FASTEST SETUP PERIOD 15,000rpm scsi or 10,000 SATA?

eeeeeeeeeeeeek i think this has been asked before
but in general when i put a raid controller card or whatever i need to be able to use scsi Hd's will that ultimately make the HD work slower than a SATA II raptor?

No, the controller won't make it slower. All you need is a SCSI controller card that can handle the type of SCSI connection on the drive.

Apples and oranges.
The Raptor trumps SCSI in two ways.
1. It's cheaper
2. Ment for Single user setups

But as far as looking into what will be ultimatly faster, SCSI would have the upper hand in most test, but marginal in some.
What you need to focus on is having a good controller card that has plenty of write back cahe on it and a speedy interface. PCIe (x8)SCSI cards are expensive and hard to find becuase the 68pin insterface is slowly ageing off. The LSI 320-2e is a great card, but when looking for one stay way for ebay. Youll only find Dell Perc4e/DC cards that support W2k3 out of the box only and cannot be upgraded to a true LSI Card. If your going to look into a PIC-X card for your system be sure that you have a PCI-X 133 bus. If not and your using PCI 2.0 your performance goes right out the door. SCSI can and does beat the newer Raptors but it's more exspensive and harder configure.

SCSI disks aren't optimised for single-user performance. They are tuned for maximum performance in a server usage pattern (lots of localised reads and writes, mostly contiguous data).

SATA drives (including the Raptor, despite its server origins) are tuned for single-user performance.

If you want the *absolute* top sequential transfer rate, go for a pair (or more) of 15k SAS or SCSI drives (I'd recommend SAS) in RAID 0.

If you want a faster desktop performance (which is much more important to most people, latency trumps STR in almost *all* aspects), go with Raptors. If you can afford it, RAID 0-ing them won't seriously hurt you.

Fast? Get SAS Drives (serial attached scsi).

SAS is the fastest, but the way I read it, he has the drives already?

no i don not have the hard drives yet but i will mainly need them for regular PC usage... i am not completely sure what is best guys. maybe i can check what scsi hard drives i have acess to and then maybe i will be able to figure out if the raptors or the scso drives will be fastest
thanks alot

If it's regular PC usage you're doing, go with the Raptors.

If money is no object get scsi.

What manufactorer? And where can I source them?

>If money is no object, get SCSI

Not if it's for general desktop use. Yes, you'll get the fastest transfer rates, but they're really not designed for desktop use.

Raptors are only made by Western Digital, and most if not all component shops should either have them or be able to source them for you.

15k sas... Sorry if I wasn't clear....

Most SCSI drives would work fine in desktop applications. Designed for server use normally just means better made higher quality kit. Why would you see this being a problem?

SATA would probably be the easier option in this instance as it avoids having to buy a controller card. Given the high price of raptors I wonder if this would be negated if the OP has access to SCSI drives for low/no cost.

How about a pair of the new 320Gb WD drives in RAID0? This would surely challenge (might not beat) a single raptor. Also give a much lower cost per gig.

Agree with 1. but 2. is baloney.
My last company just spent 15 million on a new data center server with a giant SAN array and guess what drives it has (as also reccomended by the HP professional data center team). That thing is seriously multi-user.

Oh. I hear good things about the Seagate Cheetahs - but I'm not really up on my SAS drives  

>seriously multi-user

Actually, it's tuned for desktop use - WD say so.

What applications is your SAN going to supply data for? That may have had a bearing on them recommending Raptors.

>work fine in desktop apps

Yes, it will work fine - it just won't be as fast. It's tuned for contiguous data sets in a multi-user environment, not tuned for non-contiguous data in a single-user environment.

>challenge

It will have a better sequential transfer rate than a Raptor - it won't "feel" as fast, because it will have a much higher latency.

I dont think the difference would be that great. And dont forget plenty of SCSI drives earn there keep in the workstation area.

As for the RAID0 issues you are right about the latency issue although this is only one factor in the overall performance of a given drive. I know what you mean about 'feal' though.

