Highest MB/s transfer rate on a home LAN?

[Trance183]

thats true.I really wouldn't want 4 or 5 hard drives in my case. heck no, lol. I want 2 at the most, and thats good enough speed considering those 80-90MB/s i'll see. You're right about not being able to see the full potential. And thats why a raptor fits the bill. It has a good Average read/write of about 65MB/s. And with 2 of them, thats all the bandwidth i need. thanks for your input.

 

[Madwand]

the nVIdia 590 chipset can do ethernet bridging, which in effect will double your bandwidth potential, something to think about . . . havent had the chance to play with it myself, but I will soon VERY soon (mwahahaha)

From what I've read, this is uni-directional, outbound only. This means that it's good for a multi-user file server (etc.), where two data streams go to two different computers at the same time with up to 1 Gb/s each, but you won't ever exceed 1 Gb/s to a single computer, even if this computer has 2 nForce 5 NICs.

And of course, to do this sort of streaming performance simultaneously to two different clients, you'd either need the data in cache, or a really nice HD array.

The "proper" way to do this sort of thing is with the 802.3ad standard, and this requires a fancy switch in general, but haven't seen any reports of actual success with this yet, where "actual success" means > 1 Gb/s data transfer performance.

But don't let me discourage you -- good luck, and please report your findings.

 

[yyrkoon]

You dont need a fancy switch at all, you could do Linux ethernet channel bonding . . .of course all your system OS's would have to be Linux . . . with support compiled in . . .

And of course IF the only one machine used 2x GbE bonded, its all going to be outbound (from that machine), but if you use two or more machines with 2x GbE connections bonded, I'm sure it would be bi-directional.

I still advise using eSATA or Mini SAS, the latter of which is probably very expencive. However, I know for a fact that eSATA with a port multiplier is reasonably cheap. You can buy a motherboard with a SIL 3132 controller, the port multiplier, and up to 5 drives (max is 5 per port multiplier). WIth the port multiplier controller, and the SIL 3132 onboard controller, you can run all your disks in whichever supported RAID configuration you wish (which i believe is RAID 0,1,0+1,5, and 10, but basicly boils down to the SIL 3132 support on he motherboard )

Port multipliers cost about $100USD, and for example, the latest AM2 motherboard with a SIL 3132 controller on board is a little over $200, depending on where you buy it, and most of the cost will be investing into your HDDs. You could even buy a cheap motherboard with no onboard SIL 3132 controller, and get an expansion card with a SIL 3132 on it for around $50USD,but in the end, the cost would probably even out, that and the fact the only SIL 3132 controllers i know of that arent in the server class are PCIE 1x, which would limit your bandwidth somewhat . . .

 

[Madwand]

if you use two or more machines with 2x GbE connections bonded, I'm sure it would be bi-directional.

Do you intend to test this out and post performance results? Native nVidia and/or Linux?

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=12193

DualNet can only improve the outgoing bandwidth. You will be able to send with up to 2000 MBit/s but incoming traffic will still go over one Ethernet interface, resulting in 1000 MBit/s. This means the best gains will be seen with file serving applications. To be able to pump out 200 Megabytes per second you will need fast harddisks, preferably in RAID.

 

[Trance183]

ok guys lets stay on topic. but nice Link by the way. .

 

[mazilo]

With my U.S. Robotics USR5461 WIFi router, I can get about a sustain rate of 9.5MBps between two wired computers, i.e. Linux and Windows.

EDIT: I just tried this to connect my USR5461 behind my Linksys WRT54GS v3 runs on a DDWRT v23 firmware. I put a Linux on this WRT54GS router and was able to achieve the same throughput of about 9.5MBps to transfer DVD files from my Linux box to my Win2k3 (bhind USR5461) through FTP. In other words, this USR5461 really supports 100Mbps connections on all its ports (WAN/LAN). If I do the other way, having WRT54GS connected behind a USR5461, the transfer rate could only go as high as 4MBps which means WRT54GS WAN port can only handle about 32Mbps connections.

 

[Trance183]

thats pretty decent. I go about the same. 10MB is the best i've ever seen on my network. anyone get more than 60?

