Dream SCSI Disk Setup Suggestions requested and appreciated! Many Lower RPM, or Single High RPM; which is "snappiest"?

[y0shi]

Hi guys, this is my first general hardware forum thread. From lurking I've seen that many of you have valuable experience and suggestions that can help me. I'm uncertain about how to create the "snappiest" computer possible with a given CPU on my $700 budget and I'd appreciate your ideas and suggestions.

Some background on the situation:

1) My goal is to achieve the illusion of having a faster CPU which high RPM SCSI drives are known to produce.
2) My access patterns most closely resemble that of a workstation, and not database server where spindle count is king.
3) My previous fastest hard drive experience was with (2) 7.2K RPM WD100GB 2MB cache drives in Software RAID0.
4) Megabytes per dollar is not an issue; anywhere from 18GB to 320GB is fine.
5) The sole criteria is that I must have the "snappiest" and most responsive partition for my O/S, Program Files, Games, and CAD Software.


My Dilema -- And Your Top Pick?:


(12) 10K RPM Original Cheetahs 4GB 40MB/s SCSI on Mid-Range Hardware RAID0 (The drives are free discards and 40MB/s cramps the STR, but I want the most responsive and least latent solution available)
(4) 7.2K RPM WD80GB 2MB cache ATA100 IDE's in 3Ware ATA100 Hardware RAID0
(2) 10K RPM Atlas II's 18GB 8MB cache u160 SCSI in Software or Entry-Level Hardware RAID0
(1) 15K Cheetah 18GB 3.6ns u160 SCSI Single Channel


How widely would the subjective performance differ between these choices in your best estimate? If it's 10% or less between the SCSI choices, I'll go for the free 10K Cheetahs and a quality Hardware RAID0 PCI Card I should probably consider 10% negligible since my previous best was dual 7.2K IDE's.

If you have any suggestions\options, words of wisdom, or even just friendly comments that would help in my quest for the Holy Grail of Snappiness, I would LOVE to hear them and will consider all suggestions
Thanks in advance guys, you're my favorite and only online community that I regard with such loyalty and pride -- have been for years and plan to for many more to come!

--y0shi

 

[y0shi]

bump for the post that i spent an hour on to make sure it was as clear and concise as possible!

 

[DaiShan]

I have it narrowed down between an x15 lp, and those 2 8meg cache atlas's, tough choice to make, I think I would go with the x15 tho.

 

[Sukhoi]

I won't go with the four drive RAID-0 for sure. You're quadrupling your chance for data loss.

 

[slackware1995]

<<
(12) 10K RPM Original Cheetahs 4GB 40MB/s SCSI on Mid-Range Hardware RAID0 (The drives are free discards and 40MB/s cramps the STR, but I want the most responsive and least latent solution available)
>>



Ya, these drives suck... send them to me... I'll make good use of them.. hehe

Honestly, are you interested in selling these cheap?

 

[slackware1995]

Damn, forgot to subscribe, is there anyway to set the default to subscribe on reply???

 

[garcher]

A lot of it depends on your application set as well. For example, if you are setting up a large SQL database, it uses 8K pages, so you'd need to look at your stripe depth (making sure it's an 8K multiple), you'd split your files & logs across different physical RAID sets, etc.. In a lot of cases more heads you can put the data across is better if you do a lot's of reads, writes with Raid 5 can be more intensive due to the need to calculate the parity.

 

[y0shi]

thats what ive learned from my research too. the thread in the general hardware forum has pretty much gone where i guessed it would, pointing me in the direction of a single cheetah 15k drive for my access patterns. now im just looking for an inexpensive yet good u160 raid or non-raid card. the adaptec one (9160 or something like that) is more expensive than i wanna pay for a simple u160 controller with no raid.

 

[XeonTux]

I was drooling over an ebay auction earlier, scsi4me has DPT/Adaptec single channel u/160 RAID controllers listed for $129. I cannot vouch for him or the cards, but it caught my eye.

 

[Nothinman]

I won't go with the four drive RAID-0 for sure. You're quadrupling your chance for data loss.

While that's true, and he will definatley want a good backup before putting anything on the drives, SCSI drives are a lot more reliable than IDE ones. I have several 4G SCSI drives that are probably 6+ years old that still run just fine (albeit slow).

If you really want to use RAID 0 I'd buy 5 drives and keep the 5th outside of the PC incase one dies. Make sure you run the disks real hard (I like to let bonnie++ run for a day or so in Linux) to try and weed out if any are defective.