I went and did a bit of digging on the performance of RAID0. This article seems quite interesting as it does some nice tests.

Where can I source these SAS 15k hdd's?

I would go Ultra 320 SCSI over SATA or SAS for the following reasons:

Interface Performance
-----------------------
Ultra 320 SCSI is capable of 640MB/s even with a single drive, you can measure this with a fast inteconnect bus(like pci-e), testing the burst speed. This is much faster than the 375MB/s of theoretical interface speed you can get from both SAS and SATA. The interface is able to handle up to seven drives per channel, for large setups.

Drive Performance
--------------------
Access time: An often overlooked performance metric by benchmarks like Sandra, but probably most important to performance in most situations.

Essentially, Access Time=Seek Time+Rotational Latency

A 15,000 rpm hard disk has an average rotational latency of 2ms, whereas a 10,000 rpm hard disk is 3ms. The seek time can be measured with a benchmark by measuring access time and subtracting rotational latency. Here is one place where scsi drives dominate, with seek times 50-100% less than competing SATA drives. Check Storage Review for benchmark results. Essentially access time is the time it takes the disk to spin to the proper sector + the time it takes the actuator to move to the proper cylinder to read or write data. Since operating systems and applications typically use hundreds of thousands of files spread accross the drive, this metric is especially critical with regard to overall performace accross the board.

Throughput: I would check out Storage Review's numbers on the throughput of the Seagate Cheetah 15k.5 drive to see the best numbers so far of any drive (both inner and outer cylinders). This drive doesn't post as fast of access times as the Maxtor Atlas 15kv2 though.

Keep in mind that arrays of drives add rotational latency due to the drives being out of synch with one another. Also controllers aren't necessarily designed for high throughput, but for data integrity. There is also the potential for controller overhead which can decrease throughput and increase access time.

Basically, when Storage Review did their reviews of the latest Raptor drives, they went through their typical benchmarks, and for some odd reason, decided to weigh much more heavily Veritests benchmark, over true dedicated disk benchmarks like IOMETER. In turn they decided that small file throughput is more important than large file throughput, and that the other benchmarks didn't represent true desktop performance. If you compare say, the Atlas 15kv2 versus the latest Raptor in their comparison tests, you will see that in all other tests, the Atlas15kv2 literally destroys the Raptor drives, sometime by margins greater than 100 percent(as file sizes get larger).

Update: If I were wanting to get the fastest storage today, my choice would be the Seagate Cheetah 15k.5 and a nice PCI-E SCSI controller, like my current LSI Logic 320-2E, without using RAID. I would then backup to some cheaper drive(s) like I do now.

TiReZ

Where SAS shines is when multiple drives are used. The bus speed is shared in conventional parallel SCSI (Ultra320 and below). In SAS, just as in SATA, each drive has its own dedicated connection; nothing is shared, except the controller.

Now, when you take SAS vs SCSI in RAID arrays, SAS is able to keep up no problem. The beauty in the SAS drives is also their size and speed: 2.5" 10k. We did some benchmarking with Oracle and various other read/write tests, and found the SAS 2.5" 10k drives kept up with the Ultra320 15k drives. Of course, the controller was different, but that was the only difference.



And why would single drives be faster than an array? Of course, some tests will be slower, but overall, I'd go with an array any day over a single drive (provided finances and cooling support it).

If your lookin for pure speed you might consider gigabytes i-ram "solid state" HDD. I know its only capable of reaching 4 gigs but it pretty much destroys any SCSI or SATA RAID setup. Just a thought .

You said they kept up, but there would be no reason they wouldn't, due to the drives internal throughput being lower than the controller's capability. Try measuring burst speed and see what happens.

Go to: http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_hdd.html and download HD_Speed to do this. Make sure you check both small and large file sizes, and test burst speed.

Burst speed isn't in an indicator of a drive's performance though. You can have a really slow drive on a really fast controller and you will only see the performance of the physical drive. It is, however, an indicator of the capability of the interface, and the peripheral bus.

