Drive choice for a raid array

S

Seeyou

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Hi guys

I'm currently running a 1.5TB drive. I'd like to create a RAID-0 array out of 3x 500gb drives and clone my setup onto the array, and use the 1.5TB disk as a backup.

I'm looking for 3 drives at a good price/performance ratio. The main contenders seem to be Seagate and WD, namely: http://www.nivo.co.za/#c/computers/hard.drives/for~desktop/interface~sata/capacity~500.gb/0

The WD Caviar Black with 32MB Cache seems to be the winner here, but I wanted to check with you guys if there were better options as far as price/performance go before I made the purchase.

Thanks in advance!
 
Doesn't make sense to me:
500GB drive is R480. 3 of them would cost R1440.
1500GB drive is R800.

The RAID0 stripe would consume more power, more connectors and be a higher risk than a single 1.5TB drive.
 
Power/connectors aren't an issue, I want to build the RAID array for performance reasons, and SSD's are still far too expensive/low capacity.

Edit: thanks for the link to the 500gb drive, seems to be significantly faster than the WD drive, even with less cache, and cheaper.
 
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I have 2 10,000 RPM Raptors on RAID 0, I found this to be quite a bit faster than 3 normal 7200 RPM drives in Raid 0. To be fair there is less space available so I use it for regularaly used apps and system thats about it. Also this is a completely subjective evaluation however myself, my housemate and my GF have all noticed that 2 faster drives on RAID 0 seems to be faster than 3 7200's....
 
I have no doubt they would make a faster array, the price on the Raptors is nearly as insane as an SSD though :)
 
Yeah Iwas lucky enough to get given them by someone with more money than sense who was upset because they made too much noise :P
 
Surely the correct answer is whichever one you're most likely to find a replacement for if one of them dies?
 
PostmanPot said:
I think Intel are releasing a new SSD microchip that will bring down prices.
Click to expand...

No, they are switching over to a 25nm manufacturing process, down from 34nm. Same tech essentially, just smaller which means bigger capacity drives.
 
Archer said:
No, they are switching over to a 25nm manufacturing process, down from 34nm. Same tech essentially, just smaller which means bigger capacity drives.
Click to expand...

so basically, a newer chip?
 
Archer said:
No, they are switching over to a 25nm manufacturing process, down from 34nm. Same tech essentially, just smaller which means bigger capacity drives.
Click to expand...

Right, and was it speculated that we'll be getting double the capacity for the same price?
 
PostmanPot said:
Right, and was it speculated that we'll be getting double the capacity for the same price?
Click to expand...
Yes, 160gb, 320gb and 600gb versions are rumoured to release Feb 2011 at roughly half the price per gb of current models
 
PostmanPot said:
Right, and was it speculated that we'll be getting double the capacity for the same price?
Click to expand...
Highly unlikely imo. Lower nm = Higher failure rates. Plus smaller nm doesn't change the fact that to double capacity you still need to double the number of individual cells, even if they are physically smaller.

Maybe if the general SSD price trend is taken into account between now & Feb then it might work out at double the capacity @ same price.
 
HavocXphere said:
Highly unlikely imo. Lower nm = Higher failure rates. Plus smaller nm doesn't change the fact that to double capacity you still need to double the number of individual cells, even if they are physically smaller.

Maybe if the general SSD price trend is taken into account between now & Feb then it might work out at double the capacity @ same price.
Click to expand...

The number of cells is not what drives the price, its the number of viable chips you can get from a wafer. Smaller die sizes means more chips per wafer, hence lower cost per chip you get out (assuming equal failure rates). Constructing NAND flash is not that complex (when compared to a CPU or GPU) so failure rates are generally quite low. IE 25nm SSDs will be cheaper per gb than 34nm, and since 25nm offers twice the density it will be roughly half the price per gb.
 
Archer said:
The number of cells is not what drives the price, its the number of viable chips you can get from a wafer. Smaller die sizes means more chips per wafer, hence lower cost per chip you get out (assuming equal failure rates). Constructing NAND flash is not that complex (when compared to a CPU or GPU) so failure rates are generally quite low. IE 25nm SSDs will be cheaper per gb than 34nm, and since 25nm offers twice the density it will be roughly half the price per gb.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Thanks.
 
Thread hijacking - the other South African crime :P

Yeah, SSD prices dropping next year is the other reason I'm trying to build a relatively inexpensive but well-performing solution now. However I discovered last night while reading through my manuals that I own quite possibly the most stupidly constructed motherboard on the planet, which only supports two drives in a RAID array - and one has to be plugged in on the internal SATA port for the Jmicron controller, and one plugged in on the external port. Rocket scientists must've contributed on that one. So it looks like I'll be taking the opportunity to upgrade CPU/mb first, and then looking at my options here. Thanks for the help guys :)
 
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