Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Disks > SCSI RAID 0 Help
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a_zidane   01-07-2009 at 11:24:30 PM

Hello to all... I am building my new pc, and have decided to use SCSI HDD because a friend of mine was telling me about their performance and reliability. I got two HP 36GB 15000 RPM 80 Pin BF03685A35 SCSI Hard Drives for 40$ and would like to run them in RAID 0.... now I know I need a controller card, but I know nothing of them. Can someone suggest a good one. I will be running Windows Vista 64bit, and will use them for my OS and installed programs. Thank you in advance for any help :)

PS: Will these two drive in raid 0 be faster than a velociraptor?

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GhislainG   01-07-2009 at 11:52:19 PM
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You left out some very important info about your system. Will you use a PCI-X (server or workstation motherboard required) or a PCIe RAID controller? Using a PCI port will not provide the performance level that you would expect from those drives. With a good RAID controller, the access time will be less than the Velociraptor (which is good), but the transfer rate will be lower (those low density drives don't have a very high transfer rate). In addition to a RAID controller, you need to buy a cable and adapters to convert your drives from 80-pin to 68-pin (unless your system has a backplane to install SCA drives).

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a_zidane   01-08-2009 at 12:02:56 AM
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Oh, didn't know what information to give. I will be using the Asus Rampage Formula X48 Motherboard.

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GhislainG   01-08-2009 at 01:17:36 AM
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Then you'll buy a PCIe SCSI RAID adaptor?

Here are a few that should meet your requirements:

Intel SRCU42E Storage Controller (PCIe x8)
LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller (PCIe x8, x4 compatible)
Dell TD977 PERC 4e/DC SCSI RAID Controller (probably the least expensive - they can be found for $400 or less)

Google "pci express scsi raid controller" to find more.

In addition you require a cable and one adapter for each disk.

If I were you, I'd buy a Velociraptor.

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a_zidane   01-08-2009 at 01:26:53 AM
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But two scsi will still be significantly cheaper won't they?

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GhislainG   01-08-2009 at 02:19:48 AM
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The issue is that you might have to spend hundreds to set them up as a RAID0 boot disk. You need a RAID controller, SCA adapters and a cable. The SCA adapters should be Ultra 320 certified; otherwise your disk interface will run at 80 or less instead of 320.

Visit http://www.storagereview.com/php/b [...] h_sort.php and check the performance of a small 15K SCSI disk and other disks like the Velociraptor for the type of applications that you'll use them for.

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a_zidane   01-08-2009 at 04:34:13 PM
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Ok, I think you are right, the controllers seem quite pricy... what do you think of 2x 74gb raptors or 2x 150gb raptors in raid 0?

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GhislainG   01-08-2009 at 05:29:39 PM
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Is the performance increase over a single Velociraptor really worth it to you? If so, then go ahead with that solution. You could also consider 2 WD6401AALS in RAID0. It all depends on your requirements. For fast random access, e.g., for a database, nothing beats low latency drives. On the other end, larger disks like the WD6401AALS are better if you transfer large files.

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serpent1202   01-08-2009 at 05:42:49 PM
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Zidane, here's what I would do. SSD's are the way to go, but at the rate of improvements i'd wait 1 - 2months until the new drives are released. If you put 2 raptors in a raid 0, your access times aren't improving, it takes the same time for each drive to spin up. You'll improve your seq. reads to about 150 mb/s. If you wait a month or 2, you will have SSD's that in raid0 will give you anywhere from 300 - 450 mb/s reads depending on the drives you buy.

For right now, buy a WD 640 gig and use it for a few months until you get your raid 0 SSD setup. Those 640 WD's are pretty fast in themselves.

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a_zidane   01-08-2009 at 05:44:34 PM
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What about the SSD drives that are out now, like the ocz 32gb and 64gb?

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GhislainG   01-08-2009 at 09:30:09 PM
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As serpent1202 recommends, I would wait for newer and faster SSD drives. Can you give us a clue as to why you need that much speed?

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a_zidane   01-08-2009 at 09:46:27 PM
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No real reason, I'm building a high end pc, so i figured might as well go high end everywhere...

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