Storage setup advice

[shortyes]

Hi everyone, sorry for my constant questions in this forum, but I would like some opinion.

Currently I have

1xAbit NF7-S ver 2
1x maxtor diamondmax 9 120gb 8mb buffer HDD
2xSeagate cheeta 10k 8gb 4mb buffer

Will be arriving in the mail

1xAdaptec 39160 scsi card (Friday)
2xWestern digital raptor 10k 36gb 8mb buffer SATA (2 weeks)

Basically I have 2 SATA slots and 2 Scsi slots to play with

The maxtor will be used as a storage device. This is a given.

What would be the best way to maximize proformance?

1) Raid 0 the raptors, using it as the OS drive, use one scsi for games, 1 for swap files

2) Use 1 scsi for OS, Raptor raid 0 for games and one scsi for swap files

3) Use 1 raptor for OS, 1 Raptor for Games, 1 scsi for swap files

4) 1 Scsi for for OS, 1 raptor for games, one scsi for swap file and return 2nd raptor

5) 1 raptor for OS, 1 Scsi for games, 1 scsi for swap file and return 2nd rapto

6) 1 scsi for OS, 1 scsi for games and return the raptors since they are a waste of money or try and sell them on ebay?

I got a great deal on the Raptors, costing me a little under 4 dollars a gb retail version.

Once I get the scsi card I'll post some scores for the Scsi HDD to help every have a better idea and thus help me decide.

Atto HDD if I remember right, what settings though? Will get card on Friday.

[tuskenraider]

Wow, what a delimma.

IMO, if 16GB will fit you OS, apps and all your games, SCSI RAID 0 for that. Swap on the IDE storage drive, sell the Raptors.

Need more space for OS, apps and games?, SATA RAID 0 the Raptors, sell the SCSI getup, swap on 120GB drive.

Or if 16GB for system and 74GB is enough storage for ya and you want to fly, OS, apps and games on SCSI RAID 0, storage on SATA RAID 0 with swapfile and 120GB partitioned for backup of both.

I recommend this becuase separating the OS and games will give you negligable improvement, of course swapfile on another disk besides OS disk, but not a separate disk just for this purpose.

Good luck!

[Xaotic]

The 39160 is not a RAID card, so bootable RAID-0 is out for that device. You have most of the storage bases covered. You already have a gig of RAM, you should be able to minimize the hits on swap with registry and other techniques, unless you are using highly RAM intensive applications.

If the Cheetahs are newer models, I'd modify #4 and have SCSI OS, SCSI swap, RAID-0 on the Raptors for games, programs and working files, and the 120 for bulk storage. This gives you the enhanced access times(better than Raptors in RAID-0) for OS and swap, as well as the STR for games and working files. I'd also partition the swap drive to about 1-2GB for swap and 6-7GB for temp files(web cache comes to mind) to decrease fragmentation on the main drives.

If they are older models with slower access times, I'd probably use option 1 and similar partitioning to above on a single SCSI with the other drive as a spare. You could also use the controller and drives in another system, since they are smaller drives.

[jamespetts]

You've left out a vital piece of information: the size of the SCSI drives.

[Xaotic]

Originally posted by shortyes

2xSeagate cheeta 10k 8gb 4mb buffer



They're 8GB formatted, 9GB unformatted.

[shortyes]

The model of the cheetah is the ST39204LC

UNFORMATTED CAPACITY (GB) ________________
FORMATTED CAPACITY (GB) __________________9.175
ACTUATOR TYPE ____________________________ROTARY FILM/GMR
RECORDING METHOD _________________________PRML 16/17 EPR4
INTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (mbits/sec)________285 to 424
INTERNAL FORMATTED TRANSFER RATE (MB/sec)_26 to 40
EXTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (mbyte/sec) _______40 Sync
Low Voltage Differential(LVD) _______80/160 Sync
SPINDLE SPEED (RPM) ______________________10,033
AVERAGE LATENCY (mSEC) ___________________2.99
BUFFER (/optional) _______________________4MB/16MB
Read Look-Ahead, Adaptive,
Multi-Segmented Cache
INTERFACE ________________________________Ultra SCSI Wide
Low Voltage Differential __________Ultra3-SCSI Wide
ASA II, SCAM level 2 (1 default)
BYTES PER TRACK __________________________203,008 avg
SECTORS PER DRIVE ________________________17,921,834
TPI (TRACKS PER INCH) ____________________18,145
BPI (PEAK KBITS PER INCH) ________________339
AVERAGE ACCESS (ms read/write)____________5.2/5.8
Drive level without controller overhead
SINGLE TRACK SEEK (ms read/write) ________0.6/0.9
MAX FULL SEEK (ms read/write) ____________10.0/11.0

[pik4chu]

Originally posted by Xaotic
The 39160 is not a RAID card, so bootable RAID-0 is out for that device. You have most of the storage bases covered. You already have a gig of RAM, you should be able to minimize the hits on swap with registry and other techniques, unless you are using highly RAM intensive applications.

