Hey guys, I have a few quick questions. I am going to be building a new system

Hey guys, I have a few quick questions. I am going to be building a new system soon and I want to get the HDD's now. I want to get 2 drives and raid them for main OS. I really have been out of the loop for a while so what are some options and drives? I want it to be fast. I want games to load fast and not be a bottleneck. I've heard of something called "short stroke"?? And what raid would be best? Matrix, raid 0?

I was thinking maybe the 640 blacks cause of using 2 platters but I see people say the 1tb black is faster even with 3 platters. I dont really need a ton of sapce for the OS so whatever this short stoke is about I don't mind if I lose half the drive space to increase speed.

Any help is MUCHO!! Appreciated.

if you want fast then you need to get SSD's. see my sig, rig#1 and see this post
http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=6208866&postcount=27
access times for ssd's are 0.1-0.2ms vs raptors 5.x(ms) or even the blacks what 8.4ms.

Xstatic said:

I was thinking maybe the 640 blacks cause of using 2 platters but I see people say the 1tb black.

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Unh-hunh... And what, exactly, do you intend to do with all these... "blacks?"

You know SLAVERY has been sort of... frowned upon... for the past 146 years or so, don't you?

Now assuming you're not really going to merge 640 blacks into one "TERRABLACK"!

I think you're really talking about Western Digital Cavair Black drives.

The amount of platters does make some difference in speed... to me, that difference is insignificant.

I've got two 640GB cavair BLACKS (hehehehe...hard drives definitely weren't the first thing that came to mind) but the only reason I've got them is because they were on sale.

I would have just as soon have gone with 2 terrabyte greens or whathaveyou... But the 640 cavair blacks were on sale for 60 bucks a piece... so what can ya do?

THAT SAID... now that I've got a better job (and drive prices are even lower) if I had my life to live over I'd just get two one or two terrabyte drives. The stripe size is going to matter a lot more than the platters.

I have a sticky for the process that I performed. (which was essentially setting up a 256k... something. I'll have to read my own sticky later.)

At a certain point drive space is going to matter more to you than speed. And since you're going RAID... that point should be right now.

SSDs are the fastest, and come at a price premium. You don't need them in RAID to out perform mechanical drives in RAID.

As for the Blacks, it's not the number of platters that matters, it's the platter density. The 640GB uses 2x320GB platters, and the 1TB uses 3x334GB platters. So the 1TB WDCB platters are 14GB more dense than the 640GB WDCB platters, and therefore the heads don't have to move as far to access the same amount of data.

MattNo5ss said:

SSDs are the fastest, and come at a price premium. You don't need them in RAID to out perform mechanical drives in RAID.

As for the Blacks, it's not the number of platters that matters, it's the platter density. The 640GB uses 2x320GB platters, and the 1TB uses 3x334GB platters. So the 1TB WDCB platters are 14GB more dense than the 640GB WDCB platters, and therefore the heads don't have to move as far to access the same amount of data.

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Hmm... I was under the impression it was the other way around.

The extra platter meant increased density therefore the 1TB would be *slower*...

Anywho! Here's my sticky:

http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=6042347&postcount=7

It was a 256k offset as outlined... I dunno... In somebody else's sticky!

MattNo5ss said:

and therefore the heads don't have to move as far to access the same amount of data.

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Makes sense I guess. So should I wait for the new 2TB WD black drive with 4 500gb platters. I always heard that less platters were better than more platters, but maybe its all changed.

I really don't have a big need for space. I have other drives and I can always buy more storage drives. I want fast drives without going SSD. I just don't think they are worth it for the money quite yet.

Xstatic said:

Makes sense I guess. So should I wait for the new 2TB WD black drive with 4 500gb platters. I always heard that less platters were better than more platters, but maybe its all changed.

I really don't have a big need for space. I have other drives and I can always buy more storage drives. I want fast drives without going SSD. I just don't think they are worth it for the money quite yet.

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that is where short stroking comes into play... you basicly are taking the fastest part of each platter.. it is still density of the platter over the number of platters any day of the week(unless in a raid short stroke setup).

still the fastest setup is ssd, no moving parts, instant access to the data. if you can get by with 64gig cruical has a good one for $175 at newegg. if you need more space get the 120gig OCZ agility for $309.

Evilsizer said:

that is where short stroking comes into play... you basicly are taking the fastest part of each platter.. it is still density of the platter over the number of platters any day of the week(unless in a raid short stroke setup).

still the fastest setup is ssd, no moving parts, instant access to the data. if you can get by with 64gig cruical has a good one for $175 at newegg. if you need more space get the 120gig OCZ agility for $309.

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That's still a ridiculous amount of money when you can get two 640 gig Cavair Blacks for 120 bucks.

I mean... what the hell are you going to do with 64 gigs?

And of course the ASSUMPTION is that this guy will be doing short stroke. And since he says space isn't an issue (and it seems like MONEY is), why not go two 640s or two 1tbs?

money isn't really that big of a deal but I would just rather wait a bit longer for ssd's to get cheaper and bigger. Until then I'm looking into MECHANICAL drives for now. Im not not real clear on short stroking. Is there a app that does this for you? Best size or % of the drive to use?

rainless said:

That's still a ridiculous amount of money when you can get two 640 gig Cavair Blacks for 120 bucks.

I mean... what the hell are you going to do with 64 gigs?

And of course the ASSUMPTION is that this guy will be doing short stroke. And since he says space isn't an issue (and it seems like MONEY is), why not go two 640s or two 1tbs?

