Best 4 Drive RAID 0 Array for an Adaptec 5445? Which Model & How Many Platters?
Before I make this purchase (in the next 24 hours) I wanted to get a general consensus on what is going to yield me (in your opinion) the highest performance with my new Adaptec 5445 RAID card (Dual Intel 1.2Ghz w/ 512MB cache).
Requirements:
This is going to be a 4 Drive RAID 0 Array (via the Adaptec 5445) for a O/S and Applications only, no massive storage needed (I'm building a external RAID 5 Arrray for that already).
My Needs:
It will be for a one of my workstation's with very high multi-tasking requirements (no gaming) but a mix of everything. From TONS of web browsing (small read and writes) doing medium & large unRAR's (mainly medium size reads & writes) and large video editing (high reads & writes) all (or most) at the same time.
I'm going to (unless I get strong opinions to change them) buy 4 of Western Digital RE3 SATA II 320GB enterprise drives (WD3202ABYS) since they are single platter and have a 5 year warranty unless I get opinions that out weight mine.
From the information I've read, single platters are always faster then multiple platters, but if I am wrong, please correct and advise.
I'm also not interested in SSD's right now nor Velociaraptors or anything from Seagate but I will possibly consider SAS if it make sense on the performance, reliability and capacities.
I've spoken to several people (including Adaptec and Supermicro support) and they recommended going with a multiple drive (4-8) SATA RAID 0 instead of a smaller (2 drive) SAS RAID 0 (which is what I was considering originally). One of them stated you'll get near or close to the same performance of SAS without having to spend extra $$$ on SAS by increasing the drives. I'm also not too happy with the reviews of any SAS drives on NewEgg and I refuse to purchase Seagate any longer. They have so many failures right now on so many drives I'm wondering when Western Digital is going to raise their prices since they have the market cornered right now.
This is going to be for one workstations O/S & applications only so there is truly no need for huge capacity drives. From what I understand, higher capacities and multiple platters will end up slowing me down because of fragmentation (and defragmentation times) and from what I've read multiple platters are usually slower.
Before you answer, please take into account my question on the drive platters.
First Question - Single Platter vs Dual, Tri and Quad ? What's truly the fastest?
My Opinion:
From reading going with single platter (yet usually smaller in capacity) is going to give me the best RAID 0 performance. If I'm wrong or I can obtain the same performance or better from a dual platter, please let me know.
Second Important Question - Which Drives?
Option 1) 4 Western Digital RE3 SATA II 320GB (single platter) on RAID 0 via Adaptec 5445
Option 2) 4 Western Digital Black (or blue) 640GB (dual platter) on RAID 0 via Adaptec 5445
Option 3) Your suggestions - post a reply (that do not include SSD, Velociraptors or Seagate).
However, if you provide me information or experience that shows that buying for example 4 of the Western Digital 640GB (Blue or Black) dual platters will keep me at the same performance as the single platter 320GB RE Drives, I will consider them since they are only dual platter and close to or similar in price. Maybe the 640GB dual platter drives are faster. If so, please let me know. I've done so much research already and looking at benchmarks that I need some of your advice before the purchase. I'm tired of reading hard drive articles and benchmarks and I've doing it for 4 days already.
Thanks in advance for your experience and opinions.
Note:
Remember, I don't need the huge capacities of 1TB drives since this is only for O/S and Applications (unless I can get the same performance without any problems including fragmentation). Remember, it takes time to defrag large drives and if it was a 4TB array, it might always or constantly be defragging.
As previously mentioned, I'm building my external RAID 5 Array for the external SFF-8088 port on the Adaptec 5445.
I'm also going to be using the sweet Adaptec Copy Back Feature (snapshot image) and have it copied to another separate drive incase of a failure. I'm not too worried about loosing a drive or the RAID 0 Array. I can have it right back up (if I keep a spare around immediately or no longer then a day or two - which I can live with since I have several other computers to rely on.
Before I make this purchase (in the next 24 hours) I wanted to get a general consensus on what is going to yield me (in your opinion) the highest performance with my new Adaptec 5445 RAID card (Dual Intel 1.2Ghz w/ 512MB cache).
Requirements:
This is going to be a 4 Drive RAID 0 Array (via the Adaptec 5445) for a O/S and Applications only, no massive storage needed (I'm building a external RAID 5 Arrray for that already).
My Needs:
It will be for a one of my workstation's with very high multi-tasking requirements (no gaming) but a mix of everything. From TONS of web browsing (small read and writes) doing medium & large unRAR's (mainly medium size reads & writes) and large video editing (high reads & writes) all (or most) at the same time.
I'm going to (unless I get strong opinions to change them) buy 4 of Western Digital RE3 SATA II 320GB enterprise drives (WD3202ABYS) since they are single platter and have a 5 year warranty unless I get opinions that out weight mine.
From the information I've read, single platters are always faster then multiple platters, but if I am wrong, please correct and advise.
I'm also not interested in SSD's right now nor Velociaraptors or anything from Seagate but I will possibly consider SAS if it make sense on the performance, reliability and capacities.
I've spoken to several people (including Adaptec and Supermicro support) and they recommended going with a multiple drive (4-8) SATA RAID 0 instead of a smaller (2 drive) SAS RAID 0 (which is what I was considering originally). One of them stated you'll get near or close to the same performance of SAS without having to spend extra $$$ on SAS by increasing the drives. I'm also not too happy with the reviews of any SAS drives on NewEgg and I refuse to purchase Seagate any longer. They have so many failures right now on so many drives I'm wondering when Western Digital is going to raise their prices since they have the market cornered right now.
This is going to be for one workstations O/S & applications only so there is truly no need for huge capacity drives. From what I understand, higher capacities and multiple platters will end up slowing me down because of fragmentation (and defragmentation times) and from what I've read multiple platters are usually slower.
Before you answer, please take into account my question on the drive platters.
First Question - Single Platter vs Dual, Tri and Quad ? What's truly the fastest?
My Opinion:
From reading going with single platter (yet usually smaller in capacity) is going to give me the best RAID 0 performance. If I'm wrong or I can obtain the same performance or better from a dual platter, please let me know.
Second Important Question - Which Drives?
Option 1) 4 Western Digital RE3 SATA II 320GB (single platter) on RAID 0 via Adaptec 5445
Option 2) 4 Western Digital Black (or blue) 640GB (dual platter) on RAID 0 via Adaptec 5445
Option 3) Your suggestions - post a reply (that do not include SSD, Velociraptors or Seagate).
However, if you provide me information or experience that shows that buying for example 4 of the Western Digital 640GB (Blue or Black) dual platters will keep me at the same performance as the single platter 320GB RE Drives, I will consider them since they are only dual platter and close to or similar in price. Maybe the 640GB dual platter drives are faster. If so, please let me know. I've done so much research already and looking at benchmarks that I need some of your advice before the purchase. I'm tired of reading hard drive articles and benchmarks and I've doing it for 4 days already.
Thanks in advance for your experience and opinions.
Note:
Remember, I don't need the huge capacities of 1TB drives since this is only for O/S and Applications (unless I can get the same performance without any problems including fragmentation). Remember, it takes time to defrag large drives and if it was a 4TB array, it might always or constantly be defragging.
As previously mentioned, I'm building my external RAID 5 Array for the external SFF-8088 port on the Adaptec 5445.
I'm also going to be using the sweet Adaptec Copy Back Feature (snapshot image) and have it copied to another separate drive incase of a failure. I'm not too worried about loosing a drive or the RAID 0 Array. I can have it right back up (if I keep a spare around immediately or no longer then a day or two - which I can live with since I have several other computers to rely on.
