[Pc_Support] Re: Fastest Hard Drive Access for Large (Video) Files

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Tue, 2005-08-02 at 07:37 -0500, David Simmons wrote:
> 2).  Have been reading some good results using SATA-300 or SATA-II.  But
> given that I have the old standard PCI bus, will that be the limiting
> factor? (as I'll have to add a SATA-II card to the system).

Can you guys posts some links/reference info on this?  Not that I
question it, I just haven't seen it.

Although the speed of the interface should not differ because the drive
is the same (and 150MBps is more than 2x of today's drive DTR),
SATA-300/II uses a twisted pair cable that might reduce loss and
retransmits, therefore, increasing performance.

> 3).  Any comments on the WD Raptor?

Hitachi 10,000rpm Ultra320 SCSI "enterprise" drive gone SATA.  Lower
platter density, but much faster seek.  If you're drive light is
constantly on and you hear the drive seeking way too much, definitely
this your baby!

> 4).  Instead of a single drive - do I go RAID0 (striping) - if so, any
> recommendations on setup? (ie. go ATA/IDE or SATA?

3Ware Escalade 8506-4LP will definitely kick @$$ for less than $300 to
start.  Throw in four (4) 73GB Raptors for RAID-10 and your life is
great for about a grand total.  ;->

> (Again, will the PCI bus be the limit?)

Yeah, that's the kicker.  Who cares if you have a powerful disk
controller if you're putting it in a legacy, shared 32-bit @ 33MHz slot.

There is no PCIe x4/8 SATA RAID card yet, only the PCIe x8 LSI Logic
MegaRAID 320-2E (2-channel U320).

-- 
Bryan J. Smith   b.j.smith at ieee.org   http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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