The 2.5" vs. 3.5" RAID Challenge

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Controller 1: Adaptec AHA-2410SA

The first controller we used for our benchmarks was the Adaptec AHA-2410SA , which was provided by Western Digital with the RAID edition hard drives. Two Silicon Image SATA chips take care of two hard drives each, and an Intel RISC processor deals with parity calculation for RAID 5 redundant arrays. The card also comes with 64 MB cache memory.

We already reviewed this controller when we took a look at SATA backplanes six months ago. We already know that the Adaptec device was never designed for maximum data transfer performance, but rather for compatibility and good I/O performance. As a result, we decided to use a second controller for throughput benchmarks.

Controller 2: Areca ARC-1120

Back in December 2004, we took a close look at the Taiwanese manufacturer Areca's ARC-1120 - one of the few devices supporting double redundancy RAID 6 arrays. In contrast to the Adaptec device, this is an eight-channel device and allows for much higher bandwidth.

Patrick Schmid
2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • If you look closely you will see that this review compared 5400rpm 2.5" drives with 7200rpm 3.5" drives.

    Which makes it completely useless and flawed. I seriously can't believe Tom's did that. Maybe if there had been 5400rpm 3.5" drives included, some useful information could be gleaned from the tests.

    This entire article should be deleted just to save face, if not disk space. This article's very existence makes me embarrassed for Tom's Hardware.
    Reply
  • Agree
    This is ridiculous
    the outside speed of the platter !!
    I cannot believe it .. you wait one turn never mind where your data are located and at 7200rpm your platter may be 1 meter in diameter it is not going to change anything it will stl be one rouind trip
    You will wait one turn ( 1/7200th of a second )
    It ain't go faster nor slower mechanically
    The heads are another story

    Reply