- Jan 8, 2011
- 4
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- 18,510
I need a very fast sequential access data drive for a desktop. The faster the better. I am willing to invest in multiple HDD's and run striped raid. Data integrity is not an issue, so we can even keep it at the fastest (error prone) Raid 0 or possibly Raid 0+1. I can use as many drives as I can fit in a decent sized mid tower desktop. Probably 4 for the data dive 1 other (maybe ssd) for the OS.
There are a ton of new options for HDD's and Raid, and not a lot "out there" comparing them, so I wanted to draw on any and all experience you guys and gals have had with it.
(Some of these have already been answered in other posts on this forum, but I am looking for very up to date info if possible.)
1. What are the best HDDs to use? Old info I have found points to the Samsung Spinpoint F3 as having the best throughput, is this still true
2. Does SATA III (6Gb/s) make any difference whatsoever in a spindled HDD? (I would think the constraint would be read/write speed, not data transfer)
3. Do you still get better speeds with a discrete PCI Raid Controller? (Most good MOBO's have a raid controller built in nowadays)
4. What do you think about windows 7 software raid? (Crap?)
I am reading/writing/processing VERY large files (1GB minimum, 25GB max though the possibility exists for larger). There are multiple files so it is taking hours. To reduce processing time, I am looking into improving the slowest component; HDD read/write times. I know it will make a huge difference due to testing with RAMDisk. Though a better analog for that would be SSD, I believe the sequential reads and writes are supposed to be better on HDD's.
I have several dedicated servers (One Win2k8 server, one 2k8 file server) with nice processors and Raid 5 available to me (and controlled by me), but a 10/100 switch stops me from using them. It would take FOREVER to transfer the data. Even with a Gigabit switch (which I am supposed to get), it still wouldn't be fast enough to transfer gigabytes and gigabytes of data that way.
I'll take any information/links you can scrounge up on this one. Thanks guys and gals!
I am not going to be building this system today. But probably sometime in Late February or early March. If needed, can you recommend a good high speed Raid Controller?
There are a ton of new options for HDD's and Raid, and not a lot "out there" comparing them, so I wanted to draw on any and all experience you guys and gals have had with it.
(Some of these have already been answered in other posts on this forum, but I am looking for very up to date info if possible.)
1. What are the best HDDs to use? Old info I have found points to the Samsung Spinpoint F3 as having the best throughput, is this still true
2. Does SATA III (6Gb/s) make any difference whatsoever in a spindled HDD? (I would think the constraint would be read/write speed, not data transfer)
3. Do you still get better speeds with a discrete PCI Raid Controller? (Most good MOBO's have a raid controller built in nowadays)
4. What do you think about windows 7 software raid? (Crap?)
I am reading/writing/processing VERY large files (1GB minimum, 25GB max though the possibility exists for larger). There are multiple files so it is taking hours. To reduce processing time, I am looking into improving the slowest component; HDD read/write times. I know it will make a huge difference due to testing with RAMDisk. Though a better analog for that would be SSD, I believe the sequential reads and writes are supposed to be better on HDD's.
I have several dedicated servers (One Win2k8 server, one 2k8 file server) with nice processors and Raid 5 available to me (and controlled by me), but a 10/100 switch stops me from using them. It would take FOREVER to transfer the data. Even with a Gigabit switch (which I am supposed to get), it still wouldn't be fast enough to transfer gigabytes and gigabytes of data that way.
I'll take any information/links you can scrounge up on this one. Thanks guys and gals!
I am not going to be building this system today. But probably sometime in Late February or early March. If needed, can you recommend a good high speed Raid Controller?
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