 

[yyrkoon]

if you use two or more machines with 2x GbE connections bonded, I'm sure it would be bi-directional.

Do you intend to test this out and post performance results? Native nVidia and/or Linux?

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=12193

DualNet can only improve the outgoing bandwidth. You will be able to send with up to 2000 MBit/s but incoming traffic will still go over one Ethernet interface, resulting in 1000 MBit/s. This means the best gains will be seen with file serving applications. To be able to pump out 200 Megabytes per second you will need fast harddisks, preferably in RAID.

Even though the point is moot, the OP wanted a server for streaming video throughout his house, <---- er, file sharing which would mean outbound packets from the server is really all he cares about anyhow.

Now, I'd like to know how this 'tech person' you linked to got his information because I see nowhere in the white paper (technical brief) where it says it only supports 2 Gbit out . . .

http://www.nvidia.com/content/nforce5/TB-02499-001_v01_DualNet.pdf

It doesnt make sense for ANYONE to cripple a technology by only implementing half of its capabilities, atleast, not in this case it doesnt. This is the problem with information given out over the internet, it is often mis-information. Also note, what you posted for a link is not some reputable website, but rather a link to another forum, which leads me to believe the information is dubious.

In order for me to test what I think is correct, I would need two AM2 motherboards, which at the moment I do not have, but will be getting semi soon.

Now for the HDD side, IF you want to saturate a 2 Gbit connection, you're most likely going to want 4x RAID 0 to do so (atleast) IF you dont care about saturating the 2 Gbit line, then 2x RAID 0 should work fine.

To be honest, I cant see anyone having enough people living in thier house to merrit using more than a single decent HDD in thier home 'server'. However, if the data is 'mission critical', such as work files etc, then perhaps a 3x RAID 5 array is in order ?

Now, to the OP, a Raptor isnt much better than a Seagate barracuda in such a case. I personally have 2x Seagate barracuda 40 GB ATA 100 drives that give me around 50,000KB /s throughput each. Roughly, thats only 10MB/s less, than your Raptor. Last time I benched my SATA 150 250 GB baracuda, it was getting 58,000 KB/s throughput . . . starting to see my point ? Basicly it boils down to you're paying more, for half the storage, and only gaining a marginal boost in improvement. Although, I must admit, I have not been a big fan of WD drives since the 90's . . .

 

[Trance183]

very nicely put. well you are right about the throughput, but why is that everytime I talk about a Raptor, 99 people praise it, and then there is always that 1 guy who shames it. lol. but i do have one concern. Do you mean throughput as in Average Read/Write Transfer performance or as in Interface Performance cause there is a huge difference. get back to me on that one dude.

 

[yyrkoon]

Benchmark screenshot I think this says it all, a Raptor has half the access time, but only 7MB/s more throughput (averaged). Seriously, if you're going to be using only two drives, you dont need 'enterprise' drives in your system. Also, I'd check the warranty of the Raptors vs seagate drives. Seagate drives all (mostly, some, such as 'white label drives' dont) have a 5 year warranty, and Seagate has very good customer relations. Since WD has been around for awhile, I would imagine they couldnt be terrible in this arena, but the last time I checked thier warranty was still lacking by comparrison. However, unless I'm mistaken, the Raptor is classed as an enterprise drive, and may have a longer warranty.

I cant stress enough that you DO NOT NEED, that extra 7MB/s for the added cost . . . use that money elsewhere in your system, such as your video card, or something

Let me put it another way you may understand more clearly what I mean. IF you had been buying Seagate barracudas for a generation or two, then suddenly Raptors appeared, and you HAD to have it, and you bought one, I think you would be atleast midly dissapointed. The meaning here, is that on a desktop PC, where you're only doing occational filesharing (1-2 times a day or so) you will notice very little if any perceivable difference. The only time you'd know the difference is when, and if you benchmarked it. Even then, the difference is basicly only for bragging rights, if anything. Now, if this was for a small businesswith 10-20 people ( or slightly more ), using these in some kind of RAID configuration, then, you would notice a perceivable difference, especially if the disks were being accessed often.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140

Pros: Very Fast, Very Quiet, Very Cool. Good price for huge amount of storage....


