I want snappy...Raid 0 IDE or SCSI?

[Idontcare]

I've got $3k to burn on a dream machine... I've decided I'm going with dual 17" LCD's so $1k is gone already.

I want this system to snappy as all hell. I've done dual-cpu, IDE Raid 0, 2GB ram, and about every major core release for AMD and Intel since the 486 days etc. over the past years and never really been satiated that my system stood to attention when asked.

BUT, I've never done SCSI...so...

Here's my question for all you people who've tried the hardware and aren't just regurgitating opinions of other people's posts...

Raid 0 IDE versus SCSI? Assume I know what the data risks are and I completely care less for reasons I won't explain here.

If I Raid 0 together two 120GB Western Digital 8MB cache drives will it provide a disk subsystem that is comparable to a 15K.3 Cheetah? What about Raid 0 SCSI? Any reason (other than the obvious data risk, blah blah) to not go Raid 0 SCSI with a couple of Cheetah drives?

Assuming I don't care about data loss potential and I don't mind spending upwards of $1k for my disk subsystem...what's the most feasible and highest performing (latency and bandwidth) disk subsystem I can buy and assemble???

 

[mechBgon]

How much storage capacity do you want?

 

[m2kewl]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
If I Raid 0 together two 120GB Western Digital 8MB cache drives will it provide a disk subsystem that is comparable to a 15K.3 Cheetah? What about Raid 0 SCSI? Any reason (other than the obvious data risk, blah blah) to not go Raid 0 SCSI with a couple of Cheetah drives?

get the third generation cheetahs, the 15k.3 u320 drives, fastest drives currently on the planet. check out this article, on the bottom, IDE raid vs second generation cheetah and you'll understand what i mean

 

[Idontcare]

mechBgon >= 20GB, if >40GB then I'm in fat&happy'ville

m2kewl Thanks for link. From what I gather, teh FC-Test indicates 2xRaid-0 IDE can be better than SCSI, but why did they not do 4xRaid-0 to Cheetah comparison? Very odd the things they decided to post data and compare versus the things they did not bother to collect and compare. At any rate, anyone have experience (i.e. data) on 2xRaid-0 for SCSI?

 

[Goosemaster]

Raid increases THOROUGHPUT


"Snappy" refers to access times...RAID increases overall access time.

SCSI wins in that department.

 

[Goosemaster]

Check this out too.....Check this out too...if anything THIS is the fastest drive in the world... short of flash drives etc.


EDIT: Wrong link

 

[mechBgon]

SCSI has a couple aces up its sleeve, one being low seek times, and another being that it handles requests in the order it thinks is most efficient, rather than necessarily the order in which they were made.

You might want to do this: visit StorageReview.com's front page and note the Is IDE RAID0 Really Worth It? results down the page a ways. That's with two of the fastest IDE drives currently out. Write down the scores, then compare them to a single Cheetah 15k.3's scores throughout the 15k.3 review.

Methinks a 15k.3 RAID0 would be pretty intense

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
Check this out too.....Check this out too...if anything THIS is the fastest drive in the world... short of flash drives etc.

Ooooo! But they're not on the market yet, are they?

 

[Pariah]

Raid 0 IDE versus SCSI?

SCSI

If I Raid 0 together two 120GB Western Digital 8MB cache drives will it provide a disk subsystem that is comparable to a 15K.3 Cheetah?

No. SCSI will still dominate.

Any reason (other than the obvious data risk, blah blah) to not go Raid 0 SCSI with a couple of Cheetah drives?

36GB of storage will set you back almost another $900 for a good setup. That's a bit tough to swallow for that much storage. One 73GB 15k.3 and SCSI controller would be about the same price and a better buy.

RAID increases overall access time.

Not necessarily, improved head positioning with RAID should slightly improve access time in most situations.

Check this out too...if anything THIS is the fastest drive in the world...

Maxtor initially announced this drive last June and it apparently is still not close to reaching market. It's specs are similar to the 15k.3 so if it is faster it won't be by much.

 

[RSMemphis]

SCSI is definitely snappy, but for large amounts of data, not really required.

How about - system, core programs, swappy on an expensive 18 or 36 GB 10k or 15k drive.
Cheap storage on a 7200 drive.

 

[dexvx]

Sounds like what you need is a SCSI system ... fast HDD, maybe CD/DVD/CDRW on it.

However, for mass storage, go 7200/5400 rpm IDE.

 

[sharkeeper]

Methinks a 15k.3 RAID0 would be pretty intense

Yes it most certainly is.

Cheers!

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper

Methinks a 15k.3 RAID0 would be pretty intense

Yes it most certainly is.

Cheers!

I see your system spec is Eight 36GB Cheetah X15 36LP in RAID0 on LSi MegaRAID Enterprise 1600 4 Channel 64bit 66 MHz PCI HBA running at 64/66.

That setup must be adequate for most disk subsystem applications...

 

[everman]

What exactly do you do that requires a RAID0 SCSI setup?

If general gaming is the most stressful thing you do w/ your system, then you really won't notice much from RAID0 nor SCSI except for load times/game saves. They will not increase FPS as you should have adequate ram to not need swap memory.
That said, I would get a SCSI drive because they are higher quality and better reliability. If you really want redundancy then throw in 2 drives in RAID 1, or 3 - 4 drives in RAID5 mode.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: everman
What exactly do you do that requires a RAID0 SCSI setup?

Nothing so sexy as gaming. Just your typical run-of-the-mill quantum modeling.

I have no doubt I NEED Raid0 SCSI, I was just wondering ifonce you go Raid0 whether it mattered IDE or SCSI.

I wasn't sure if SCSI alone, a priori, beat the shiznits out of 8xRaid0 with WD2000JBs so I needed the info from you all.

From the advice I'm getting here, it sounds like SCSI is the path down which I am about to travel...

BTW, OT why do I want Athlon64 for 64bit goodness? Can you say multi-GB RAM-DRIVE...

 

[Xuttah]

Holy Shiznit, sharkeeper! Those are some hella powerful systems. If only my budget would permit half of ZULU-WS-01.

 

[TonyB]

I see your system spec is Eight 36GB Cheetah X15 36LP in RAID0 on LSi MegaRAID Enterprise 1600 4 Channel 64bit 66 MHz PCI HBA running at 64/66.

That setup must be adequate for most disk subsystem applications...

i wonder what kind of sustained throughput you can manage with this setup... 400MB/s?, thats pretty crazy!... quick question though, since this is a quad channel controller, does that mean the U160 limit is times 4? so 480MB/s is the max theoretical throughput? anyways, nice setup.. makes me wish i had one.

 

[sharkeeper]

i wonder what kind of sustained throughput you can manage with this setup... 400MB/s?, thats pretty crazy!... quick question though, since this is a quad channel controller, does that mean the U160 limit is times 4? so 480MB/s is the max theoretical throughput? anyways, nice setup.. makes me wish i had one.

BINGO!

Cheers!