Who's got the fastest hard drive in town?

[plucky duck]

I do! I do!

Just joking, but if you think yours is a heavyweight contender, plese post 'em here!

Cost?
What brand?
What size?
What type (ie-ide, eide, udma33, udma66, scsi)
What's the rated "ms"?
What's the rpm?
And don't forget, what's your benchmark numbers say.

I use SISOFT SANDRA 99 as a benchmark.

Here's what I've got.

Cost $289 Canadian back in Aug '98
Fujitsu 6.4gig
UDMA-33 5400RPM 9.5ms
128k buffer (next to nothin')
Benchmarked at 8.7mb transfer rate with DMA ENABLED.
*Note: had this drive for less than a year and it's already got bad sector. Shows what quality products Fujitsu makes.

Cost $329 canadian as of May '99
Western Digital EXPERT 9.1GIG
UDMA-66 7200RPM 9MS
2MB BUFFER (**** THAT'S A LOT BETTER!)
Benchmarked at 9.9mb transfer rate with DMA ENABLED
*Note: the WD was benchmarked under udma33, and not udma66 enabled 'cause I've got no PROMISE UDMA66 CARD.
Not bad a transfer rate at all.


O.k. Now its your turn to show your tushees

[This message has been edited by plucky duck (edited 05-30-99).]

[socalgal]

ahh plucky. Since you asked, I must gloat...

Just picked this up yesterday, from a sale at Fry's:

$182.94 (out the door)
WD Caviar 31300 13G UDMA/66
9.5ms
512k buffer
5400 rpm

No benchmarks yet. (sorry!) Just today hooked it up as a slave on LOLA to make sure it works and put Win98/FAT32 on it. (It's going into a new system,soon I hope)

May not be the fastest, but I am happy happy happy! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Scott Evans]

American Megatrends MegaRAID 428 2 channel controller, 32 MB cache, 4 Quantum Atlas 2.2 GB 7200 RPM 512KB UW SCSI drives striped across both channels in a RAID 5 configuration w/64 KB stripe.

Older hardware CAN kick *** at times.

And these controllers are certified to run on DEC Alpha's, so they can handle PCI bus speeds up to 66MHz.

I got *real* tired of reloading WinDestruct95
a few years back every time it decided to scramble itself. RAID 5 is a beautiful thing.

[BBA]

Gee the servers at work all have fast raid 5 SCSI 10000RPM drives (5 each).

That pretty much blows away most all else!

BBA

[Scott Evans]

I'm jealous.......sorta. I like cheap.
The weird part about RAID systems is they don't benchmark as one would expect, but the actual performance is outstanding. A full defrag+reorder of 2 GB of badly fragmented data takes less than 10 minutes. Once the OS and a couple programs load, it's running from cache.

Plus they make a beautiful noise, and lots of it.

[Roy]

I saw some nice 10,000 RPM drives at Fry's a few days ago. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[plucky duck]

****, I shouldn't have asked you guys.

Now you make me so jealous.

By the way, did you know that FAT32 is slower than FAT16?
Sure it gives you more megs for your money, but I want speed!

RAID hard drives kick ***, as MAXIMUMPC would say, but I'm not so sure about SCSI performance (well...the older scsi's anyway)

The performance difference between UDMA AND SCSI is not that great to justify paying a tonne of cash for the SCSI controller card.
Of course, I could be wrong.

[Scott Evans]

Today, I would have to agree, on a drive vs. drive basis. Two years ago, no way. However, there are other benefits to going all SCSI as well.

[socalgal]

oh nooooo FAT32 is slower than FAT16??
Ack! How much? I am getting ready to install Win98/FAT32 on my new WD 13G UDMA/66. Since I have so much space, should I leave it FAT 16? ahhhh!

[Bleeding Edge]

Geez. I didn't know you bought a new drive, socalgal. Great! plucky, you should be ashamed of yourself getting her riled up over FAT32/16 like that.

I just love the sound of Raid. Wish I could afford such a disk sub-system. LVD drives on Raid 0/1. Yummy.

