to ssd or not to ssd

[S_I_N]

Ok I am currently torn in what to do. I have had an ssd Intel X25 80gig. And it was great while it worked. I loved its responsiveness but hated the capacity. I normally (just my pickiness) dont like to see it over 50% full. Now mass storage isnt a major concern to me but its nice to have. Heres my delima. I want speed but I want some storage preferably on the same drive.

I am considering the

Corsair C300 sata 6Gb 128GB ssd $274.02 shipped

and

4 WD Black sata 6Gb 64mb cache 640GB drives for raid 0 @272.78 shipped

Roughly the same cost which will in your opinion give me the best performance. My mobo has 6 sata 6Gb ports so thats not an issue.

 

[Matthias2437]

The ssd is def a more secure bet, every drive you add to a raid-0 increases the chances of a failure (since if one drive fails all the data is lost). If you got the 4 drive and went raid 10 then you would get the benefit of speed from raid-0 but the security of raid-1. Or if you wanted to hit a good middle point you could get 2 150+ gig Velociraptor drives and raid-0 them for storage+ performance. One Sata 2 150 gig velociraptor is $120 on newegg, the 300 gig version is $150. So for 300 you could raid 2 300 gig raptors in 0 for 600 gigs of storage and fast speed.

 

[S_I_N]

The ssd is def a more secure bet, every drive you add to a raid-0 increases the chances of a failure (since if one drive fails all the data is lost). If you got the 4 drive and went raid 10 then you would get the benefit of speed from raid-0 but the security of raid-1. Or if you wanted to hit a good middle point you could get 2 150+ gig Velociraptor drives and raid-0 them for storage+ performance. One Sata 2 150 gig velociraptor is $120 on newegg, the 300 gig version is $150. So for 300 you could raid 2 300 gig raptors in 0 for 600 gigs of storage and fast speed.

true to everything ya sai but the veloci part lol theres no real benefit to 10k from 7200 that is worth their noise lol. As far as drive failure I know that's a possibility. But there's nothing on my system that cant be redone easily.

I used raptors before and had good and bad luck with them but these days I like my rig quiet. Plus the cost factor to me iisnt worth it. I could prolly put everyting on the single 128GB ssd and be under my 50% target but I'm wondering if the performance difference between the 2 solutions. I'm thinking with the 64mb cache on them and sata 6Gb it would closely match performance to the ssd if not taking a slight lead. Now if it was the Intel 510 ssd I dont think so but hey its Intel so it cost more $$ as we all know Intel is in it for their pocketbook lol

I should of mentioned this before the reason for 4 hhd's is thats where I personally noticed the most improvement in raid 0 2 is better thn one of course but I saw no real improvement with3 then went 4 and BAMM!! noticable

 

[CRAZYCAP]

I thought this was a trick question. definitely SSD.

 

[T.A.K]

120Gb SSD should hold all large aplications. Just get a storage drive.

Yeah... TRIMM. Nuff said.

 

[S_I_N]

well my finger got happy on the buy button already and as of about 6 hrs ago I ordered the 4 WD Blacks. Then about 2 hours later the OCZ Vertex3 I was drooling over came back in stock. Gonna try tomorrow when thier live chat comes online and see if I can change the order to it

Sequential Access - Read: up to 550 MB/sSequential Access - Write: up to 500 MB/s

well shite as I went to copy this info they went back out of stock Now back to pondering lol.

P.S. on a side note I grabbed a copy of Crysis 2 while out shopping and now that my lil ones are asleep I'll catch y'all on da flipside

 

[tinytomlogan]

Remember even in raid mechanical drives will slow down towards the outside of the platter. Take a look at the results of the Velociraptor Raid review we did.

IMHO its either speed or capacity. Also worth nting 6 drives will be both noisey and pump out a fair bit of heat.

 

[S_I_N]

Thanks Tom for taking the time to post

I tried this morning to change the order and Newegg says it cant be done since they have my money already :facepalm: Tried to get them to issue a credit for it but they said cant be done (I heard we dont wanna do it) Anywho since it'll take 3-5 biz days to get the refund and I couldnt find anything local (within reasonable cost) ($379$ for a 120GB Intel lmao) Anywho I'll go with the raid for now and when I get some extra $$$ again I'll get a Sata 6Gb SSD and compare the performance between the 2

 

[tinytomlogan]

Thanks Tom for taking the time to post

I tried this morning to change the order and Newegg says it cant be done since they have my money already :facepalm: Tried to get them to issue a credit for it but they said cant be done (I heard we dont wanna do it) Anywho since it'll take 3-5 biz days to get the refund and I couldnt find anything local (within reasonable cost) ($379$ for a 120GB Intel lmao) Anywho I'll go with the raid for now and when I get some extra $$$ again I'll get a Sata 6Gb SSD and compare the performance between the 2

I had 12 1TB drives and went nuts in the end just from the heat let alone the noise! Youll also probably find the mobo will struggle with a raid array that large.

Thats why Hayley ended up with a raid card in her server

Do some research on your drives about " short stroking " - it envolves tweaking the firmware on the drives to keep them on the outside fast bit of the platter.

Reduces the capacity but stops the drop off in speed as it gets to the inside of the platter.

 

[S_I_N]

I had 12 1TB drives and went nuts in the end just from the heat let alone the noise! Youll also probably find the mobo will struggle with a raid array that large.

Thats why Hayley ended up with a raid card in her server

Do some research on your drives about " short stroking " - it envolves tweaking the firmware on the drives to keep them on the outside fast bit of the platter.

Reduces the capacity but stops the drop off in speed as it gets to the inside of the platter.

I'll def look into that Tom The loss of capacity isnt that big of a deal for me Before I went to the Intell ssd that started having issues I ran 2x300GB and 2 320GB Seagates in raid 0 Without any heat issues so I'm hoping these WD's will be about the same. My case has very good airflow and the cpu rarely see's anything near 35c loaded 19-20c idle if that helps indicate airflow lol. And best part is its still quiet. Cooler Master Storm Sniper. Has the 3 stock 200mm fans and I changed the rear 140mm with a CM sickle flow fan and added one to the bottom of the case as well as one inside the optical bays. All fans are intake except the rear 140 and top 200. Psu is mounted to suck outside air (had to so the 8pin mobo connector would reach the top of the board

But I'm off to research short stroking and I'd better not find it leads to porn

lmao

very interesting reads on short stroking Tom I can do that easily enough and will give it a whirl once I get the drives next week

 

[DragonPC]

ssd = Solid State-of-the-art Drive

 

[S_I_N]

ssd = Solid State-of-the-art Drive

yup I know what SSD stands for lol