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well he never said money was a issue... just that ssd's were not worth it yet... though for fast SSD is the only way, i mean moving parts vs non-moving. even the fastest desktop drive has what a 4.7ms access time vs .1-.2ms... all things are relative and its up to each person to decide what is and isnt worth it.

after getting a deal on a 30gig ocz solid and loading into windows in 30secs... i was sold on ssd's, even if they did cost more... i mean people bought VR's when they were real costly for HD's. i dont see what makes SSD's any different then that? i worked for 2.5months straight with one day off 80+hr weeks. i treated my self to 2 agility's as you can see in my sig. i was still going for the cheapest ones but the cruical m225 was sold out.

with in a short time, SSD's have really improved in random writes/reads(well non intel ones that is). the only thing that doesnt to some make it worth it is the cost/gig. people spend extra money for that faster cpu or ram. neither of those help with the underling problem that mechanical drives are the biggest bottleneck in a computer system still to date. dont bring up cd/dvd's as those are meant for carry data not something you use 24/7 with a os on it.

i guess all im saying is that the keywords the op used seem backwards. since he then limits him self to mechanical drives. even with a raid setup you cant alleviate the bottleneck of the HD unless you go with a SSD-HD. the bottleneck being the amount of time it takes the HD to access the data. for a cpu 4.7ms is really long time, when you put it in terms of time. would be like the difference of driving from austin,tx to NY,NY vs flying. if cost isnt a issue but you want the fastest way without flying. whats the point when the speed limit in most parts is 65mph vs airplane at what 300+mph.

just trying to put thing into perspective...

Xstatic said:

money isn't really that big of a deal but I would just rather wait a bit longer for ssd's to get cheaper and bigger. Until then I'm looking into MECHANICAL drives for now. Im not not real clear on short stroking. Is there a app that does this for you? Best size or % of the drive to use?

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this should answer a bunch of the questions you have..
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/short-stroking-hdd,2157.html
http://serverfault.com/questions/36604/partial-stroking-short-stroking-half-stroking-hard-drives

Honestly, I'm not thinking 30 seconds is a very fast load into windows for these GODLY fast SSD's. If the .2ms is soooo fast, then why have some of my load times on "old 65 MPH" mechanical HDD's been maybe tops 40 seconds load times. Put it this way, if a SSD can not load a map or level or raid instance in less than 1 second every time in games, then I don't even want to consider them until they at least triple in speed. Cause with a raid setup and even 2 VR's in raid can load these same maps/levels ect. in 3-4 seconds or less.

I'm thinking real world load times here. I am not doing much else with this pc other than listen to music which is mostly pandora and some mp3's, play video games, surf the web and thats about it. I won't ever need to transfer much of any files to or from the drive. I want load times and frame rates. And my video card can handle its end no problem.

Xstatic said:

Honestly, I'm not thinking 30 seconds is a very fast load into windows for these GODLY fast SSD's. If the .2ms is soooo fast, then why have some of my load times on "old 65 MPH" mechanical HDD's been maybe tops 40 seconds load times. Put it this way, if a SSD can not load a map or level or raid instance in less than 1 second every time in games, then I don't even want to consider them until they at least triple in speed. Cause with a raid setup and even 2 VR's in raid can load these same maps/levels ect. in 3-4 seconds or less.

I'm thinking real world load times here. I am not doing much else with this pc other than listen to music which is mostly pandora and some mp3's, play video games, surf the web and thats about it. I won't ever need to transfer much of any files to or from the drive. I want load times and frame rates. And my video card can handle its end no problem.

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so your telling me from the time your computer starts. to full windows usable desktop only takes you 40secs? sorry if i find that a bit hard to swallow... here is a old article putting a OCZ core vs VR

though i couldnt find the real vr vs ssd... how ever after looking at this then this , that the vr would be able to have that fast of loading of windows... not to mention there is no agility or vertex review on HW.

though i have to ask, you mean access times of VR vs SSD isnt real world? how many people in the past, based how good a HD was off its access time(before benchmarking really took off)?

Just get a 64 or 128GB SSD for your OS, apps and games and a single larger mechanical drive for your data (movies, music etc)

Current SSD's will ALWAYS be faster than mechanical drives. SSD's in RAID, well, I don't see the point. It's fast enough already without it.

So I went ahead and bought the OCZ Vertex 60 gig and so far not seeing much difference. Maybe once I update the firmware it will triple the speed or something. I was wrong about needing space, after installing Win7 and one game I have 30gigs left.

did you make sure the partition was properly aligned? even with win7 i still did it manually, i dont think all the ssd tweaks are in place yet out of the box to straight install win7.

Properly aligned?

I didn't do anything to it. Just plugged it in and booted up and installed Win7.

What do you mean by alignment?

Xstatic said:

Properly aligned?

I didn't do anything to it. Just plugged it in and booted up and installed Win7.

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mjw21a said:

What do you mean by alignment?

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alignment is done when you are using a SSD on XP/VISTA, for the time being Win7. Alignment is also a big factor in MB/s transfer rates in raid setups, as you can see here. it is the way that information is handled to the HD. now with mechincal drives you didnt have to worry about this since they were the same sectors per byte. with SSD's or nand flash there is a different number of sectors per byte. now i know im prolly off a bit so i offer up reading at OCZ forums about alignment with SSD's.
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plus we have this sticky at that top of the storage section, here

what exactly do you mean by not seeing much difference?

So, not required when RAID isn't being used then?

mjw21a said:

So, not required when RAID isn't being used then?

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alignment is just as import even when not in a raid setup for SSD's. without it you run the chance of getting the dreaded stuttering issues that was/is so prevalent on older MLC ssd's. as the controller is designed/programed to handle data in the fastest way possible to the nand flash. partition is kinda like the middle man to the controller. if it isnt setup write things can/will go wrong. maybe not now but down the road it will.