I think the perfomance difference is a justifiable cause to go with SCSI (for those who can afford it.) These LVD drives will easily achieve a sustained transfer rate of 18MB/sec. They also come close to their max burst rate of 80MB.

What is plucky concerning himself with cost anyhow? Doesn't he get everything, almost for free? http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

Scott, have you tried Raid level 0 or 0/1, out of curiosity. That's the best performance level, correct? I'm sure you would be using it if it were applicable in your setup but.. just out see?

I guess Raid can be used with IDE drives now?

[plucky duck]

Bleeding edge - I'm talking in layman terms, not in Bill Gates' "term".

****, why am I not Bill Gates' daughter?
Just imagine me asking bil 'ol daddy for "pennies" everyday for my so-called "computer gaming & upgrading needs".
He He He...

socalgal - make up your mind cause once you're FAT (FAT32), you can't (your hardrive) can't be skinny again (FAT16).

[Overclockin]

WD 16.8 gig
6800 RPM
its big

I am looking for like a 4 or 5 gig UW SCSI 10000 RPM for all my apps and boot drive
and then have the 16.8 as a server drive

[socalgal]

plucky duck ~ Not true. You can convert back from FAT 32 to FAT 16 by fdisking/reformatting without enabling large disk support. Or with less than perfect odds with Partition Magic.

I don't believe there would be so much speed/performance degradation to warrant not to convert to FAT32.

I had already installed Win98/FAT32 on my new drive, but I'm going to fdisk/reformat it in any case to get rid of EZ-Drive.

Here's a good link re this subject:
http://www.project9.com/fat32/

[MadMax]

Anyone that would say IDE is equal to SCSI, and I don't care what the type, has never had the two side by side. Don't go believing all of the marketing hype and bogus benchmarks of these UDMA/66 disks. Ultra2 SCSI is THE technology in hard disks, hands down. http://www.seagate.com/cda/disc/mark/detail/0,1250,31,00.shtml
And as for extra money...If you want REAL performance, you don't whine about the high price. You put your money down and knowing that you've got the best money can buy.lol muhuhuuhahahaa. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[MAGIC 8-BALL and THE ELF]

I wonder ... is the plucky one really a duck or a drake? The profile is rather tight billed. - 8Ball

Only s/he can tell us for sure. - Elf

[BBA]

socalgal...


Wait, you do not have to fdisk/reformat to remove ez-drive. Honest, you won't lose any data at all!

I've done it several times!

As long as your bios will autodetect your drive, you dont need it loaded and all you have to do is go into the EZ-drive setup and disable/remove it from controlling the drive. It will tell you your drive is not supported by bios regardless of if it is or not, so don't worry about that. The first time you boot after you remove it, you will see the message "EZ-BIOS NOT LOADING" or something like that, then it will be gone for good the next time you boot.

BTW Fdisk/Format won't remove it anyways!

BBA

[Bleeding Edge]

8Ball.

He really comes off like a well-written character, doesn’t he? Doesn’t break from it either.

The way he humors himself is a bit odd. But I think he’s okay. I didn’t know what to think when he first appeared. He took a lot of flak back then, with his plucky-ducky ways.

I mean ghaaad, plucky duck?!!

[socalgal]

BBA ~ thanks for your urgent warning http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

I knew that I didn't have to fdisk/format to remove EZ-Drive, because when I was testing my new 13G (hooking it up as a slave to LOLA) I installed the EZ-Drive on the 13G, and it entered on LOLA's BIOS. I thought it had only ez'd on the 13G (since that's what I had set it to do), but after removing the new drive, EZ-Drive was still loading on LOLA's Bios. So I uninstalled it.

BUT, I didnt' know that you COULDNT remove it with fdisk/format. Thanks for that info!

I have been intaking so much lately my brain is saturated. Especially with vidcard reviews.

Ahh, yes. 8-Ball. Elf. The Two/Three/One Wonders of This World? yes, methinks they are ok too. Injections of humor & insight always needed and welcomed by this poster. No one better give 'em flak on my watch.

Edge, awaiting your opinion over in video...
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

(Good thing Elmer F. isn't out duckhunting)


[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 06-05-99).]