2x 146gb U320 scsi drives - work well in new core 2 box?

[imported_merv]

I have a friend that owes me some money....he is trying to get me to accept these 2 Scsi drives in lieu of cash. ( I am considering it because I know he is broke.)

I will consider it if these 2 drives can be useful in my new core 2 duo box. The motherboard I plan on getting is an Asus P5b Deluxe with an E4300.

I will be doing video editing with this box as well as everyday tasks.

I would need to buy a Scsi adapter card, but don't know which one.

Can anyone assit me in making this decision? How much is it going to cost me to get a good scsi card, and would these do well in a Raid 0 setup?

Thanks for your time.

 

[bob4432]

first off are they 10 or 15K? what generation are they? get the model numbers because sometimes you can pick them up for pretty cheap (considering they are scsi), especially the 146GB ones

to run them in raid0, if they are 10k you can still use a regular pci scsi raid card that will proabably run you ~$75, but if they are 15K then you wll need a pci-e scsi raid card because they will saturate a regular pci bus, and they pci-e raid cards get kind of pricey, i would say at least $200 if you are lucky.

you will also need a u320 which you can pick up n ebay for ~$15 that has a terminator on the end, and if they are sca (80pin-like they came out of a hot swap enclsure) you will need a scs->68pin adapter which are usually ~$10-$30/ea

hope this helps

 

[SuperNaruto]

15k ones are rare.. but yeah see which one he has, 68 pin are easy, 80 pin needs the adapter.. if it cost too much.. i wouldn't bother

 

[imported_merv]

thanks.

They are 15k rpm drives and I think they are pulled from a server. (hot swappable) It looks like there is not a separate power connection.

It says WIDE Ultra320 SCSI
LVD/SE

Does this help???

Thanks

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: SuperNaruto
15k ones are rare.. but yeah see which one he has, 68 pin are easy, 80 pin needs the adapter.. if it cost too much.. i wouldn't bother

no they are not they are expensive but not rare

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: merv
thanks.

They are 15k rpm drives and I think they are pulled from a server. (hot swappable) It looks like there is not a separate power connection.

It says WIDE Ultra320 SCSI
LVD/SE

Does this help???

Thanks

what that means is that you need to buy the sca->68 pin adapters and to run in a raid0 array you will need to get a pci-e card for your m/b to benefit from the speed. if you need it just to have ~300GB you can get a regular pci scsi raid card but know that they will be maxed out at ~100-125MB/s when their potential in a raid0 array is more like 160-170MB/s or possibly higher - my 15k.5 since it is in a regular pci slot has a burst and str of the same speed, hahaha

do you need them in a raid0 array? could you use them individually? because if you do then you could get a u160 card that would run you ~$25 or so.... as 1 15k hdd won't saturate the pci bus unless they are the seagate 15k.5s

 

[imported_merv]

I suppose I don't have to run in Raid 0...thought it might be a little faster.

SO, if I run them individually I can get a u160 card (single or dual channel?) and it won't cost an arm and a leg.

What would the speed with a u160 card /scsi 15k drive be similiar to? Will I see SATA II type speed?

 

[bob4432]

since you are going to be in a 32bit pci slot, that is the determing factor. you will not see sataII speeds because that is a theoretical speed that even their drives can't hit unless multipe in a raid0 array. basically the 32bit pci bus has a limit of ~125MB/s but real world is more like ~100MB/s because there are usually other items on tha bus. so the 15k hdds usually have a str of 80MB/s+ (depending on which one) but what you really benefit from is the fact that scsi drives are built to be run 24/7/365/many years. they are built tough. to be perfectly honest, the 7200.10 seagates do a good job for a 7200rpm drive, but their seek time when latency is considered in is like 13-14ms, where the 15k scsi it is like 5ms. you could always run one as your system drive and benefit from its snappiness also.

as far as a u160 card, you may want to look for a lsiu160, adaptec 19160, 29160 or 39160. don't worry about single/dual channel as it really won't affect you with 2 drives.

 

[imported_merv]

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

One more question.

IF I were crazy enough to consider it, what type of PCIe card would I look for to get maximum speed from these drives?

 

[bob4432]

basically any decent brand, but the problem is that a lot of the manf are puttin their efforts into sas cards, so you may spend $500+ for certain pci-e cards. lsi makes good cards and there is one that comes in a lot of dells that people really like, its name is something like perc4 - head over to 2cpu.com and see if you can find more info about it there. basically the older raid cards were 64bit pci-x cards and usually only server m/bs have those slots

 

[SuperNaruto]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: SuperNaruto
15k ones are rare.. but yeah see which one he has, 68 pin are easy, 80 pin needs the adapter.. if it cost too much.. i wouldn't bother

no they are not they are expensive but not rare

which makes it rare for the secondary and used market...

