[ServinginEcuador]

For those of you out there with some experience in this area, is it safe to just use Norton Defrag on a Serial ATA RAID system? It strips the data upon writing it, so will it cause any problems if I defrag my system normally?

 

[qutius]

You can defrag as normal - there will be no problems.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

qutius,

I just finished the first defrag on the computer without any problems. Thanks for the help! I was worried about having some problem with the stripped data not going back correctly. Glad it was all for nothing as everything still works.

 

[Voodoochile]

What's your stripe size, and what do you do? Just curious.

No, this isn't one of my infamous pickup-lines.

 

[SteeleBlayde]

What is a good stripe size anyway? I plan on putting together a SATA RAID-0 array with 4 hard drives in it once I get my computer together and I I'm a bit clueless about since I've never done it before.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally posted by Voodoochile What's your stripe size, and what do you do? Just curious.

I set it to max performance at 128kb, RAID 0. It said that the larger size stripe the better the performance, so I went for the 128kb right off the bat. WOW does this thing run fast. Makes my 2.4GHz laptop look sluggish in comparison, and it is no sluggarg on its own.

By what do you do did you mean for a living, or with the RAID setup?

Another BIG tip for getting some speed gains from a new computer: get four equally sized memory sticks instead of just one large one. I can't find the site right now, Anandtech I think, where they ran one, two, and four memory sticks and the four stick combo was some odd 20% faster using the same exact memory with just one large stick. I do know this, for a 2.8GHz machine this computer is faster than my father-in-law's running at 3.06GHz, so something is giving me that extra speed, and it ain't overclocking. Since I live at 10000ft cooling is an issue, so I leave it at stock speeds.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Of course you could just go 15k SCSI and blow IDE raid away with ultra-fast seek times

(Of course I know both have their strengths and limitations)

 

[SteeleBlayde]

As for SCSI, I would wait and save the money for when SAS (basically serial SCSI) comes out. Then put that in an Adaptec RAID array ....drool....

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally posted by Iron_Dreamer Of course you could just go 15k SCSI and blow IDE raid away with ultra-fast seek times (Of course I know both have their strengths and limitations)

I posted a link here on head-fi that did a test of the 15k SCSI versus a SATA RAID 0 system and they came out almost equal in speed. For all that extra money they said don't waste the money and get SATA and run it RAID 0. The actual results are listed right there on their site, so you can see the actual speed of both the SCSI and SATA systems directly compared.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Here's the link to the article in question for those who are curious:

http://modtown.co.uk/mt/article2.php?id=sataraid

 

[tortie]

Guys, if your looking for a really good defrag program, try out diskeeper. It defrags a lot faster & better than the defrag program of Windows. It also explains its options in detail, which is very helpful for all computer users from newbies to experts.

It can be downloaded here

 

[SteeleBlayde]

Hey Tortie, do you know if Diskeeper is as good as the Norton Speedisk that I'm using right now?

 

[tortie]

I've tried Norton's speedisk and Diskeeper. I prefer diskeeper because it defragments faster (Im talking about complete defrags).

The other thing that really stands out with me is that while it defrags, you can use your computer normally, It doesnt bog down the whole system. It also speeds up your system quite a lot after the defrag.

Anyway, try it out yourself. Its a trial download for 30 days.

 

[grinch]

Quote:

Originally posted by ServinginEcuador Here's the link to the article in question for those who are curious:

they don't show a comparison of seek times between the two, just transfer rate?

transfer rate isn't everything and not the only thing that contributes to a system's speed. depends on what you're using the setup for though, of course.

 

[Voodoochile]

SIE: I meant what do you do with the raid array... for comp work. Or is it just for overall fastness

.

I have a machine with a pair of SATA 10k Raptors in RAID 0, another with a 15k boot drive, and two 2-disk 10k striped sets (five drives, three controllers), and another with a Fujitsu 15k scsi drive single.

The 15k Fujitsu smokes even the 10k SATA raid. It's actually only a bit faster in transfer, but access time is NOW. But the nice thing about the SATA raid rig is the quietness. It's very similar to a decent single ata drive. Just a tad louder than a single Barracuda 5, for instance. The Fujitsu is quite a bit quieter than the 15k Cheetahs, and is faster... but it still sounds like a tiny jet engine off in the distance.

The 10k SATA raid is faster than the 10k SCSI raid. Seek is only marginally better, transfer is notably better.

My SATAcontroller is integrated, BTW. Don't bother with it using a plug-in controller, unless you need a new drive anyway, and plan on a new mobo in the near future, as the bus limitations and cpu overhead will drain off the *not huge* benefits of SATA. Gotta keep it optimal or it isn't worth it, IMHO.