Fastest HDD 's

[XBarbarian]

Well, yes, I'll keep posting new topics as I still have some choices...

I went with 2x WD Raptors, in raid 0.

Raid 0 is obviously the fastest setup.

Just wondering if the Raptors still are tho.. Y'all still think thats the fastest way to go..the raid will be my OS and games..have a 3rd 500 WD for data..

That new Hitachi has some screamin throughput too.. although size is irrelevant, as the 500gb is way more than I would want, even the combined 300gb of the 2 raptors is over kill..

Just speed..thats what I want to know..that s what I want..what are the fastest drives avail?

[XBarbarian]

http://www.hyperossystems.co.uk/

Ram drive..that would be sweet but spendy..for sure.. 16gb ram drive..that would own..but..errr..like 2k$ for that..because of the ram..lol..hmm

[XBarbarian]

Well..NOT raiding tonight IN Everquest..so doing my own research $$

Thought I would post things relevant here in case others should someday have the same questions:

Good sortable list of current consumer hdd's

http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchmark/bench_sort.php

Seems that the WD Raptor remains the best, only ones beating them are SCSI

[Badger]

If you were picking between one WD 10,000 or two 7200's in RAID 0, which is the better option. Two WD 10,000 is out of my price range.

[XBarbarian]

Through put on 2 x 7200's is better than a single raptor

[Nickleby]

I would agree that the Raptors are your best bet. However, if you're looking for a cost/benefit bump in performance, I'd nix the raid and get your SLI configuration up and running. Most sources agree that 2 drives in raid 0 provide minimal if any performance bump in normal desktop applications and gaming (with some exceptions).

If you're going for the best of the best, then go for the Raptors. A 10% increase in certain performance criteria is nice, but I don't believe it is worth the extra cost (just my opinion).

Wikki has some basics and I've cut/pasted a relevant passage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks

RAID cannot provide a performance boost in all applications. This statement is especially true with typical desktop application users and gamers. Most desktop applications and games place performance emphasis on the buffer strategy and seek performance of the disk(s). Increasing raw sustained transfer rate shows little gains for desktop users and gamers, as most files that they access are typically very small anyway. Disk striping using RAID 0 increases linear transfer performance, not buffer and seek performance. As a result, disk striping using RAID 0 shows little to no performance gain in most desktop applications and games, although there are exceptions. For desktop users and gamers with high performance as a goal, it is better to buy a faster, bigger, and more expensive single disk than it is to run two slower/smaller drives in RAID 0. Even running the large high quality drive in RAID-0 is unlikely to boost performance more than 10% and performance may drop in some access patterns, particularly games.

Here is a nice detailed article with benchmarks -
http://faq.storagereview.com/SingleDriveVsRaid0

Nickleby

[XBarbarian]

Thanks for input Nickleby!

[Badger]

Just to confirm. Given the cost/benefit factor the suggestion here is to just get a single 7200rpm drive instead of going RAID 0 or forking out the big dough for the Raptors

[Nickleby]

Yes, that would sum it up nicely - or a single Raptor for the extra edge.
However, this is my opinion and I would encourage you to read up on the tech and raid. There are some proponents of raid 0 that claim they see a 20% gain in perfermance. Just do a google of raid 0 or take a look at some of the hardware forums and you will find some opposing views
(The gist of these reviews is that with the new 150GB raptors and improvements of raid software allow for better performance with modern
CPUs and GPUs. I'm not sure on the tech improvements, but I'd like to see real benchmarks from a reputable source before paying the extra cash for dual raptors).

edit: as a side note, I'd imagine even if the Raid 0 offered a boost in performance of 20-30%, you would have some bottle neck from a different source.

For a performance bump with data backup, I'd take a look at Raid 5 (would be a cost effective performance enhancement for the home user -
requires 3 identical drives). Anyway, there is a lot of debate on the issue, so if anyone has info to support a significant performance cost/benefit ratio for Raid 0, I think it would help to make an informed decision. More info is never harmful.

Nickleby