Hard Drive question

ronboronbo Connecticut
edited February 2006 in Hardware
While getting everything ready to build my new computer, I am running into two different types of SATA drives. I see the normal SATA and Raid SATA. I will not be useing a RAID array but are the Raid drives better? I see the price differance is not very much for a Raid SATA over a normal SATA drive. Are they made better? The WD 250gig SATA is only $140. The 250gig SATA Raid is $165. Not much more in price. Since I will not be useing the Raid array, do I gain anything by going with the SATA Raid drive?.......

Comments

  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2005
    RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Discs. You take two or more HD's and run them as though they were one drive. For performance increases you "stripe" the data across the drives (RAID-0).

    Suppose you had a 32kb file and wanted to read it off a drive formatted in 4k clusters. You'd have to read eight different chunks of the file to get it all.

    Standard (single) drive: the first 4k, second 4K, third 4k, fourth 4K, fifth 4K, sixth 4K, seventh 4K, and eighth 4K, would all be read in turn.

    With a RAID setup you would stripe the data across the drives like this:

    Drive 1: the first 4k, third 4k, fifth 4K and seventh 4K
    Drive 2: the second 4K, fourth 4K, sixth 4K and eighth 4K

    Both drives could be reading at the same time, theoretically doubling the read speed. You lose a little to overhead since the RAID controller costs you some time as it manages the process, but it will perform faster overall.

    I'm guessing that what you're describing as a RAID drive is actually a kit containing two matched 120GB drives.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited February 2005
    Yeah, there's no such thing as a "RAID drive" - unless they are trying to pull a marketing scam... Can you link us to what you're looking at?
  • ronboronbo Connecticut
    edited February 2005
    No, I do not think it is a Raid drive kit. Here is what I asking about
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-154&depa=1

    Or this one?
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-179&depa=1

    Thank you both for your quick reply..
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2005
    Features:

    WD Caviar RE drives provide enhanced reliability in a 24x7, high duty cycle environment. In addition they offer a RAID-specific time-limited error recovery feature that improves compatibility with RAID adapter. WD Caviar RE hard drives are ideal for RAID server applications such as video surveillance, enterprise backup, document management, scientific computing, and similar demanding storage environments.
    and
    Features: Reliability in high duty cycle environments, SecureConnect, Improved power controller, FDB technology, Hot plug support
    Basically, what they're telling you is that this drive is purported to be more reliable. The "Hot plug support" is handy if you're running a different form of RAID where instead of striping the data (as I described above) each drive is an exact copy of the other.

    Suppose you had data which you could in no way afford to lose. The second kind of RAID would mean that even if one drive totally conked out, the other would still have every bit of your data. Of course, if the second drive croaked you'd be SOL, so you would want to replace the dead drive immediately. "Hot Swapping" means that you could replace the dead drive while the computer was still running and go merrily on your way with two good drives keeping your data safe.

    If you were responsible for keeping all of the payroll data for a large corporation it would make sense to pay a few extra bucks for the extra features. You wouldn't want to have to go to the president of the company and tell him you lost all the data just so you could save twenty-five bucks on the drive.

    The bottom line for a home user is that it is probably not worth the extra money unless it comes with a significantly longer warranty.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited February 2005
    yeah, it's all marketing hoodoo. You'll see no benefit from that extra money.
  • ronboronbo Connecticut
    edited February 2005
    Thank you, thank you all. What a great forum this is...
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2005
    No they make "raid" ide drives where the firmware is more optimized for raid environments. Its not how they are manufactured but rather how the firmware is tweaked to work better in that mode.

    It's not marketing crap or "hooey". They are the real deal.

    Tex
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited February 2005
    I still say it's marketing hoodoo... If it was HONEST marketing, they would mention that to a normal, non-raid user, there is no benefit to paying more money for this drive. This is a normal home user with no raid setup, who thought about paying more for a drive just because they make it "seem" better, when in reality it is no better for him.

    A buyer who wants raid optimized drives will know what they are looking for and won't need that marketing to find it.

    Plus, those drives are not _performance_ optimized for RAID - they are _compatibility_ optimized.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2005
    Uh why would a normal user buy a "raid" version if he wasnt going to use raid? The firmware is differant to enhance the performance in a raid environment.

    Just like the seagate barracuda's that sucked in raid could be swapped with seagate for one with firmware "optimized" for a raid environment. And they worked MUCH better.

    Tex
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2005
    Tex wrote:
    Uh why would a normal user buy a "raid" version if he wasnt going to use raid?...
    Because he was sucked in by the hype designed to make him think it was better overall.
  • grfxguygrfxguy
    edited February 2006
    Problem with the WD "JD" drives in RAID is that their error correcting causes the RAID controller (at least ADaptec) to time out, giving you a degraded array error.
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