Cons: Nothing at all so far.... More »


Other Thoughts: I have two of these in RAID 0 in 3.0gb/s configuration. It only took like an hour and five minutes to format this behemoth 600g array. I have an older seagate 250g IDE drive, and as i remember it took over two hours to format that. I work with very large video files, and let me tell you, these can move data very quickly, especially striped in 3g/s. Oh and dont forget to remove that nearly microscopic jumper to activate 3g/s.

I didnt read any of the reviews on the 150GB Raptor . . .but man . . . $269USD, and yeah, they are one of the few WD drives that have a 5 year warranty (1.2 million hours MTBF, mean time before failure . .).


Ah yeah, time for another edit. I was looking at stuff on newegg the other day, and was noticing a netgear 1GbE switch that was on sale, and it had it listed in its specs, that it supported 2GBit/s throughput per port. I dont know if you understand the ramifications here, but from what experience I have
in this area (believe me, its more than just a little), this had only been previously done on cisco routers/switches, and some other expencive enterprise switches that support load balancing. Basicly, what I'm getting at here, is that you COULD go with a nVidia 570/ 590 motherboard, tie both ports to the switch, and run 2GbE out on a single line. In order for this to work for every PC in the house however, you would need either a switch in each room, OR one switch in some room, with two cables for each PC connecting to it, and of course, the obvious nVidia 570+ chipset motherboard for each PC. Quite the interresting time for technology we are living in now

 

[Trance183]

wow, what an outstanding point man. you see by the time i read your post i was already convinced that i didn't need a raptor, and was ready to invest on the delicious looking Seagate. But when i saw the prices between the seagate and raptor 74gb, i still have a tough decision to make. considering the new model of the 74GB Raptor is way faster than the previous model. and with the rebate offering, we are talking only a few bucks difference. the only thing i can do is wait for conroe to come out and then worry about buying a good fast drive at that time.

thanks dude, very persuasive indeed. lol

 

[Madwand]

Even though the point is moot

You brought it up here, btw.

It doesnt make sense for ANYONE to cripple a technology by only implementing half of its capabilities, atleast, not in this case it doesnt. This is the problem with information given out over the internet, it is often mis-information. Also note, what you posted for a link is not some reputable website, but rather a link to another forum, which leads me to believe the information is dubious.

That post was from a site admin/editor/reviewer/whatever. Doesn't make it 100% reliable, but what do we have to compare that with now? Personal high hopes for the technology? If you look at this question seriously, and not just with enthusiasm, you'll see that both possibilities exist, and remain to be verified.

In order for me to test what I think is correct, I would need two AM2 motherboards, which at the moment I do not have, but will be getting semi soon.

Exactly -- jumping into this technology is not cheap. If you're laying out this much money, it'd be pretty smart to do so after seeing some successful results posted somewhere. Otherwise, what you're doing is buying based on marketing, exactly what the marketing folks want, not what the engineering folks would advise.

To be honest, I cant see anyone having enough people living in thier house to merrit using more than a single decent HDD in thier home 'server'. However, if the data is 'mission critical', such as work files etc, then perhaps a 3x RAID 5 array is in order ?

Fact is that tons of home users have RAID arrays and multiple 100's of GB of personal data, some of it redundant and fully backed up, etc., and that data can grow fairly rapidly. Whether or not that's 3% or 1% or less of the population whatever is of no consequence when you have such data.

That said, there's much much to be said for the simplicity of non-RAID'd single drives. If you don't really need their features, then you'd probably be better off avoiding them.

Getting back to the semi-off-topic teaming, I contacted nVIDIA, and they said that DualNet teaming supports 802.3ad. I'm very happy to hear that, but would still recommend holding back and waiting for actual results before spending a lot of money and hope on this.

So who's going to post such results for me? If you do, you'll probably win this little competition of "highest MB/s transfer rate on a home LAN", for some time at least...

