Best Low cost storage set-up for revitalizing a SATA 3 Gbps Workstation being repurposed for gaming?

[dave_the_nerd]

That's actually faster than I might have expected.

Your 4k write looks wrong, though. 3MB/sec would mean each drive was handling ~375 IOPS, which is... a lot, for a 7200rpm spinner. File system caching maybe?

For a multitasking benchmark, please try running pcmark (I don't know if that's free) for something repeatable, with and without AV running.

 

[cbn]

Your 4k write looks wrong, though. 3MB/sec would mean each drive was handling ~375 IOPS, which is... a lot, for a 7200rpm spinner. File system caching maybe?

Yeah, I'm not sure what is happening here.

P.S. So far using these hard drives in RAID-0 I will say they do feel fast in general tasks. It is a good experience so far with this fresh install.

 

[cbn]

Update:

I found no trouble multi-tasking (web browsing, Office) while running of anti-virus with the 2 x WD5000AZLX in RAID-0.

This even with the hard drives filled to more than 50% capacity.

I did, however, notice that while I was downloading from both Steam and Origin the installs of Avast and AVG free anti-virus where quite slow. However, web browsing was working fine.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Web browsing is not particularly dependent on the speed of your local disk.

PCMark?

 

[cbn]

Web browsing is not particularly dependent on the speed of your local disk.

Office did fine though while I ran AVG, then AVAST Anti-virus.

Honestly, I found the experience quite good.

Now If this was a laptop with a single 5400 rpm spinner (particularly an older model with relatively low density platter) rather than two modern 7200 rpm HDD in RAID-0 I'm sure the experience would quite different.

PCMark?

PCMark would be good for comparing two set-ups against each other.....but I don't that would help the average person determine what is usable and what is not usable for a particular task. In this case, the task is running AV with Office open. For this maybe a better way of showing usability would be to a make of a video of the desktop running performing those tasks? I will take a look into doing that. I think open broadcaster is a software used for doing that.

 

[PliotronX]

I would get a Marvell 88SE923x with the hyper Duo cache to boost most often used games and its SATA3 to boot. I can't go back to mechanical boot drives

 

[cbn]

I would get a Marvell 88SE923x with the hyper Duo cache to boost most often used games and its SATA3 to boot. I can't go back to mechanical boot drives

How much does that cost?

P.S. Interestingly enough Seagate's Firecuda 2.5" 500GB SSHD almost made the $50 price cut (Currently it is $55 shipped at Newegg). EDIT: With this drive being based on a short stroked 1TB 2.5" SMR platter, I wonder why Seagate didn't offer the same capacity in a faster spinning 3.5" SSHD? (ie, 500GB 3.5" Firecuda SSHD based on 1TB platter or maybe even 1.33TB PMR platter)

 

[PliotronX]

About 30 bucks, I set one up with a Drevo X1 60GB and 1TB WL for my old man and it has been working pretty well.

 

[cbn]

About 30 bucks, I set one up with a Drevo X1 60GB and 1TB WL for my old man and it has been working pretty well.

Very Interesting. Is that booting as a single volume? With all 60GB of the SSD dedicated to cache?

P.S. Your link is broken, but I did find this listing. (And while this is out of budget for this LGA 1366 project, I will keep it in mind for my LGA 2011 Workstation)

 

[PliotronX]

Yes exactly! There is a pdf manual that shows the steps in the firmware interface so the os just sees a single volume. Sorry about the link, that is the one I tried to link to

 

[VirtualLarry]

That HyperDuo card, how does that work? Does it work transparently in hardware (LBAs below the size of the SSD, get mapped to the SSD, LBAs above, get mapped to the HDD? Like JBOD concatenation?) Or does it require an OS-level driver, to manage the SSD as a cache drive?

Still, interesting. Could see that being useful for a few friends that don't really know how to manage storage, and would benefit from a small SSD and a larger HDD arrangement. Even on mobos that can't use Intel's SRT technology.

 

[cbn]

Could see that being useful for a few friends that don't really know how to manage storage

.....And kids are likely in that group too.

In fact, this LGA 1366 project is sort my own exploration on what a cheap console alternative can do for people that are new to Windows. (A console alternative that could work well for free creative apps like Hit Films 4 Express....and maybe...just maybe.... even Autodesk Fusion 360* which a CAD/CAM software available free to students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and startups and used by Makerspaces like Techshop)

*This software works well with Gamer cards. It doesn't need Workstation cards like Quadro or Firepro.

 

[PliotronX]

It works a lot like Tiered Storage Spaces (basically more customizable version of Mac Fusion Drives)! Even though this PDF is for a HighPoint, it shows both how to create the HD using the Marvell Storage Utility as well as from the firmware interface. The 'capacity' mode seems like it functions as JBOD, just with a dynamic 'heatmap' to shuffle often used block level data to the SSD as with Storage Spaces. The 'safe' mode mirrors the data some how (even with differing capacities of drives) but I don't use that one so I am not familiar with it.