4 500gig or 2 1TB Samsung F3's in raid 0?

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verncat05

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 15, 2005
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Which would be faster? Both have 500gig platters, but the 1TB has 32meg cache vs 16meg cache on the 500's. I will be running this on an Areca 1210 raid card. I am simply looking for the fastest performer.

thanks.
 
Do you really need that much data in RAID0? Performance wise I would have said that 4 500 gig drives would beat the 2 1tb's if those 500gigs are 500 per platter. I wouldnt worry to much about the cache though.

Not sure though. Look for tests with both just with 2 drives in raid 0, if they are pretty close then i'd say 4 would be faster.
 
Like I said, I was just looking for the fastest setup. So you don't think the difference in cache sizes will make a difference in performance? If not, I already have 2 of the F3 500gig's in raid 0, I would just order two more, format and start over fresh with 4 of them in raid 0. Right now they have them at the Egg for 54 and free shipping...
 
Those are 333gig platter hd's. The newer F3's are faster, plus I already own 2 of the 500gig's. I think I will just get two more of them and go with the four.
 
Depends on your usage scenario. The 4 drives will obviously be fastest for sequential throughput.
 
Hmm always a tough one for me i must admit. More drives = more chance of failure but better performance.
I'd go with the 2Tb drives to be honest
 
It is my system purely for gaming, video, music and goofing off. All of my critical data is ran and stored elsewhere with backup.
 
So long as it's backed up else where then 4 drives for the better performance :D
 
Thanks for all the advice. I am ordering the 2 additional drives this am!!!
 
verncat05 said:
Thanks for all the advice. I am ordering the 2 additional drives this am!!!
Click to expand...

Did you get the drives in??? Also if you put 4 of these in RAID0 did you short stroke them? I want to know the kind of performance your getting with 4 F3's in RAID0.

I noticed better performance and faster seek times when I short stroked my two at 220GB total and the rest in RAID1 for backups/snapshops.

250 MB/s average and seek time of about 9ms. Id expect/assume 4 of these in RAID0 might get 400 MB/s and if short stroked an access time of about 8.5ms. Maybe it only scales at 50MB/s after the 2nd? So maybe your getting 350-370?
 
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I didn't short stroke them, just have them all in a raid 0 config. I am getting 342 MB/s average and 11ms seek time.
 
That's wikid fast for mechanical!!! I might have to grab two more, only I'll probably end up short stroking a 300-400gig partition and RAID1 the remaining. I might be able to push 370+ with a lower seek time if that's your average rate across the entire drives. 342 was your average, what was your max close to the beginning of the drives?

Not bad for a $200 if I say so myself.

Thanks for the stats.
 
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