 

[Trance183]

yes sir, but it seems to me that no one really cares about this post. so far only a few loyal posters left a transfer rate if at all to help with my mission. i wish more people would just go home, send a file to another PC on their LAN, then come back and say "this is what i'm getting or got" "and this is the setup i'm using to achieve this rate". Oh boy would that be a perfect and plain simple world. but oh well, i just hope every 20 posts has 1 transfer rate. i'll never know.

 

[yyrkoon]

Madwand: READ the friggen white paper link i posted. Also, do you even know what ethernet bridging is ? I'm assuming no, because if you knew what it was, and you read the technical brief, you would know its capabilities already . . .
ethernet channel bridging ISNT somethign nVidia invented, its been around for years, but because of either the cost, or the OS / hardware involved, it wasnt feasable for use in a home network envoirnment (unless that home used Linux only) Now, since nVidia has seemingly implemented it in hardware, the need for proiprietary switches, or the use of Linux is irrellivent. The end result is that you, me and every other PC owner who uses WIndows as thier primary OS, can enjoy ethernet bridging. Now, quite being so adveserial.

Trance, the Raptors ARE NOT way faster . . . they are 'marginaly' faster if, and thats compared to my 1 + year old SATA I drives. If You consider the added cost, and the performance difference, its no where near worth it. Unless of course, you where a buisness, needing the miniscule performance gain, and could write it off. In either case, IF you were a business, and used solely SATA I, I'd have to question your IT skills.

 

[yyrkoon]

Trance, if you tell us how much money you're preparred to spend on this, we could better tell what the path best for YOU. There are a few different possibilities.

If I were to go by my needs, and what I'd spend in such a situation, I'd buy cheaper larger drives capable of substaining close to that of the Raptors, and spend the additional cash saved, on 1GbE cards, or motherboards with integrated 1GbE ports, and be happy with that.

Sure, you can spend hundreds on HDDs that wont even benifit you much in the long run, and you can even spends hundreds, if not thousands on the network, to keep everything maxed.

 

[Madwand]

Yyrkoon, all I asked for was some caution and testing before jumping on the gung-ho buy bandwagon. You've made this adversarial. I won't even point out the several mistakes in your post beyond their simple existence.

 

[Trance183]

well here it is, i plan to spend about 300-400 USA dollars to upgrade my setup. that includes a router or switch, and hard drives, i have the cables and have just made all our PCs 1Gbit capable. Anymore and we're probably talking business corps and servers.

I see the Raptor 74GB is going for about $130 with rebates. the seagate looks to be $120. very tough. but i couldn't find the exact model you are using. I like the 58MB average throughput and if i'm guaranteed that performance then i'm off to get the seagate. but like i said, i can't find ur model, how do i know a slightly different model will give me the same if not better performance. it all comes down to benchmarks for me, and if i'm lucky, i'll find a good seagate for under 200 bucks with the same performance. Look at Tom's Chart. I see your point.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx=33&model1=117&model2=124&chart=34

 

[Madwand]

1st question. Router or switch? How's your current router holding up as a router? Do you forsee any need to upgrade the router itself or add a wireless? If no, then just get a switch. If yes, then still consider a switch; consider a router + separate switch. A separate switch will give you additional ports and a bit more cabling flexibility, and some optional features like jumbo frames.

2nd question: Which HD? Note that average transfer rates can be very misleading -- they're measured over the entire drive, and when you compare a very big drive to a small drive, the really fair measurement is the performance of the big drive over the range of the small drive. Moreover, in this range, the average seek performance of the big drive will also be better, because it doesn't have as far to go. 10K vs 7.2K is a significant difference, but so is the 74 GB vs. 300+ GB.

Note also that the capacity difference helps you in other ways -- you're less likely to heavily fragment the drive, and you can even use the rest of the space for secondary purposes such as a backup. I have a 300 GB PATA drive just for the OS. A couple of OS's actually. Still way overkill. So I have a big >200 GB partition that I just use for backups.

StorageReview.com has the best info for this sort of decision AFAIK -- I recommend checking them out.

 

[Trance183]

ok this is good. I have an old Microsoft Router 10/100Mbit. But i want something that will give me wireless, internet for all the PCs in the house, and good packet handling for when we play LAN games, which we do. Can a switch do all that? I know the D-Link Router can. If so, then let me know and i'll buy that.

