HDD Raid Vs. SSD Raid

[Jeremy1998]

Okay guys... I bought the Gigabyte X79S-UP5 board a while back, and did a build with it. I'm finalizing the little touches on the build, and I've come to a hard spot. I originally bought the board for the awesomeness of the C606 chipset, and the corresponding SAS ports. I was going to use the 8 SAS ports with 8 Plextor M5P ssd's, in a big raid 0.

At the time, this was a likely option. The budget was fine for it, and it seemed like an amazingly fast option! Fast forward like 2-3 months, and I'm having many second thoughts. First one is budget... Simply put, the budget is not going to allow for $2000 worth of SSD's in raid 0.

The other problem that I thought of is the limited life cycle of SSD's. I know that they have relatively long lives, but we are talking about a workstation, where a single project could be 100+gb. And once that 100gb project is done, it gets archived, and a new 100+gb project takes its place. That would eat right through the life cycle of an SSD's flash. This rig will be so freaking expensive when all is said and done, that it will need to last me for a while, as in 5 years or more.

The solution that has slowly popped up is to use hard drives in raid 0 instead. What I am thinking about now is 8 WD Black 500gb 2.5" hard drives, in a big raid 0. There will obviously be backups of this for redundancy. I have a few questions about this though. How fast will 8 of those HDD's actually be in raid 0? How reliable will they be? Even though there will be backups, I still don't want drives dying every week. Also, how would you fit these 8 hdd's into an NZXT Switch 810? None of the HDD bays are free, btw. The only option here is 2 5.25 inch bays.

I have found some of these hot swap bays, such as the one linked below. They all seem to have 40mm fans though, which I have never known to be quiet... Any other options for enclosures or mounts? Also, how much noise will the hard drives themselves make?

Summary of questions:
Will 8 HDD's be fast in raid 0?
Will 8 HDD's be relatively reliable in raid 0?
Where can I put these 8 HDD's inside a Switch 810 (no free HDD bays)?
How noisy will the HDD's, and also the enclosure be?

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136856
Enclosure: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994142

 

[dugdiamond]

Summary of questions:
Will 8 HDD's be fast in raid 0?
Will 8 HDD's be relatively reliable in raid 0?
Where can I put these 8 HDD's inside a Switch 810 (no free HDD bays)?
How noisy will the HDD's, and also the enclosure be?

• sataIII (6gbps) drives have a max throughput (read/write speed) individually, and with this, the BUS in which data flows also has limits. Striped RAID0 is the fastest there is.
• any drive in any type of RAID array has the exact same potential of failing as any other. but some RAID configs (ie: RAID5, etc) have the capability of mirroring, or provide parity for, others in its series. even the drive that provides that, could fail with the others.
• as for the switch810 - i cannot comment
• 8 drives will be as noisy as 2 or three drives (the dB is not expotential). it is just that the noise will be for a shorter period of time, as data will be read alot faster.

NB: i have 5x 2TB WD-CavBlks in RAID0 (striped) [not used for boot, just storage] - and they are drowned out by my fans in my chassis.... i just hear an occasional "tick tick tick" from them

 

[Jeremy1998]

• sataIII (6gbps) drives have a max throughput (read/write speed) individually, and with this, the BUS in which data flows also has limits. Striped RAID0 is the fastest there is.
• any drive in any type of RAID array has the exact same potential of failing as any other. but some RAID configs (ie: RAID5, etc) have the capability of mirroring, or provide parity for, others in its series. even the drive that provides that, could fail with the others.
• as for the switch810 - i cannot comment
• 8 drives will be as noisy as 2 or three drives (the dB is not expotential). it is just that the noise will be for a shorter period of time, as data will be read alot faster.

I'm wondering about the speed bottleneck of using HDD's. I'm pretty sure Gigabyte hit like 7 gigabits per second off of 8 Hyper X's in raid 0 at their demo. But with HDD's I'm wondering what a realistic expectation would be for reads and writes.

I also considered a raid 5, but running that off of the chipset just sounds like a bad idea. For those speeds, I could just use 2 of those new WD 4tb Black drives in raid 1, and get the same performance. So I think I will just have to risk it, and then also have backups.

My biggest issue here is how to house these drives. I can fit a 120mm fan on each side of whatever enclosure I use... The problem is how to actually mount these drives. So, do you think I could take one of those hot swap drives, and rip the fans out, and just stick a 120mm fan right in front and behind? Because I still feel that those 40mm fans would never be quiet enough.

 

[dugdiamond]

all my kit is in a Xigmatek Elyssium - loadsa room + 3 fans blowing in from the front bays (cooling 10 slots out of the 13 it has)

they are what drown out my HDD's noise, but keep em cold

i think RAIDing 3x 4gb blacks is the best bet for you

 

[Jeremy1998]

they are what drown out my HDD's noise, but keep em cold
i think RAIDing 3x 4gb blacks is the best bet for you

How loud are your fans though? Because I'm considering a watercooled rig run with Bitfenix Spectre Pro LED fans, which are supposed to be pretty darn silent. And I do like total silence to concentrate when I edit, so whirring hard drives would frustrate me. As for raiding 3 x 4tb drives, what would make that best? Wouldn't the 8 laptop HDD's produce faster speeds overall? Also, the 3 hdd's would actually cost more than 8 hdd's (eff logic). I also bought the Gigabyte board specifically for all those ports, so if I don't use them, I will for sure get called a n00b by Tom himself.

In other words, sell me on it.

