Here goes! I dont know much about setting up performance hard drive configurations so i decided to post here to get a few suggestions. Now keep in mind im not looking for uberleet setups just a performance setup. Currently im running a western digital and seagate 80gb hardrives. The seagate is the master and the western digital is slave on same ide cable. Other ide cable is for optical drives at this time. I have 4 sata ports on board and dont know if they are 1.5 or 3gbs. What can i do from this point to get a faster hard drive? Are there controlers out that i can hook my hardrives up to to make them work together as a faster unit? Or do i just need to junk them both and go sata raid. Like I said, I dont really know alot on satas and raid and stuff. Rest of the system is amd64 3500 venice, 1.5gb ram, evga7800gt, evga sli delux mobo, 600wpsu. Any constructive information would be great.
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
RAID0 is the only "performance" RAID setup (its not really true RAID, but thats a moot point)
Its also shown to have no gain as far as performance in gaming (which is what im assuming you are going for.)
A cheap, easy solution to gain a little bit of performance (minimal) is to get 80 pin IDE cables for your IDE drives. The 80 pin cables have a ground for each pin and it creates a better connection, and can improve transfer performance a little bit.
Otherwise, if your board supports SATA 3.0gbs then id pick up a SATA drive and use it on there. Check your motherboard manufacturers website to find out if it does or not.
RAID is too much of a headache for the minimal to zero gain you will see from it (not to mention the cost).
Also, if you buy a new drive, make sure its got a 16MB cache. That will show just as good a performance boost as a 10,000RPM Raptor. -
Re: Best hardrive setup for me
Ok, my board does support sataII wich is 300gig a sec right? So i shoul look into a large sataII harddrive thats 10000rpm? No raid? I thought there was a way to get 2 sata's @7200rpm and combine them for an efective 14000rpm?Am i wrong or is this not worth the trouble? Another question is can i keep my two 80gig ide drives as backup and have my op system and games on my sata's? Should i get one like this?
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
And wont getting a faster hd for bf2 help with load times and verifying client data? Or should I say In theory it should as this game doesnt show much preference to awesome hardware.Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
hmmmhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmComment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
SATA 1 or 2 will have the same effective throughput regardless of interface speed. In fact SATA is not much if any faster than a good IDE drive (ATA 100 or 133). All interface speeds are theoretical maximums. The only data that goes at interface speed is stuff stored in the cache (usually 8 or 16MB), which is a fraction of the data that is usually requested. Performance is a primarily influenced by a combination or RPM, platter size/density and cache where more is better. In general, the more current and more money you spend on a drive, the better performance, i.e. even a good middle of the road drive today is better than a higher end one from a year or two ago.
If you want single drive performance and don't want to spend big bucks, the 10000 RPM 74GB available for $130 after rebate at Newegg is the best value bar none. If you can afford it, the Raptor X is the way to go (standard version has features not ideal for single system use, ie RAID features that can't be disabled). Before anyone asks, 2 of the 74s in RAID 0 has been shown to still be slower than a single 150GB Raptor, so buy the single 150 if you want the latest and greatest.
RAID 0 is easy to set up, but a pain to deal with if you don't know how to maintain it. It has no redundency, so 1 drive will cause the pair to go down. Contrary to a previous poster there are situations like map changes, game startup, and some in game activity etc that benefit from a high performance disk set up, mostly for data that isn't loaded in memory.
However, it should be the last on your list of things to upgrade. If you have enough memory (2GB), a good CPU and you have a good video card, than the only thing left is to upgrade your storage.Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
RAID is a headache, but you will see gains no question. You can build a RAID 0 set from a couple of decent SATA drives that are much faster than a single. You are leveraging two interfaces and multiple read heads. The measured difference will be large (not double), the game difference will be small (most data is in memory).Originally posted by CaptJordus
Yes, always maximize cache if comparing models, but a 16 MB cache on its own will in no way come close to matching the performance of a Raptor. Cache size provides minimal difference for throughput performance. It only matters if the algorithms are good and the information in cache is what is needed by the game (not often). Drives can't anticipate map changes and most read requirements in game.
FYI, there isn't any single 7200 RPM IDE or SATA drive that outperforms the older (36 or 74GB) or newer Raptors (105GB and 74GB to come). It won't happen until someone else delivers a 10000 RPM drive.Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
There is only one SATA drive at 10000 and that is the Raptor. 2 RAID 0 7200 drives will not double performance or give you the performance of a 14000RPM drive (assuming such a IDE or SATA drive existed). IDE can be used as backup, but SATA and IDE don't like to play on the same system.Originally posted by gogtaylorComment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
Originally posted by Older-OMO
Someone just posted a test they did with a single drive, and then that drive and another identical to it in RAID 0.
It performed the same or worse in gaming applications. Infact the ONLY thing it did faster was large folder copies (700+MB) and Unzipping huge files (300+MB)
RAID 0 offers extremely little to no performance gain in a game.
a 16mb cache 7200 SATA drive is fast, cheap, and effective.Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
There ARE 15,000 RPM drives out there.Originally posted by Older-OMO
Your information if flawed and inaccurate, so please dont offer advice on something that you are so uneducated on.
I'm seriously about to stop posting any advice here whatsoever, because everyone who knows nothing about the topic replies and fills the threads with a bunch of misleading crap.Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
He spoke specifically about SATA drives at 10000, not SCSI HDDs.Originally posted by CaptJordus
Of the Raptors there are 3 versions though, the old 36 and 74, and the new 150 GB.Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
i can tell u this i use to have 1 gig of ram and a 7k rpm westerndigital wit 8mb cache. i then upgraded the ram to 2 gigs and went from last load to the first loaded. i then recently upgraded my harddrives i got a 150 gb raptor and a 7k 16mb cache drive for storage. obivisouly the raptor is for games and windows. now the moral of the story is the new harddrives really didnt help as far as the extra gig did.Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
I think i gapped over the part about IDE/SATA only.
However, RAID 0 has still been proven to offer no performance gain for gaming applications.Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
There is absolutely nothing misleading about anything I have posted. On the other hand you post stuff about something you obviously have limited knowledge and you don't read responses very closely.Originally posted by CaptJordus
Name one 15000 SATA drive..... Yes there are SCSI drives, but obviously a different acronmyn and technology. BTW, the Raptor still beats most or keeps up with those because they are better suited for multiuser enviornments with the way they handle data. At its heart, the Raptor is still just a fast single user PC drive.
And, you have no idea what you are talking about if you think adding 8 MB of cache is going to make any noticeable difference whatsoever. Whether you have 8 or 16 MBs will not matter if the data never gets pulled from the cache. There is no way for the caching algorithms to know that you will be switching from Karkand to Oman on one server and Sharqi to Dalian on another. It will have more benefit on writes if staged in the cache before the actual write to disk occurs like when your shaders are being adjusted. Other than that, NADA.
I said RAID 0 would offer some help where reads from disk take place, i.e. map changes and startup. I never said it would help much in game. Is this not part of the performance of a game? If I can get in a game earlier than you, you are still verifying client when I am waiting to spawn camp you.
Regardless, I said to invest in memory CPU and vcards first... If you want to see the difference in actual game performance, go to www.storagereview.com They use Far Cry as a benchmark. There is a major difference in performance between drives.
Capt you are being demoted to private...:nerr:Comment
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Re: Best hardrive setup for me
And soon to be released 74 single platter version. When I said there was only 1 10000 drive, I meant one product line.Originally posted by Gunny Highway
If you are looking for the best single drive performance at a reasonable price, buy the older (still being made) 74GB drives. At around $140 (or less), they are a real bargain.Comment
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