About the hard drive. Just as I was sold on buying one of the 250GB that Read/Write near as good as a Raptor. I run into another specification which is "I/O performance". And I think from what I see, that has alot to do with how fast your games can load maps and launch Apps and Boot OS. So help me with this cause i'm confused? It seems the Raptors outperform all drives when it comes to "I/O". i could use some insight.

 

[yyrkoon]

well here it is, i plan to spend about 300-400 USA dollars to upgrade my setup. that includes a router or switch, and hard drives, i have the cables and have just made all our PCs 1Gbit capable. Anymore and we're probably talking business corps and servers.

I see the Raptor 74GB is going for about $130 with rebates. the seagate looks to be $120. very tough. but i couldn't find the exact model you are using. I like the 58MB average throughput and if i'm guaranteed that performance then i'm off to get the seagate. but like i said, i can't find ur model, how do i know a slightly different model will give me the same if not better performance. it all comes down to benchmarks for me, and if i'm lucky, i'll find a good seagate for under 200 bucks with the same performance. Look at Tom's Chart. I see your point.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx=33&model1=117&model2=124&chart=34

Ok, 300-400usd sounds simular to what I'd spend. The drive Listed in my benchmark is around 2 year old tech, I was just using it as an example, the newer SATAII drives will perform close to the same or better. Which, btw doesnt really have anything to do with SATAII, just the platter density and such. Barracudas (SATA drives) have always done native command queuing, so I didnt even bother mentioning that.

Hell for that matter, you dont even need to buy Seagate, you can buy any ole well performaing drive, but I recommend Seagate because of thier customer service, warranty, and high performance / cost ratio. Anyone can buy a 'lemon' product from anyone, and usually customer service is an after thought, but handy to have in a pinch when needed (dont want to be dorking about with buttheads who try to renig on thier 'warranty').

Despite what people would have you beleive, access times arent what the manufactuers would have you beleive. Just for a quick example, 5-6 years ago, I bought an Adaptec 29160 SCSI controller, and an Ultra plex UW Plextor CD reader, for the speed, and even after re-encoding severa Music CDs for my awsome creative MP3 player (with a whopping 32 MB memory! !), the feeling I was left with compared to my regular IDE reader, was simular to eating good, but stale food. meaning yeah, It was faster, MAYBE even a good deal faster (20% or slightly more), but real world performance was like 30 seconds . . .500 usd for a 30 second difference . . .Point is, I can link you to the fastest HDD solution on the planet, but will you use all that power ? will you even NEED it ? I think not.

My suggestion would be to buy one or two decent performaing, drives, on sale with rebate if possible (i will STILL avocate Seagate over WD any day of the week, I've had nothing but good solid performance from them).

Find a good switch for a decent price, maybe even something like the Netgear I saw last week with 2GbE support per port (never know if you want to do ethernet bridging in the future)

As for NICs, the last time I researched this more than a year ago the INtel PCI NIC in this
'roundup' was the best, it is possible it still is. Anyhow, yo ucould spend the remaining of you budget on these, since 400 usd is hardly enough to upgrade 4 or so systems to AM2.

Here, you'll save a bit of money while getting more HDD space, making your HDD selection a bit more future proof, the netgear GbE switch WAS on sale for 69 usd, and offers some good options for possible future upgrades. Keep in mind I did not research this piece of hardware past the several reviews I read on newegg, which can be a good indicator, but isnt always fool proof. The majority of your money would be going into your NICs, which if you're more concerned about bandwidth than anything else, it would be a good investment. Last time i Priced these around a year ago, they ran about 60USD each, hyopefully they are a bit cheaper now, since they would eat up a pretty good bit of your biget by themselves . .

Now, in case ANYONE got the wrong idea Raptors are not a bad drive, they are the highest performing drive on the market in the SATA arena (as far as I know), however it is my opinion, that these drives are meant for people who buy stuff like FX-62 CPUs, and have more money than they know what to do with, yeah sure they are the 'best', but are they worth the extra cost, and lost storage space ? I dont think so. Irreguardless, you're budget doesnt support the idea of buying them IMO anyhow . . .