 

[dugdiamond]

RAID0 = fastest as ALL drives in the array add to the increase in speed
RAID1 = even number of drives (in pairs); the one drive mirrors data on the other.... double the amount of drives in a RAID0 would be needed to have the same speed.
RAID5 = best when FOUR or more drives are present, as one will be lost completely to parity.
RAID10 = RAID0 and RAID1 (striped & mirrored) ...4drives+ are needed (in multiples of two)

--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

 

[Jeremy1998]

RAID0 = fastest as ALL drives in the array add to the increase in speed
RAID1 = even number of drives (in pairs); the one drive mirrors data on the other.... double the amount of drives in a RAID0 would be needed to have the same speed.
RAID5 = best when FOUR or more drives are present, as one will be lost completely to parity.
RAID10 = RAID0 and RAID1 (striped & mirrored) ...4drives+ are needed (in multiples of two)

Yeah, but you said I'm better off using 3 3.5" hdd's vs 8 2.5" hdd's. What would the advantages be to using 3 hard drives?

 

[airdeano]

HDD temps should hold 45° as a max.. so unless you are enclosing the drive with
limited or no fan support, it should be fine in temps.
as for "speed", doubt you'll notice a hold-back in speed other than from a benchmark
perspective. dragging a 6GB video from a scratchdisk to storage via HDD or SSD
is seconds difference.
im with dug, HDD RAID is a better value over the SSD RAID. the performance vs
cost vs usable is still HDD over SSD.

airdeano

 

[dugdiamond]

Yeah, but you said I'm better off using 3 3.5" hdd's vs 8 2.5" hdd's. What would the advantages be to using 3 hard drives?

RAID5 can be used with 3 drives

or

go with the 8 drives, but use RAID10
you'll get the benefit of 4x striped drives plus the mirroring


NB:
RAID10 does not have parity... think of the array as two arrays... 1 for the real storage and the other array as its backup. but, if one drive FUBARs in either array - it must be fixed immediately.

in a RAID5 array, the array can still be used, but at lesser performance until the errors are fixed

 

[Jeremy1998]

HDD temps should hold 45° as a max.. so unless you are enclosing the drive with
limited or no fan support, it should be fine in temps.
as for "speed", doubt you'll notice a hold-back in speed other than from a benchmark
perspective. dragging a 6GB video from a scratchdisk to storage via HDD or SSD
is seconds difference.
im with dug, HDD RAID is a better value over the SSD RAID. the performance vs
cost vs usable is still HDD over SSD.

airdeano

So by numbers (both $ and Gb/s), I think the 8 laptop HDD's would be better? The performance in raid 0 sounds like it would be pretty darn awesome! And I will have a backup, so the failure rate of the 8 drives is not a concern to me.

I think I could mount them in 2 of THESE, but slightly modified. Then, I can get (or make) some adapters to fit some silent 120mm fans in front of and behind the drives. I am getting pretty excited for this!

 

[Jeremy1998]

go with the 8 drives, but use RAID10
you'll get the benefit of 4x striped drives plus the parity

My only thing with raid 10 is how you truly only get 1 drive of redundancy, but lose 4 drives of capacity. So I would end up with 2tb of drive space, and then if one drive fails, I have to shut down until I get a replacement. If I'm taking that risk, I might as well go raid 0, and just have a single 4tb drive running backups on a regular basis.

 

[dugdiamond]

My only thing with raid 10 is how you truly only get 1 drive of redundancy, but lose 4 drives of capacity. So I would end up with 2tb of drive space, and then if one drive fails, I have to shut down until I get a replacement. If I'm taking that risk, I might as well go raid 0, and just have a single 4tb drive running backups on a regular basis.

please read my previous post again... lol (i was adding/editing it while you replied)

 

[dugdiamond]

as i said i have:

1x SSD for BOOT
5x 2tb in RAID0

...but, i also have a USB HDD external dock and alot of backup HDDs (just in case)... and i backup every 3-4months to them and BluRay.

a 4GB as a backup could be a wise choice

 

[Jeremy1998]

please read my previous post again... lol (i was adding/editing it while you replied)

Yeah, I just went back over that. I don't think raid 10 would be the option for me. I would truly prefer raid 6 with a proper raid card, but I've already bought this board, so it's a little late for that.

I'm just wondering... Is there any way to have it back up to a backup in real time? As in as soon as I write something to my raid array, it will kick on a backup to go to my spare 4tb hdd? So that if right after I save a project, one hdd in the array dies, I don't lose the project? Because I feel that even nightly backups might not be safe enough for me.

 

[dugdiamond]

i do not think it it possible to mix arrays (ie: RAID1-ing a RAID0 array)

 

[Jeremy1998]

i do not think it it possible to mix arrays (ie: RAID1-ing a RAID0 array)

Oh, I know. I'm talking about a software based cloning / backup program. Just like running nightly backups on your PC. The only difference is that I don't want nightly, I want constant backups. So, are there any programs that just constantly check for new data, and do backups if there is any new data?

 

[dugdiamond]

i have a Pioneer BDXL BluRay ReWriter with 10x 100GB dual layer XL bluray discs for my precious backups

 

[dugdiamond]

Oh, I know. I'm talking about a software based cloning / backup program. Just like running nightly backups on your PC. The only difference is that I don't want nightly, I want constant backups. So, are there any programs that just constantly check for new data, and do backups if there is any new data?

just use scheduler in windows to run a backup program

 

[Jeremy1998]

i have a Pioneer BDXL BluRay ReWriter with 10x 100GB dual layer XL bluray discs for my precious backups

Holy crap... I don't think I would be up for that. But I think those 8 2.5" drives will be fine for me. I will just do some Google searching about some automatic HDD cloning programs.