P3 upgd. (scsi or raid) ?

[ray24k]

Hi all, I have a P3 1 Gig, 512mb, ram geforce3 ti 200, that seems a little sluggish with new WinXP install which I really like ( Win ME was really quick with this rig ). I have 2 ide wd 7200 rpm 20 gig hd's. I would like keep this system for another 6 months to a year. Which would be better for a general increase in performance, a new scsi card and 10k rpm hd or a fast trak 100 tx2 raid card. I have about $250 to play with. I know the raid would be more economical but I am also concerned about reliability. No overclocking here.

 

[ojai00]

I'd go with RAID. It's cheaper and it can also boost performance depending on which configuration you decide to go with (I think RAID 0 is the best way). Have you defragmented and scandisked your drives to see if that helps?

 

[ray24k]

Yup. This is a new format and install. It works great but I feel it runs apps slower. Even just opening apps takes more time. I will probably go with raid 0+1 so I will need another wd 20GB hd anyway. My only concern is if the performance and reliabilty of scsi would be worth the extra $100 or so or would the raid offer a good boost and stay reliable.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Unless you are doing something that envolves sustained HDD access, like audio/video work, yer not gonna notice a big, if any, difference in how fast apps open. XP, or Q3 might load a bit quicker, but the program itself will not run any faster. Things might speed up some, but if you're expect things to go from sluggish to snappy you're gonna be disapointed.


Lethal

 

[Comp625]

A 36gb Fujitsu 10k RPM SCSI HDD is already more than your $250 budget. A more practical SCSI solution would be an 18 gig SCSI 10k drive (runs about $150) and the controller runs between $60 ~ $200 (depending on which brand, features, etc.)

If I were you, I'd go with the RAID setup. With the setup you're talking about, you get 40gb of space and the performance of SCSI. Since you already have the 2 20gb hard drives, you'll probably only spend about $100 on the FastTrak controller and save the $150 for something else.

 

[ray24k]

LethalWolf; So it would probably be a waste of money then. I would not not mind spending around $250 but I would want to be able to notice a increase in performance. I thought scsi would yield a better increase in speed due to rpm's and less cpu utilization. And I thought that raid would double the access and transfer speed of the hd. But if it is not going to be very significant then I'll just have to wait a while.
Comp25; I was thinking about the fuji 18 gig and a tekram controller or a fast trak 100tx2 and a wd 20gig (for the +1 part of the raid).

 

[Lorne]

I dont get it, There has to be another solution to your lagging problem, Everything Ive seen posted on this and a few other sites claim XP is faster then 98xx.
Come on people whats his real problem.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Theoretically, RAID 0 can double the transfer rates, but that doesn't happen in real life. I used to have 2 Maxtor 7200RPM ATA/100 drives in a RAID 0 set up in my video editing rig (I edited in miniDV), but I pulled it 'cause the slight performance increase, IMO, wasn't worth the added risk.

I think buying a new proc and mobo would speed your apps up more then adding SCSI or RAID. Have you looked into tweaking XP to see if you can speed it up any that way?


Lethal

 

[ray24k]

Lorne; To me it seems like XP is slower, but I do have all the eye candy active (XP Plus installed and higher resolution and 32 bit color), so that could be a explanation of slower performance. It really does look nice though.

Lethal; I think I will wait untill the (p4 2 gig) prices come down and I'll go that route. The problem about upgrading now is the high cost for an asus p4266, p4 2 gig proc, along with the 512mb of ddr.

Thanks for all replies!

 

[SexyK]

Just as a note, if you wanted to do a RAID 0+1, you'd need 2 more identical drives, for a total of 4. It basically a mirror of a RAID-0 array, so you'll need "2 RAID-0 arrays".

Kramer

 

[ray24k]

Sexyk;Thanks for the info.

Update; I just picked up a ata controller card and gave each ide it's own channel and the system seems to multitask much better. It does not seem to bog down as much now. I would not say that everything is faster though because the boot time is a little slower now but I think in general it is faster now. No numbers just a feeling.

Thanks for all replies!

 

[rockhard]

Its a bit late now but you would have been better off with a 10k Quantum Atlas III 18.4gb IMO with a SCSI controller.
Ive run a Promise ATA133 raid card on my workstation with 2x Maxtor D740X's. I then swapped out for the single SCSI and the single SCSI felt more responsive and booted quicker.
Under heavy multitasking the SCSI wiped the floor with the raid0 IDE setup.
Ive no bias to either setup as i still have the IDE raid setup and could pop it in anytime but it wont be going back in as it is not as good as the SCSI IMO for my useage.