Also, which particular drives did you test?

Addition: Raid increases the chance of failure of your storage susbsystem with each drive you add. I guess if you need really fast thoughput for some reason raid would be fine(like a/v work), but i would rather have a single 15k.5 with its max 123MB/S than any pair of Raptors, getting the huge seek time and rotational latency benefit.

Using the above mentioned program I am able to achieve 512MB/S burst speed on my LSI 320-2E (using max file size), this is due to my motherboard's second graphics slot only supporting 2x PCI-E lanes. I am hoping my next motherboard will have a full 8x slot with this card, so I can get the controller's actual 640MB/S speed, for the heck of it. I found the card pulled from a new system off Ebay for $150, but you can get Dell Perc 4e which is the same card, too.

TiReZ

here is the better idea:
get several of those with rev 1.3 (so they fit 3.3V PCI/PCI-X or 5V PCI slots, but still I wonder why not a molex connector :roll: if they actually do you'll be able to fit it in a big drive enclosure or something), and raid 0 them (to get more than 4GB, but given they use 2 slots heights each,... you got riser cards to fit 4 of these?) to see what REAL performance are

and I remember somewhere Samsung have flash type Solid state HDD's (for laptop anyways; people say these things will decrease boot time, not sure if that's related to performance) in case you find the idea of a battery not amusing

Remember guys the question he asked was:



TiReZ

Or you could just wait for the SSD's to be released at 32GB/drive, and raid 4 of them up. That would be plenty fast. Sure, each has only ATA66, but they'll release UATA and SATA versions I'm sure with larger capacities.

Something I think everyone is ignoring here: Desktop motherboards have no PCI-X slots. Not to mention, they generally (now) have upwards of 6 SATA II ports on them. So recommending one of these PCI-X cards just add an extraneous load to the system requirements (server board) that really doesn't need to be there for a desktop system. I'll concede that SAS and SCSI is technically faster, but for a desktop system, SATA with a RAID array is plenty fast enough.

If one were to use SCSI or SAS drives to install their system on, the differences noticed (if any) would be noticed only when loading something, like windows. I'm convinced that this would only shave a couple seconds off the load time (considering it takes nearly a minute usually), and doesn't justify the extra costs involved.

I say go for whats the best bang for the buck. Sure, it may be faster if you go with the much more expensive components, it will be much more complex and will be more of a "project" computer, rather than a computer that is actually usable. Its like putting a jet engine in a minivan. I think everyone can get the picture there.

Why would SCSI be harder to configure?

The id's are binary...very simple, just put the jumpers where the 1s are.


So...

id #0 =0000
id #1 =0001
id #2 =0010
id #3 =0011
id #4 =0100

and so on...

And if you read the controller manual, setting are no harder than CMOS setting on the motherboard.

TiReZ

That's the thing. You just plug in SATA and go. It's as simple as pie. Then you set up your raid array in the built-in controller, and you're ready to go. Consumer-level hardware is normally much easier to configure, albeit sometimes slightly less powerful. This is the case here.

Maxtor Atlas 15K II 8K073L0 73GB $269 at pricegrabber.

Then have a big SATA drive for mass storage.

SCSI is just going to get better too, with perpendicular storage you will see densities go up, similar to SATA. Hopefully they wont only make them in SAS, so we can use faster controllers like U320.

Just my two cents.

TiReZ

Quite true, but the starter of the thread asked was what is fastest. SCSI u320 is the clear winner.

It is also true that the SCSI controller will make boot times a bit longer, due to it having to detect the drive/arrays each time you boot. I rarely need to reboot my computer, so for me its not a problem. Gotta love the speed though.

Also: Who said anything about PCI-X?.... blah old hat... get PCI-E and get way better performance. With 680i boards coming out we can have 2 x16 slots for graphics and 1 8x slot for that sick controller.