[EDIT]

Sorry for all the typos, Im too lazy to fix them atm, as ive been out all day installing a T1, and im exausted.

 

[yyrkoon]

1st question. Router or switch? How's your current router holding up as a router? Do you forsee any need to upgrade the router itself or add a wireless? If no, then just get a switch. If yes, then still consider a switch; consider a router + separate switch. A separate switch will give you additional ports and a bit more cabling flexibility, and some optional features like jumbo frames.

2nd question: Which HD? Note that average transfer rates can be very misleading -- they're measured over the entire drive, and when you compare a very big drive to a small drive, the really fair measurement is the performance of the big drive over the range of the small drive. Moreover, in this range, the average seek performance of the big drive will also be better, because it doesn't have as far to go. 10K vs 7.2K is a significant difference, but so is the 74 GB vs. 300+ GB.

Note also that the capacity difference helps you in other ways -- you're less likely to heavily fragment the drive, and you can even use the rest of the space for secondary purposes such as a backup. I have a 300 GB PATA drive just for the OS. A couple of OS's actually. Still way overkill. So I have a big >200 GB partition that I just use for backups.

StorageReview.com has the best info for this sort of decision AFAIK -- I recommend checking them out.

you know of a switch or router that supports jumbo frames, and is decent, that wont blow his budget ? I dont, that doesnt mean they dont exist, how about linking some parts . .

about the HD speeds, yea platter location, and if you go by the same rate the Raptor was dropping towards the end of its platter, and made it 300GB, it looks to me as though its perfomrance would drop significantly (as in ZERO MB/s). Also have to keep in mind that a drive more than 50% larger than a raptor, and only trailing by 7MB/s is pretty dahmed good. A Raptor would be a good option for a pure OS Drive sure, IF you can afford it.

As stated in my earlier post seek time has nothing to do with real world performance, well it does, but like it said, the difference WILL leave a stale taste in your mouth IF you care anything about your money, and how you spend it.

As for transfer speeds, the worst possible benchmark you can do on a HDD is a combined read/write benchmark where it reads data then writes it back as fast as it can, I thought this benchmark I have now had this, but seems it doesnt. This is the type of test I preffer when benchmarking a drive, but since not availible, I simply did with what I have., Ive already proven atleast to myself, that seek times are even more misleading than transfer rates. BESIDES, the newer Seagate drives i linked to the other day, have the same, or closer seek times to the raptors Less cost, nearly triple the storage space.

You also forgot to mention that while RPM speed can play a big factor in performance, it can ALSO play a big factor in system heat, and running anything over 7200 RPM with out some sort of active cooling (such as a fan /HDD mount, fan blowing dirrectly on the HDD itsself ) isnt very smart.

 

[yyrkoon]

Trance: AH yeah before i hit the rack, WE forgot a very important factor, as in the exact specs for you current system NOW. If' you're currently using a dated PCI system, all this could be moot, since the max bus throughput would only be 120 (ish) MB/s anyhow, but I've been assuming you're using a decent PCIE system . . . Also, knowing exactly what you have now could save some additional monies, if you have some decent parts already (HDD wise)

 

[Madwand]

I have an old Microsoft Router 10/100Mbit. But i want something that will give me wireless, internet for all the PCs in the house, and good packet handling for when we play LAN games, which we do. Can a switch do all that? I know the D-Link Router can. If so, then let me know and i'll buy that.

If the DGL-4300 has enough ports for you, and you don't need jumbo frame support, and standard medium-range 802.11g wireless is enough, then it's a good choice.

You could go a bit cheaper and get more gigabit ports by not upgrading the router for now and just getting a desktop gigabit switch (e.g. D-Link DGS-1008D), and you can even consider buying a separate wireless router + gigabit switch which could cost less than the DGL-4300 together, and in some cases could give better wireless range.

