't care about reliability if
you want to use RAID-0. Backup is even more important with RAID-0
than with a single HD.

And, since you are cheap, I assume that you don't want to buy a RAID
controller; a good RAID controller with 4 SATA ports is hundreds of $s.
So, you will be doing software RAID. XP claims to support RAID-0
on 4 HDs (actually, it claims up to 32), so all you'll need is a
MoBo that has 4 SATA ports, and 4 HDs.

While I have never tried XP's version of software RAID, I would
expect fairly low overhead because RAID-0 (and RAID-1) are really
simple. But note that the performance gain due to RAID-0 is
extremely sensitive to your workload, and you may get nothing.
What the hell; enjoy yourself, and let us know the results iff
you actually benchmark the same system and same workload, with
and without RAID-0.

 

[Andrew E.]

Actually SATA or SCSI hds do have better performance with a smaller size,
most cache is @ 8MB,WD Raptor 10,000rpm is only about 70GB,& about 35GB,
get the idea....Also,RAID controllers (add on cards,start at about
35.00).RAID 0
is best in performance to RAID 1,however if 1 hd fails,so does the OS,get 2
good SATA hd,seagate the best,they start at about 35.00...Also,the posts
("RAID
0 offers little or no performance gain") hasnt a clue to RAID....Read the
specs
for yourself,at Intel..
http://www.intel.com/performance/desktop/platform_technologies/storage_performance.htm

 

[Bob I]

Too bad you post broken links, but as they say, there are Specs, and
then there is the real world.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/394/5

 

[Will]

I want to run my OS and programs on a Raid 0 volume (2 or more drives - probably 4 if they're cheap enough). I'm attracted to

So describe a typical scenario where this is a big win.

I want a much faster machine and almost all performance machines now run Raid 0. Its obviously the way to go.

Maybe if I was copying a 4GB file, from one partition on the RAID 0,
to another partition on the RAID 0, it would be a good thing. But if
I was doing backups, I'd be doing backups to an external drive, with its
more conventional transfer rate limits.

Obviously I'm not doing backups on Raid 0!!! Its for performance. If I want reliability I'd go with a mirrored (Raid 1) setup.
And yes I do realize I need to be very attentive on my backups as one drive failing will bring down the entire OS. Obviously I
don't have any of my files on C: drive....duh....and I'm realizing that many programs run quite fine completely off C: drive. Too
bad other programs (mostly Microsoft and browsers, email, etc) don't and have to be installed on C: drive.

Maybe it would help with Photoshop, and saving out a file, or transferring
something to Photoshop scratch. So if you're a Photoshop user, yes,
a cheap RAID 0 would be worth a few bucks. If you worked on posters
or banners (very large files), it would probably be a must-have.

I want speed and Raid 0 is necessary for speed. The hard drive is the weakest link in most setups.

A SATA SSD may have a seek time of 0.1 millisecond, so can solve the
head movement problem, but SSD drives still have a lot of other compromises.
Good ones, are not cheap. And cheap ones are not good (stuttering on early
Jmicron controllers). The cheap ones don't even make good paperweights.

That's why I'm not considering SS drives now.

(An example of overkill... Up to four SSDs inside the main housing,
RAID0, 256MB RAM cache. $3,368.99 with free shipping.)

Compared to about $40 for 4 x 40gb Sata drives!

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz_z_drive_p84_pci_express_ssd

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technolog...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1252516990&sr=1-1

Since the SATA hard drives are so cheap, you can try out your idea and soon
have an answer for yourself. Some people swear by their RAID 0 setup
("my game load time is shorter"), but I wouldn't touch one with a
barge pole. Make sure you're doing daily backups, to minimize the
loss when one drive mechanism fails. RAID 0 has no redundancy.

You betcha. I intend to do incremental backups a few times a day. Sort of "I need to do something away from my desk for a few
minutes so I hit "backup" and its done when I come back". It becomes second nature. And since I'm not there when its running it
doesn't slow things up.

 

[Will]

Actually SATA or SCSI hds do have better performance with a smaller size,
most cache is @ 8MB. WD Raptor 10,000rpm is only about 74GB, & about 36GB,

The 36gb model is getting so cheap now as its very noisy (I'll build a sound deadening hard drive enclosure with superb ventilation
for the noise) and too small for most people's use, but for this project it might be a great choice. I'd forgotten about that
model. I actually have 1 or 2 left over from another project!

get the idea....Also,RAID controllers (add on cards,start at about 35.00).

I've been noticing that some raid controller cards are very inexpensive though obviously not offering the performance of the high
end cards but perhaps they better the performance of software raid and would be worth their small cost. That enables one to get a
very basic motherboard (I was thinking a DDR-2 one as they're so cheap now), pop in one of those cards and have provisions for a
huge number of hard drives (motherboards have a minimum of 4 now), eSata and Raid 0. And I need eSata for the hot swap backups I
need to do because of the flakiness of Raid 0!

 

[Will]

Remember that almost all high performance computers these days come with Raid 0. The hard drive is almost always the weakest link
in the chain. Check out the Youtube video of raid 0 linked SSD drives....its insane.

 

[Bob I]

Let's face it, marginal gain offset by much inconvenience. You are going
to do it despite all contrary advice. Just go ahead and do your
experiment, you don't need the approval from the newsgroup.