Sata Raid 0 with WD Raptor

[rory 0]

thanks, yeah this was for a home user .. actually I was thinking a GigaByte i-ram drive (4x1GB SDRAM) for the OS and 2 Raptors in Raid 0 (partitioned in 2, 1 for the Swap and the other for the data) ... or even just the single Raptor for the 2nd drive and no Raid 0 ...

 

Anyway yeah for CCTV the OS doesnt have to be that fast but the faster the video drive the better .. but then there's the heat factor and cost .. with the raptors ..

 

Anyways .. thanks

 

Rory

[rory 0]

Update to this .. client got a couple Raptors .. no raid 1 here just normal hook ups .. anyway, 1 was OEM and the other was a Retail .. both are very very Noisy!! So we got a silencer that fits in the 5.25" slot, seems more like a cooler to me, no fan just a heat sink type enclosure, but it claimed it makes the drives silent .. well no change .. nothing noticable anyway, the drive was still very very noisy ..

 

As to the speed .. didnt feel any faster, in fact it felt slower, could have just been the fact that you can hear everything it does.

 

Anyway, well copying files to it from a 7200rpm drive was much faster than copying files from it to the 7200rpm drive; tested with 40GB of files copying .. and using a Hard Drive Speed test program I have here, it showed up as the 7200rpm and the Raptor being about the same in reads, though actually the 7200rpm came out faster but it was with less data, even though it was a larger drive, tested it on different sized partitions though, same thing. But the access time was faster on the Raptor, being 5.6ms, with the 7200rpm drive at 7.2ms - not a huge difference though. The score was 990 for the 7200rpm drive, and 1400 for the Raptor, But no idea how they came up with that, stayed pretty much the same each time.

 

I imagine it may be faster in some instances such as where data is being copied to/from it alot, but the noise factor is just not worth that IMO. The 7200rmp drive, a Western Digital SE16-500 in this case, is super quiet, and still feels fast.

 

Perhaps the Raptor might be better suited in a server application where it is in a dedicated server room with acoustic silencing on the walls, racks , cases, etc .. Definitely not for a home user though, it will set you MAD! Mind you the clients son doesnt seem to mind, we left it in his PC, though Im going to try to talk him out of it, and going back to the 500GB as his main drive, or at least we may try some other silencer enclosures, and perhaps in Raid 0 next time.

 

Rory

Edited October 4, 2007 by Guest

[CollinR 0]

RAID 0 is just mirroring, it is faster - but there is no redudancy.

 

You mean just striping, no mirroring.

 

Basically all RAID 0 is good for is bang:buck storage it is the most storage efficienent. RAID 1 is mirrored and can read from both disks at the same time however it must write to both at tha same time.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Rory, I did not see (or may not read the entire thread) of the motherboard that you intend to use with this... What is the make and the model?? OR, which video card do you use and who is the make and model>

 

Nowadays most of the motherboards already come built in chipset for RAID...

 

AS for number of hard drives, stay away from using 4 hard drives... stay with (2) drives mirrored and performance will be exceptional. You do not need to push WD Raptors... rather go with WD 7200 or Seagate preferably 7200 RPM drives..

 

Another area that you could gain more performance (we had a different thread few weeks ago about this topic) is to get the paperwork on how TinyXP has been programmed... (No, do not get the pirated XP )... If you really go through all their recommendations (most of which have a lot to do on disabling many unnecessary services that run in the background and modification in the REGEDIT), your maximum RAM usage at XP idle should be no higher than 100MB (basic XP system chew through at least 250MB+). Proper programming will render tremendous overhead, thus will increase performance.

 

If you read more about TinyXP, there is a write up that complies with what "gamers" use... With that XP setup, your RAM usage drops around 40MB... and make is even faster (even less services, more modified REGEDIT configuration).. I used one of their recommended setups... performance was unbelievable...

 

But I am very curious which motherboard and video card in this package... That will define additional tasks or no tasks at all...

[rory 0]

No idea, as never went with it, see above though about the Raptor.

 

As to XP, when I tweak the standard XP Pro it goes down to about 130MB memory usage, which is super fast and can still run all the apps we need.

 

And yes, I know all about the registry, im in there every day

[CollinR 0]

Rory and I have both used TinyXP and nLite, both can help you make a very good image.

 

To go to the next level try for an XP Pro / XPe hybrid, make the machine boot from a compact flash card.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

No idea, as never went with it, see above though about the Raptor.

 

As to XP, when I tweak the standard XP Pro it goes down to about 130MB memory usage, which is super fast and can still run all the apps we need.

 

And yes, I know all about the registry, im in there every day

 

C'mon, you can do better... it should not go any higher than 100MB or less..

[rory 0]

Ive never used TinyXP actually .. but yes Nlite .. anyway I now have a good working set of reg fixes for a Geo DVR .. Speed was the fastest yet .. when I get a chance I will slap them into my Tweak Program and reupload it again.

[rory 0]

No idea, as never went with it, see above though about the Raptor.

 

As to XP, when I tweak the standard XP Pro it goes down to about 130MB memory usage, which is super fast and can still run all the apps we need.

 

And yes, I know all about the registry, im in there every day

 

C'mon, you can do better... it should not go any higher than 100MB or less..

 

Im talking about a PC with Office, Outlook, etc, loaded on it, and some other things running in the background .. not just a plain system.

 

Anyway, as for a DVR, soon as you load Geo it goes up to ... 300+ what you already had! Just add more memory, Dual Channel DDR2-800 makes them fly now, like they are on speed or something

 

I stripped down XP too much in the past and Geo did not work properly, not worth the extra 30-40MB of memory when memory is so cheap these days. Besides I dont have weeks on end to mess with that, other things to do you know, plus I only have the 1 computer

[rory 0]

ok got it down to 120mb with AVG Antivirus disabled .. but im not removing any standard components from my PC to see if I can get it lower .. cause I know I will need them at some point and forget to put them back in

[woodyads 0]

I have just been specking a new high transaction SQL server. Throwing about 14 disk in it. Every function is getting its own array of disks. One set for the OS, one for swap, one for Tempdb, one for each database and one for each log. There will be two databases on the server with a total disk capacity of 32 disk. All disks are to be 15,000k set up in raid 1 or raid 10 with no raid 5 at all.

 

Lead me to think of the valour of putting individual cameras on their own disks. Depending on the amount of replay you do and the server configuration there is room to argue (in the case of no redundancy) smaller groups of cameras on individual disks and not raiding the disks. Or in the case of redundancy using many smaller arrays rather than one big one.

 

The break even point in calculating the number of cameras depends on how much upset is caused to the array or disk by reviewing one stream while trying to write the other streams. You also have to take into consideration the efficiency of the controller, when you move to serial or fibre channel etc. There is no set answer as prices and performance of the components are constantly changing.

 

One other big change is we have moved to parametric pricing. That means that we now get charged for server support and capital as a monthly expense over the life of the asset. This is not a lease but an internal charging method that takes the burden of spending IT capital. Most big companies are very limited in how much capital they can spend but their expense budget is quite limitless. The good news for CCTV here is it should be easier to get decent hardware in place .

 

 

Rough figures.

Server support $1500 - $2000 per month depending on services

$30k server is now $700 per month.

 

The server above is costing around $2200 per month for both support and capital.