[hafleystyles]

I'm buying a new hard drive. Which is faster?

IDE ULTRA ATA 100
IDE ATA ULTRA 133
SCSI Ultra320 68pin
SCSI Ultra320 80pin
SATA 3.0Gb/s
Serial ATA 150

[msgwtco]

SATA 3.0Gb/s is the fastest interface out of all those. 384MB/Sec
but what really slows things down is the mechanical movement in a hard drive. Most 72kRPM drives output 50MB/Second at most times. I would go with either an ATA 100/133 or SATA 150 drive. SCSI drives are much more expensive.

[Devzero]

SCSI Ultra320 has the highest theoretical throughput I believe. It caps at 320MB/sec. SATA 3.0 comes in at a close 300MB/sec. If you are building a home pc, I would go with SATA, no questions. If it is for a server, I would go with SCSI, just because they are more reliable drives, hence the higher price.

A certain form factor does not always accurately predict speed. Other factors come into play, like cluster size, onboard buffer size, and data queuing - to name a few. If you are just concerned about absolute raw speed, I would go with two WD 74GB raptors; and set them up in a raid 0 array. This is the most cost effective way to get maximum speed for home users.

Be warned though, in raid 0, if one drive goes bad, you lose all of your data. I have found newer WD drives not to be as reliable as Seagate, although I have not worked with raptor drives yet.

If you are in the market for server class drives, I would look into setting up two Seagate Cheetah drives in a raid 0 array. These work on Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or Ultra 320 scsi. I mentioned SCSI drives come at a premium, Newegg lists these drives for $1140. These beasts roar at 15,000 RPM, I have not had the opportunity to play with these either. I am going to assume these sound like a hurricane when they are running, and would probably cause the lights in your neighborhood to dim when you fired up two at once.

Oops, looks like a rabmled a bit, Ultra SCSI320 is the speed champ right now ^_^

Seagate Cheetah
http://www.seagate.com/products/enterprise/cheetah.html

WD Raptor
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Produ...65&Language=en

More than you ever wanted to know about hard drive interfaces
http://www.scsita.org/aboutscsi/sas/...iew_public.pdf

[Devzero]

SATA 3.0Gb/s is not 384Mb/s, it is 300. 0_o
If it were that fast, it would be called SATA 3.8Gb/s
^_^

[hafleystyles]

does scsi 68pin vs 80 pin mean anything to me as far as speed is concerned? Which of these would be the fastest/best? also for scsi i dont think my mobo has a connection for that i need a card? what card would be best? i have an asus A8N-VM CMS

Hitachi...16mb cache...15,000 rmp...Ultra320 80pin http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822141140

Fujitsu...8mb cache...15,000 rpm...Ultra320 68pin http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822116149

WD Raptor...8mb cache...10,000 rpm...Serial ATA 150http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144160

[hafleystyles]

I think what i'm going to do is just get a raptor 74gb, use it for my os and use my 300gb maxtor sata as a hot swap data drive.

[ShabazKillaX]

Is this for a server, or a workstation?

Is this for a production environment (i.e. little to no down time) ?

What is the intended use of these drives? Database, fileserver, etc, ?

If it's for a server, how many users will be access it concurrently?

What is your target capacity?

What is your budget?

Need to know these things first.

[hafleystyles]

This is my high end work pc. mostly web development, huge resolution image and video editing. i tax the cpu greatly with multiple applications open at the same time. my pc is always on with about 10-15 hours of work per day. i dont have a budget. but i do like the idea of a sub $200 raptor solution.

[msgwtco]

Originally Posted by Devzero

SATA 3.0Gb/s is not 384Mb/s, it is 300. 0_o
If it were that fast, it would be called SATA 3.8Gb/s
^_^

oops my mistake. i thought 1Gigabit = 1024 Megabits

like 1 GB=1024 MB

[Devzero]

You are completly right about that, but I have always seen it listed at 300Mb/s..but hmm...that is a good point...lol.

[Devzero]

If you are working with large files, I would go with a 4k cluster size on your storage drive. The default 512 byte cluster size should be fine for the raptor. 15k RPM drives are really geared towards server applications, so the raptor should do you just fine.

Raptor for OS and apps seems like a very good fit. I would go with a Seagate Barracuda sata 3.0Gb/s for your main storage.

http://www.seagate.com/products/personal/barracuda.html

[Dyre]

Originally Posted by hafleystyles

I think what i'm going to do is just get a raptor 74gb, use it for my os and use my 300gb maxtor sata as a hot swap data drive.

Do this, but I would look into using a Seagate for the 300gb drive, and I would probably get 2 and setup a mirror- That is if your data is important- If its not mission critical, the 1 300gb drive will be perfect.

The new raptors are out too btw, incase the 76gb isnt enough they now make a 150gb raptor.