And again: Why would you not want a fast storage subsystem? Its mechanical limits limit the overall performace of the system. Instead of putting a jet engine in a minivan, it more like getting a v6 for a logging truck over a 4 banger. Personally, I would rather have a northwood with high end scsi than a kentsfield with a crappy drive.

heh

TiReZ

Agree with 1. but 2. is baloney.
My last company just spent 15 million on a new data center server with a giant SAN array and guess what drives it has (as also recommended by the HP professional data center team). That thing is seriously multi-user.
I was speaking in terms of Raid arrays in general. And yes, no big revelation there, the Raptors were first used in SANS and came down to the consumer market. They are still only effective in a single users setup for home users, as the thread indicates he is building a PC not SAN. SANS can be fast with an IDE interface, the idea is the iSCSI initator looks at network storage as a logical scsi volume, san and multi-user are redundat together in the same sentance.

That's the thing. You just plug in SATA and go. It's as simple as pie. Then you set up your raid array in the built-in controller, and you're ready to go. Consumer-level hardware is normally much easier to configure, albeit sometimes slightly less powerful. This is the case here.

Great you know binary math, but the point is started above. SCSI is a more intrusive setup. Not just drop and go, supported hardware and excessive cooling is needed, as well as some type of 80pin to 68 pin converter. Don't assume every post has a one dimensional meaning.

Verbose at boot should can be controlled and the controller can go detect only the LUNs you specify. I would say the boot is faster if you take this route. Heck it's still faster even with a 20 second discovery because of the load time in windows.



I have to agree, it took me an extra year to move away from my Barton Core beucase my 320's still put my system at par(in IDE systesm) even when it was 5 years older than the others.

Intrusive? How?
Excessive cooling? Why would 12.5 watts of active power dissipation in the Raptor be much worse than 21.8 watts in the Atlas 15kv2. Or the Cheetah 15k.5s 17.5 watts. Keep in mind you only need one to beat two raptors in raid 0.

And buy the proper drive for the controller and you don't need to use an adapter.

TiReZ

Go with Raptors. For equivalent storage, SCSI will be at least 2-3 times as expensive even though they will ultimately be faster.

WD Raptor X 150GB Hard Drive WD1500AHFD $229.00

Maxtor Atlas 15K II 8K073L0 73GB 68pin U320-SCSI 15,000RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer $269.20

So a bit pricier in cost/meg...but wayyyy better.


TiReZ

becomming a heated argument!! haha
this is exactly what happened when i looked ito this about a year ago...
i couldnt really come up with "what will be the best"
it doesnt have to be 1 drive but since i keep all my information on my larger harddrives. This would really be a HDD with the OS... possibly a tipple boot with a few different types of Os's on it (vista XP os10)
but from waht it seems it will be a haslle getting the Scsi drives up and running.. if u guys would have to give a % on how much faster i would be running with SCsi versus 1 raptor? i still havent found out what kind of scsi drives i have acess to... will post once i get the info. but these would be ones pulled from high end servers. i would probably have to buy a good pci-e card though how much does one of those cost?





on a side note i think a year ago (more like 2) the controller cards were relatively slow... but now that pci-e has come out it has bumped up their transfer rate and scsi night now be a good option
thanks again

Intrusive? You have to install an extra piece of hardware to even start installing your new hard drives.

Extra cooling? 12.5 < 17.5 < 21.8. Multiply that by 2 or three or 4, etc.

Buy the proper drive for the controller? Now you're limiting the options. SATA is nearly universal in product lines. If you buy a drive (new) that has a SATA interface, it will be compatible with any SATA controller/port.

74GB Raptor x2 (150GB total) = 146.99 * 2 = $293.98
Newegg
Controller = $0, included with mboard

SCSI Drive >= 150GB >= $329
Newegg
SCSI controller, PCI-E = at least $637
Newegg

To sum up: SCSI = $876
SATA = $300
I don't know about you, but it seems a bit more costly if you ask me to go with SCSI.

Ok guys, heh, I'm outa here.....have your machines then I dont care.

TiReZ

Ultra 320 SCSI gets my vote (if money no object). It's one of the fastest and rock solid.