 

[SuperNaruto]

PCIe - LSI 320-2e aka Dell PERC 4e/DC - x8 PCI Express cards

PCI-X - LSI 320-2x aka Dell PERC 4/DC - PCI-X cards also works in pci slot

Intel also has a variation of the pcie card.. but lsi are more popular and you can get it for around 199 on ebay, dell around 150,

Benefit of getting lsi branded - use lsi drivers, people have attempted to flash the dell into lsi to use lsi drivers.. Dell perc4 are okay too but most people hacked the driver to use on Win XP.. dell does not provide XP drivers.. only for server 2000/2003

intel branded of the same card
http://www.scsi4me.com/product_info.php?cPath=4_6&products_id=1560

http://www.scsi4me.com/index.php?cPath=4_6
list of all the popular cards...

 

[uOpt]

You need an adapter card and 68 to 80 pin adapters (cheap on ebay but watch quality). If you don't need hardware RAID, then a simple SCSI adapter is pretty cheap.

These two drives running at the same time will max out a 32bit/33 MHz PCI bus, and a bit more but not too much. You can do that, but only if all your other junk is off that bus (GbE, SATA, sound etc.).

A PCIe card is the better option but you'll have a limited number of slots.

It will also be loud.

 

[Dantzig]

Even if you decide not to use them, 146GB 15k SCSI drives seem to fetch $300-600 each on eBay depending on the specific model of drive. Does he owe you more than $500? If not, I'd take them.

 

[imported_merv]

New question:

If I do end up getting an pcie raid controller and this raid controller has an external connect, Can I house all of my scsi drives in an external enclosure therefore keeping the heat out of my case? Can I still boot to external drives?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Yes, and Yes. Altho, I do not know of any cheap external SCSI stuff...others will help you out

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: uOpt
You need an adapter card and 68 to 80 pin adapters (cheap on ebay but watch quality). If you don't need hardware RAID, then a simple SCSI adapter is pretty cheap.

These two drives running at the same time will max out a 32bit/33 MHz PCI bus, and a bit more but not too much. You can do that, but only if all your other junk is off that bus (GbE, SATA, sound etc.).

A PCIe card is the better option but you'll have a limited number of slots.

It will also be loud.

the 15k drives i have currently and in the past were roughly the same sound/loudness as a 7.2k ide hdd

one thing i would recommend is active cooling on them whatever way you go, they do run a bit warmer than 10k scsi and 7.2kide

 

[SuperNaruto]

You can get tehse..

http://cgi.ebay.com/DELL-POWERVAULT-220...11QQcategoryZ64071QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

powervault empty.. they been going for under 200 lately.. holds 14 drives... can run the system in single or split or cluster mode... thats what i'm using

 

[imported_merv]

New direction maybe:

Above friend also has an LSI 22320-HP pci-x card that he will throw in. If I change my motherboard to This ASUS , for an additional $100 (motherboard price diff.) I should get good speed, right?

 

[bob4432]

not familiar with that particular card but assuming yes. the price is getting pretty high imho to be able to move data at ~180MB/s for large files - what are you moving them too? personally i would save the $$ and get a regular u160 card and live with that speed, which is plenty fast, unless you really need the speed, and if you are going to be moving huge files, like 30GB ones, you woudl be better off running some 7200.10 because when moving big files the seek time doesn't really matte, it is when you are moving a lot of small files that you noitcie the 15k superiority. if you move a 30GB file on a raided0 setu of 7200.10 that has a str of 150MB/s, and your 15k move them at 180MB/s, you are really not gaining much and you are putting out a lot of cash

 

[imported_merv]

I have a TON of DV video to transfer on to disc. We are talking about 60-80 hours of video all told. This is going to require a lot of time and even more disc space. Right now that is more video than I will have room for but I will have to figure that out later...

My main goal is to speed up moving these files as much as possible, and once moved I want them on as stable of a platform as possible until I either burn them to DVD or move to external disc.

I know that 290gb, give or take, isn't nearly enough disc space for that many hours of video, but that hurdle will have to be crossed later.

 

[bob4432]

personally i would take raid0 out of the equation then. for the space requirements - ~2.5TB if i can remember correctly that when i messed with video and when i would bring it into premiere it would be uncompressed avi @ 13GB 1/2 hour for sd video, then i would go a huge 7.2K seagate 7200.10 array - raid 5 or 6 with 500GB hdds

this may not be the fastest way but it is the only way you can do what you are wanting to do with that much video. you can always you the scsi drives as a os/app drive an another as a scratch/pagefile drive and then have the large storage array. maybe pick up a cheaper but still decent sata raid 5/6 card

just a thought

 

[bob4432]

so, what did you decide?

 

[imported_merv]

Still trying to decide what to do. Not sold on Scsi so I am looking at building with SATA only and figuring something else to do with said friend...