IN retrospect, doesn't IDE, and the computer HD makers suck?

[Santilli]

Seriously:

Here, nearly 3 years later, we finally have 10k ide drives.
For 3 years, Davin and Eugene have been saying how great ide drives are, when, in fact, compared to existing 15k cheetahs, they seriously suck.

While all the IDE guys have been sucking eggs, changing ide drives, my 4 x 15k Scsi raid zero had functioned flawlessly, for about 4 years, and the ide guys still have been using 7k drives.

Suffice to say, the amout of time saved between scsi raid 0, iwth 4 x 15k Cheetahs, vs, ide POS drives, over the lat 4 years is a ton, and guess what guys, you loose...
S

 

[iGary]

But, they didn't lose much in the way of $£L¥DM.

SATA RAID is already proving to be a nice budget RAID with good performance characteristics (compared to P-ATA).

But, I suspect, even *you* will be upgrading to SAS Cheetah X15 drives next year. Nothing will be able to touch a (fully duplex) SAS Cheetah X15 except an expensive FibreChannel equivalent.

 

[Santilli]

Hi Splash!!!
How have you been?

Why would I change out a functioning 110 MB/sec raid?

Perhaps for setting up a similar raid with one of the the G5 Macs?
8gigs of ram? a gig bus? etc.

I am actually wondering what to do if, in the next year, a hard drive fails...
s

 

[Splash]

Hi Splash!!!
How have you been?

Wet. Wet all over.

Why would I change out a functioning 110 MB/sec raid? ...I am actually wondering what to do if, in the next year, a hard drive fails...

You might want to leave it alone, but build a new RAID-0 array that uses a configuration with 2-each 73GB X-15 Cheetah drives with SAS interface (Serial Attached SCSI) attached to a PCI-X-based or PCI-Express-based RAID controller (with SAS channels, of course) in a system with a PCI-X/133 PCI expansion bus or a PCI Express expansion bus.

The "old" 4-drive / first-generation X-15 array will seem a bit pedestrian in nature compared to this simpler, vastly quieter, and more reliable performance array with it full-duplex data channels. Besides, if you need it, you will also be able to attach a "cheap" large capacity SATA drive to the very same controller; SCSI and ATA now living together at last.

 

[blakerwry]

is there much of a benefit of full duplex vs half duplex SAS vs S-ATA?

I can see the benefit when saturating the interface, but when only using say 60MB/sec out of a 150MB/sec interface (remember there's ony 1 drive on the interface and it is half duplex by design)?


what other features are there of SAS over S-ATA?

 

[Santilli]

OK:
Some quick questions:
Is anyone building a SAS or S-ATA controller that gives you any kind of value?
What are the cable costs going to be like?

From reading a bit, I gather all the big boys are behind this one, Seagate,
etc.
What are the interface differences that give is similar, or not similar, characteristiscs to SCSI?

Realistic time till components are reasonably priced, and out of beta?

Thanks

s

 

[Mercutio]

Cable costs can only be better than SCSI. Particularly for you Grantie Digital fetishists. Even if we're talking about gold-plated GD cables, there are going to be fewer wires.

High value controllers? My guess would be that 3ware will continue its tradition of making fantastic equipment. I have my eye on an Escalade 85008 but I really want to see an SR review first (and also some real high-capacity SATA drives). SAS, not being available yet, your guess is as good as mine.


IDE drives do suck. Even the fast ones are slow. SCSI drives also suck. They aren't nearly big enough. 73GB? pffft.

 

[jtr1962]

I don't know that it means anything Mercutio, but your last post was the 11111th in the B&G.

 

[honold]

raptors are definitely fast

 

[Mercutio]

Some of the raptors are quiet, too.

One of my students has four in a desktop PC, in a RAID 10. Two of the drives, purchased retail from a local shop, are quite loud (loud = not unreasonable for a 10,000rpm drive but shocking compared to recent IDE stuff). Two others came from newegg and aren't appreciably louder than the 2000JB he has in the same case. The purchases were made a week apart.

That's some interesting QC.

Is there a difference between, say, assembly plants or something?

 

[Mickey]

It's likelier the motors and bearings used are from different assembly plants. That, and differences in "shipping routes" between WD and the final consumer usually account for most of the variation seen in drive acoustics.

 

[Santilli]

Naw. Just certain shipping departments use'em for Conga drums prior to shipping.
:wink:

 

[Pradeep]

4 drives in RAID 0 and all you can get is 110MB/sec? Perhaps it's time for some Fujistus at close to 80MB/sec each.

Is that using the ATTO controller?

Been doing any big game hunting recently? I was experimenting with 3.5" magnum shotshells back in turkey season, quite a handful.

 

[blakerwry]

4 drives in RAID 0 and all you can get is 110MB/sec? Perhaps it's time for some Fujistus at close to 80MB/sec each.

Is that using the ATTO controller?

Been doing any big game hunting recently? I was experimenting with 3.5" magnum shotshells back in turkey season, quite a handful.

was that 12 guage or 10?

We(my father) have a Mossberg (sp?) 12 guage 3-1/2" Magnum pump with a carbon pump and pistol grip... sawed off a bit. The safetey on the thing never worked since the time it was purchased... don't know if we ever got that fixed.

Personally, I have a 16 guage bolt action shotgun... All my rifles are either pump or bolt action (not including air guns).