I think the problem is different views on what it means to be "best"

In my opinion, you could even go with the 36.7GB Raptors (104.99, Link) and raid those for even lower total cost of the other solutions. Then you'd have a fast setup, and some extra cash to boot.

Edit:
Forgot to add: OS' don't take up much space. WinXP will easily stay on a 20 GB partition if you store all your large files on a large disk. Vista may require more, maybe 30 or so to be comfortable, and Linux installs can be used at about 20 gigs or so. About OS 10? You'd have to be really careful about the hardware you put in your system if you wanna put it on there. I'm not gonna say its impossible, just really difficult. Good Luck.

Also, if you get those SCSI drives at a better price than the other options mentioned earlier, and you get the controller card with it/them, by all means go for it. It'll be faster than a decent raptor system. Otherwise it'll be hard justifying the much poorer price/performance ratio that SCSI has. Just make sure its all compatible with the OS/Motherboard you are trying to install it all on.

I have both the SCSI Seagate Cheetah 15K 36MB (2) and SATA WD Raptor 10K 74MB in my home built system. You cannot go wrong with either purchase. But if I had to choose all over again, I would purchase the SATA. The noise level of both are a problem.

the $$$$$$$$$$$ isue is pretty interesteing because i would get the SCSI HD/HD's for free.... the controller card that i can get for free is a 64 bit one from a server.
I already have a 74gb rapor (8mb buffer) which i am very happy with...
but i wouldnt mind having an even faster system...
from the tests taht i have seen the new 150gb raptor X hardrives are a little slower than the 74gb 16mb buffer hard drives...(in some tests faster in others)
is 74gb 16mb HD be faster than the 150gb raptor?
once again i will only be getting one raptor (for an upgrade)
scsi i can more than one.. as i dont have to pay for them...

sorry for making this so complicated but if and when i built a syttem i will post pics and all the overclocking results. (plannig to get into the top sisoftsandra scores :-D.
im planning to get a kensfield overclocked like a mofo!

no they dont:

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/index.asp?cat...
Ideal For
High-speed servers, network attached storage and workstations

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?...

Applications
Servers, network attached storage, scientific computing, video surveillance, enterprise backup, document and image management, digital video.

alright after reading up it seems the 74 GB ADFD Raptor is best in the 7200-10,000 RPM range.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/10/19/enterprise_stora...

it looks like i have acess to 15,000 rpm scsi HP hard drives in 147gb and 320gb versions
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010150...
newegg doesnt have the 320gb version here though
and i am not sure which one of these HD's i have acess to will know for sure tonight...



also to whoever said that the raptor is loud you need to get a damper..... its mostly the vibration and not physical noise...... they are nearly silent when in a damper. i own a zalman damper/cooler which does wonders for my raptor.

15 million on a server or a data center? If it's a server that costs that much, it would have to be a high end Unix box, maybe in the SuperDome or E25k arena. Considering a new E25k starts at $500k, and maybe 1.5 - 2 million tops, I'm guessing the 15 million is an entire data center.

Anyway, if I spent anywhere near that much money, I would surely hope someone would have considered Fibre Channel drives. Or, maybe someone didn't realize how much I/O a high end Unix box, or many many servers, can handle and got some really slow storage.

Intrusive? How?
Excessive cooling? Why would 12.5 watts of active power dissipation in the Raptor be much worse than 21.8 watts in the Atlas 15kv2. Or the Cheetah 15k.5s 17.5 watts. Keep in mind you only need one to beat two raptors in raid 0.

And buy the proper drive for the controller and you don't need to use an adapter.

TiReZ
Again your missing the point, clearly ready one thing and assuming nothing related to the topic.
SCSI drives need to be actively cooled. I don't care who says otherwise, but standard cooling with 15k SCSI drivers is no sufficient at all. And you have it backwards the SCSI takes more powers and produces x2 the amount of heat. Again read before you post.

You won't see better performance because you won't be saturating your PCI-X except with maybe some benches. A good PCI-X card with lots of RAM will give you all the speed you need until the SSDs are available.