(The future of wireless is 802.11n, but unfortunately, the pre-n products aren't really ready and are relatively expensive. This might be a reason to consider holding off upgrading to wireless if you don't really need it now, and want the best performance when you get it. In my thinking, it's a good time to get gigabit, but not the best time to be adopting wireless because it's changing significantly. But you can get stable 802.11g wireless affordably now if you're not going to be upset with the faster/longer range stuff coming out and becoming stable and cheaper over the rest of the year or so.)

 

[Madwand]

About the hard drive. Just as I was sold on buying one of the 250GB that Read/Write near as good as a Raptor. I run into another specification which is "I/O performance". And I think from what I see, that has alot to do with how fast your games can load maps and launch Apps and Boot OS. So help me with this cause i'm confused? It seems the Raptors outperform all drives when it comes to "I/O". i could use some insight.

StorageReview has a decent approach, where they try to go after application performance instead of simple synthetic benchmarks. What they do for this is typically like: Create / obtain a general application benchmark. Run that test, and capture all the drive accesses. Then run just all the drive accesses, and measure performance. This is cool, and valid from the pure drive access point of view, but still exaggerates the effect of drive accesses. This is intentional, but what I'm pointing out is that this is still not an ultimately meaningful real world benchmark, where you're measuring overall time. You're just measuring drive access time here. In the real world, you're doing a lot more than just drive access, and because of file caching, etc., the drive access is usually not as big of a part of the overall performance as such extracted benchmarks would lead you to believe. Moreover, with multiple drives, there are tons of ways to configure these things, and results could be very different in cases where the OS is on one drive and the primary apps on another, or everything on one drive, or the temp folder, swap file or Photoshop scratch file on another, etc. So their benchmarks, while conceptually valid to a fair extent, still don't tell you the entire real world impact or of all the alternatives.

Gaming in particular is not really drive-limited. It would be a really bad idea to make a game which was. So it would generally be a big mistake to take video card or RAM dollars and put them into a very fast and expensive hard drive. But yes, in some games which have huge amounts of data to pull of the drive in parts -- zone loading -- then for just that time, you can see significant benefits going from very old/slow/full/fragmented drives to new/fast/empty/unfragmented drives. But realize that this will usually have no impact on FPS for example, and in the general case, you might be talking about 30s vs. 20s for a big zone and an average drive vs. a fast drive.

So the real challenge here is to find out, in your particular case, where the drive accesses are really significant, and then to figure out how you can improve upon them. BTW, often, the best solution turns out to be avoiding the disk altogether, and this is often done by increasing the RAM available to the OS and/or the application.

The Raptor 150 actually tends to have a better GB/$ and performance figures than other Raptors. So if you really want the fastest desktop drive, then that's probably the one to get. (SR has more details, and sometimes the big new drives can do nearly as well - check them for details if you want/need more space.) But you've probably noticed that Raptor 150's aren't cheap. How much is drive performance worth to you? How often are you actually hitting the drive? In what manner? Are you moving a lot of data around from one place to another and accessing a ton of small files, or pulling data in and out from the applications sparingly? In the latter case, a drive setup with good sequential transfer rate could be better / good enough; in the former, and drive with good seek performance could be better.

The Raptor question is pretty much a question of money and capacity. No doubt that it's generally faster. But they don't have much capacity in modern terms. And they're much more expensive than the norm. If capacity and money don't matter to you, they're the ones to get. But with limited budgets, we have to make those trade-offs as suit us best, and it's really not that hard to live with a bigger drive that performs well, but not as well as a Raptor.

 

[yyrkoon]

It still sounds to me as though some one is trying to confuse the situation. There two HDD's, same test, and differences listed, and yet for reasons unbeknownst to me, is STILL unwilling to accept the data.

Provide some links, or some useful data instead of hersay, or just drop it.

Ive already proven TWICE that modern Seagate drives perform admirably well for less cost, and over three times the storage capacity. Having given my own benchmark (irreguardless if its something you like or not, both drives were tested with the same program, which btw,alot of people use now days). I've even given a users review who actually OWNS on of these seagate drives, and a link to the review, and product.

Before you think, I'm being agessive towards you madwand, provide some real data, links, or some usefull information other than hersay. I wont think you're being agressive, hell I may even learn something, but until you prove something to me, I'm going to consider you wrong.