 

[Pradeep]

12 guage, 10 guage is too heavy for me to carry in the field all day. Got a very tight turkey barrel and a slug barrel for deer.

 

[blakerwry]

unfortunately in my 16 guage, the barrell is not removable and I'm stuck with a non rifled barrell that's moderately choked. I took it out to the range for the 1st time about a year ago and shot at a standard taget with some bird shot... That was maybe 15- 20 yards away... spread was pretty large. It was sure fun tearing up the target though.

Incidentally I also took a rugger 22 semi-auto (not mine) a Winchester model 62A, and a Mosin.

Great to break out the old guns.

 

[Santilli]

Pradeep:
Yep, atto 32 bit vs. the later card being 64 bit/66mhz. Difference would only have been about 10 mb/sec on a board that's 32/33mhz.

In other words, when I bought it, the faster bus was just becoming avaliable.

Suspect these days same drives, on a current mobo and controller, could run around 180-200 mb/sec, if the scaling on macs by some guys I know is any indication.

When I upgrade the mobo, anb the cpu, I might have a look at an LSI card or something like it...

s

 

[Tea]

I was wondering about buying myself a Raptor. Right now, we have:

X15 (1st-gen) 18GB to boot
Samsung 7200 IDE 40GB (storage)

But space is getting tight with all this digital photography stuff, and we are pondering our next move.

Replace the 40GB Samsung 7200 with an 80GB model off the shelf? Fairly short-term fix, but quick, easy, very low cost (about $AU 50 changeover), and I already know that that particular model of drive is ultra-reliable

Replace the 40 with a 120GB Samsung 5400? A bit slower, but I'd still have the X15, and pretty cheap too.

Add a Raptor as well? (costs more, extra noise, not so sure about reliability, but nice and quick).

Wait for the new model Samsung 7200 which will arrive any day now, be sensibly priced, and let me go straight to 160GB? Not so cheap, and a new model, even from Samsung, is always an unknown quantity, but that should do me for quite a while.

Go stupid and get the biggest new X15 I can lay my hands on? No real need for it, though a noise reduction would be nice.

Hmmmmm......

 

[honold]

sr has the 15k.3 at 45db/a and retail raptor at 42...

 

[Mercutio]

160GB Samsung bricks. $100 a pop and a useful capacity. I have lots of them. 12 or so. Take your photos at the highest resolution and keep all of them. Considering that you can get a 160GB AND an 80GB Samsung 5400rpm drive for about what the Raptor costs, I don't think there's a down side there.

Of course, they're slow. You don't boot off them. Or load programs from them. You use them to store your p0^Hictures, a task to which they're very well suited.

Going along with something Santilli said in another thread, all you need is ONE storage-intensive hobby and suddenly there's no such thing as too much disk space. Eric (EBB/Lost6200 et al) has data storage needs that may actually eclipse my own.

I'd really like to see some of his photos, too.

Anyway, CD-R is a pitiful capacity in modern terms. Sure, it's OK for storing user documents, but I've seen lots of people with photo libraries surpassing 10GB and anyone whose hobbies include digital video would likely be induced to palsy if one were to suggest CD-R as a storage medium.

Backing up a full 80GB drive (admittedly, most people don't have those) on DVDs isn't exactly fun, either. Particularly since the fastest writers and media still need 15 - 20 minutes to make a disc.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

The 15.3 is quiet for a drive of this class.

 

[Santilli]

Well, Hi Tea.

First off, the thought of buying a new ide drive, just off the production lines, for anything, makes me want to throw up. Buy end of life, proven drives, and use em for storage is the way I like to go.

Last time I did this I bought 5 Quantum LM's, for something like 50-75 each, and 3 of the 5 ran fine. The other two got traded for credit, to a company that got credit from Quaxtor, and parts.

Only 30 gig drives, however.

Now the boot drive issue is intresting. IIRC the latest generation cheetahs are pushing the limits of LVD, and, are a bit faster, sustained transfer wise, then the first generation.
50 mb/sec vs. 75 comes to mind, IIRC.

Sort of a single drive boot raid, without the expense of a raid card, cables etc.

In my own, weird, logic, I would buy the new cheetah just for the additional speed, leave the X 15 1st in the box, and pick up the size of the the boot drive, plus your existing boot drive, and, you could store your more valuable stuff on the X15.

Somehow storing valuable information, without regular backups, on an ide drive, scares me.

I think if I get to the point where I'm concerned about it, I'm going to go for removeable firewire ide drives, and do double backups that way.

Granite Digital has some nice stuff setup that way, and someone in the valley had a very cheap, easily removeable ide drive setup...

s

 

[Santilli]

Mercutio:
The more I think about it, the more sense swappable ide drives make, or same drives, using the firewire interface for hotswapping.

Have you looked into removeable drive setups?

s

 

[Santilli]

Tea
How much is it going to cost to buy a decent controller to run your Raptor off?
s

 

[Tea]

I'd just buy a new motherboard, Greg. Which. seeing as I do that from time to time anyway, wouldn;t cost anything to speak of.

But I'm leaning towards the Mercutio solution at the moment. Also, I'm pondering buying a DVD-RW, just for backups. A DAT drive would be better, but they are just too dear.

 

[Mercutio]

I have 6 USB2/Firewire enclosures, and 2 USB2 only. Four have 80GB drives in them, two have 120GB drives in them, and two of them have Sony DVD burners.

They're quite handy, but unless you disable the built-in fan, they're also a bit loud.