If the Cheetahs are newer models, I'd modify #4 and have SCSI OS, SCSI swap, RAID-0 on the Raptors for games, programs and working files, and the 120 for bulk storage. This gives you the enhanced access times(better than Raptors in RAID-0) for OS and swap, as well as the STR for games and working files. I'd also partition the swap drive to about 1-2GB for swap and 6-7GB for temp files(web cache comes to mind) to decrease fragmentation on the main drives.

If they are older models with slower access times, I'd probably use option 1 and similar partitioning to above on a single SCSI with the other drive as a spare. You could also use the controller and drives in another system, since they are smaller drives.

Id go with Xaotic's idea on this but there is no real need for RAID 0 its speed gain is mininal and your twice as likely for data loss. so instead either make a SCSI bootable OS or a Raptor the OS, then use the remaining for the other items, depending on your OS size needs. I would recommend however that you might think about a raid 0 card for the SCSI instead of whats coming. not for the speed gain but to combine the size so you have fast 16gig for OS rather than just 8 which should be enough for OS and some apps, and you can your games off one of the raptors

*edit* if you have 6-7 gigs of temp files.. I think you better consider what you are doing, might have a problem there.

also your swap file can be 1gig with that much RAM this will allow for memory dumps and such during computer crashes. if you can read that type of stuff. its also sorta of a good idea.

[jamespetts]

With the pagefile, span that accross as many hard drives as you can; this will improve performance.

[pik4chu]

Originally posted by jamespetts
With the pagefile, span that accross as many hard drives as you can; this will improve performance.

not as much as you think. ive tried it. and beside, pagefile is a non issue with a 1 gig of ram, unless he's developing for Pixar or something...heh

[shortyes]

Originally posted by pik4chu


Id go with Xaotic's idea on this but there is no real need for RAID 0 its speed gain is mininal and your twice as likely for data loss. so instead either make a SCSI bootable OS or a Raptor the OS, then use the remaining for the other items, depending on your OS size needs. I would recommend however that you might think about a raid 0 card for the SCSI instead of whats coming. not for the speed gain but to combine the size so you have fast 16gig for OS rather than just 8 which should be enough for OS and some apps, and you can your games off one of the raptors



I was trying to get a raid 0 card for trade with the maxtor I had in the classified but no one was forth coming....raid on ebay is too expensive.

When I changed my system in a few months I'll try and get a scsi raid card for a trade or buy one when there is on in the classified.

So with the specs I posted, is that a new Scsi HDD or a old one?

[pik4chu]

Originally posted by shortyes


I was trying to get a raid 0 card for trade with the maxtor I had in the classified but no one was forth coming....raid on ebay is too expensive.

When I changed my system in a few months I'll try and get a scsi raid card for a trade or buy one when there is on in the classified.

So with the specs I posted, is that a new Scsi HDD or a old one?

it looks somewhat old from what I can find... but not too bad.


a year or two maybe.

its 80 pin SCSI -1, its a decent drive though. some good speeds

[Xaotic]

The other issue regarding pagefiles is that it must reside on the OS drive for debugging information to be written.

The drives are older, but not slow by any means. Just not quite as fast as the 10K6. they're about the fastest of the 9GBs available.

I didn't see the section on wanting a SCSI RAID controller in the post on the drive. Maybe something could have worked out.

[pik4chu]

Originally posted by Xaotic
The other issue regarding pagefiles is that it must reside on the OS drive for debugging information to be written.

The drives are older, but not slow by any means. Just not quite as fast as the 10K6. they're about the fastest of the 9GBs available.

I didn't see the section on wanting a SCSI RAID controller in the post on the drive. Maybe something could have worked out.

im aware of the requirements for the pagefile, but 16 gigs is enough for the OS, pagefile, and some minor applications like Office and other tools and then you have another fast drive like the Raptor for the rest of your games. my system drive is a 40 gig with about 25 used. and it has a LOT of big games. the fresh install of windows, pagefile, drivers and some utilities and other apps only hit at about 3-4 gigs. which, on an 8 gig drive is ok. 16 would be better but 8 is still ok. the only problem is that the SCSI's arent quite big enough to justify using them as game storage unless they are RAID 0. in which case you use a raptor for OS and the other raptor and SCSI's for game/data, with the big drive as generic storage.

[Xaotic]

I agree with you and actually prefer smaller drives for the OS. I've noticed that my seek times start deteriorating on larger drives, even defragged, due to the increased size of the MFT.

[shortyes]

So raid will not make that much of a difference for raptors overall? just a sec or two lfor load time?

[ajrettke]

Raid only increases bandwidth, so only large files and big games will you notice the RAID 0. If 37gb is enough for your games and apps I say just get one raptor, put all media on the 120gb.

I wouldn't worry about drive failure either, although it is higher those drives are built to last, 5 year warranty remember.