15,000RPM Hitachi Drives?

ps3ud0 · 11 Feb 2006 at 01:37

Blue Cypher said:
Yes on a high volume server, not a homeuser, where SATA is better.

Perhaps you are confused with Serial attached SCSI, but there are really no instances (real world or benchmark) where the SATA is anywhere better/faster than SCSI other than price point.

Id admit its 'slightly' OTT to have SCSI for a normal home setup, but it wouldnt slow the system in any way - its a shame its still so expensive...

ps3ud0 :cool:

AndyC · 11 Feb 2006 at 11:12

Interesting points, 2 add we had a new HP server in a while back with 2 mirrored sata's (7.2K) and a benchmarked it against a 4 yr old server with 2 mirrored scsi drives (15k) while the transfer was higher with the sata the scsi destroyed it with the access times. I was quite shocked hth.

BoomAM · 11 Feb 2006 at 17:24

Doesnt suprise me.
HDD technology has hardly progressed.
Sure we have bigger capacities. & new interfaces.
But the HDD still remains the main bottleneck in a system, because they are so slow.
Look at SATA. They have theoretical transfer speeds of 150 & 300MB/s. But because of how HDDs work internally, that'll never be reached. So why bother with the new interface if the drive itself cant keep up?

MAllen · 11 Feb 2006 at 19:21

There are some weird people who use SCSI in their home PCs. (See sig

).

It is horrendously expensive, but worth it. Especially once you start adding more and more drives. One big advantage it has over IDE is the ability to address all of the drives at *** same time. Whereas IDE has to talk to one drive at a time, and wait for the response.

I see a visible difference with speed on this SCSI PC compared with my mates SATA RAID or other SATA or IDE PCs I have in this house. And I am only using 32-bit PCI.

I think that NCQ on SATA II starts to address this problem of talking to one drive at a time.

SCSI is really aimed for servers, though a graphics artist will also make good use of it.

cavemanoc · 12 Feb 2006 at 11:04

Yep! Another happy home Scsi user here - just putting the finishing touches on at the moment (damn cables are hard to find!).

Anyway - will be using 1x18Gb Cheetah (15k) for windows
2x18Gb Cheetah (15k) Raid 0 for BF2 etc...

At the moment I've just got 1 for win and 1 for games and I can confirm that they are blisteringly fast - I am always the first onto the map, and the transfer rates are outstanding (HDTach always fills me with the warm and fuzzy!)

They take a little getting to grips with, but they aren't nearly as expensive or difficult as people make out. Well worth the investment (especially if you then throw in a cheap SATA as random storage!) - Raptor users eat your hearts out

MAllen · 12 Feb 2006 at 12:58

Mmmm.... installing games or loading game levels is especially good on SCSI. LOL!! I am always first into the levels too. LOL. I also spread my swap file onto it's own SCSI drive, as well as having SCSI CD-R and DVD players. Very noticable

My bulk storage is covered on the LAN using SATAs. I'm not rich enough for multiple SCSI systems.

Mmmm... nice SCSI... (And if you are still having problems with getting cables, then email in my trust and I'll point you to my local dealer.)

BoomAM · 12 Feb 2006 at 13:33

If i had the money, i'd have a 36Gb SCSI Windows drive, for windows & the main apps.
A second 36Gb, with the first partition for the swap file, second for temporary files, and third for misc apps.
A third drive just for games.
And a SATA drive thats 500Gb+ for general storage.

If, i had the money.

MAllen · 12 Feb 2006 at 13:44

BoomAM - I almost have that.... two 36Gb drives. OS on drive one, and Swap on the first partion of drive two. Then my Applications and Games are installed in separate partitions on drive one, with Data living on drive two. Sometimes the odd game gets onto drive two as well.

General storage is then on a pair of 250GB SATAs in my server. (I only have five PCs and a laptop running in this room at the moment.... lol

)

I have been seriously thinking about 64-bit PCI for my next motherboard. Though it is that strange combination of "Server" and "Gamer" needs being combined.

BoomAM · 12 Feb 2006 at 13:50

A Gaming based system with a server based storage solution is probably the ultimate PC in every area.

MAllen · 12 Feb 2006 at 13:56

Except for the noise from the screeching SCSI drives..... a down side of the 10,000 rpm drives.

BoomAM · 12 Feb 2006 at 16:16

That is one downside.

cavemanoc · 12 Feb 2006 at 16:39

You know - the Cheetahs are not nearly as noisy as I thought they were going to be - they get a bit excited from time to time, but mostly they just hum along (Could be getting drowned out by the chiller though

)

How much are Scsi dvd's going for these days?

nightwish · 12 Feb 2006 at 18:18

Can these scsi drives be put into the aluminium silentmaxx encosure that ocuk sells? Or would they slowly cook inside there?

I really like the idea of having a scsi disc just for booting windows and playing games, but I like my peace and quiet too!

MAllen · 13 Feb 2006 at 09:35

Yes, you can box them up. Ideally a box with it's own fan. I have one of my drives boxed up in a Coolermaster. Get a temp probe in there, or use Speedfan/MBM5 to monitor the hard drive temps.

Look for the boxes which can handle the 10000/15000 rpm drives.

cavemanoc · 13 Feb 2006 at 13:24

nightwish said:
Can these scsi drives be put into the aluminium silentmaxx encosure that ocuk sells? Or would they slowly cook inside there?

I really like the idea of having a scsi disc just for booting windows and playing games, but I like my peace and quiet too!

That was my plan exactly! The box is not rated to 15k, and you will slowly cook your drive (these things run hot!) However, I was then going to bolt a waterblock onto the outside which should solve the problem - silent and cool

Definitely going to include a temp probe - though you should be able to monitor it through your software (HDTach?)

MAllen · 13 Feb 2006 at 13:37

cavemanoc said:
That was my plan exactly! The box is not rated to 15k, and you will slowly cook your drive (these things run hot!) However, I was then going to bolt a waterblock onto the outside which should solve the problem - silent and cool

Definitely going to include a temp probe - though you should be able to monitor it through your software (HDTach?)

Yes - SCSI drives are very hot. Without any cooling, the drive was running in high 50's. When I used the Coolermaster box, it took some noise away as well as cooling it with a small fan. Temps now much lower.

Your watercooling idea will work if the box you pick does a job of transfering the heat out to your block. Otherwise, a low dB fan in front of them will help. In my PCs I have always mounted my SCSIs in the 5.25" CD Bays at the top of the case. This means it is much easier to mount a silent fan in front of them to push cool air past. And it keeps all this excess heat out of the main PC case.

HDTach is a benchmarking program. To monitor drive temps, use MBM5 or Speedfan. As SCSIs are designed for Servers, they are usually much higher quality parts. And this means that the tempature readings will be available through SMART.

Speedfan tells me that my SCSIs are currently 25 and 23 degrees Celcius - which is the same temp as the Case.

nightwish · 13 Feb 2006 at 14:45

cavemanoc said:
That was my plan exactly! The box is not rated to 15k, and you will slowly cook your drive (these things run hot!) However, I was then going to bolt a waterblock onto the outside which should solve the problem - silent and cool

I thought you could get blocks to specifically cool hard disc drives?

BoomAM · 13 Feb 2006 at 14:55

You can.
But they are designed for consumer level HDDs, not server ones.

cavemanoc · 13 Feb 2006 at 16:40

Yep - and they do nothing for the noise - hence the combination of the 2. SMART was what I was thinking of - cheers!