HDD on way out, need advice.

[razgriz33]

Ok with a tremendous 12,098 hours of run time my 1tb hdd is finally feeling the stress. It's time to replace and upgrade, I would like improved performance but high storage capacity.

 

one option i've been looking at is RAID for mirroring and striping (1+0)

 

Another is just to have an SSD + HDD with a backup on HDD

 

can anybody offer me some advice?

[kamaradski]

As a optimization for ARMA i would do the following (depending on budget):

 

2x 128GB SSD in RAID-0 (the 2 drives will show-up as one C:\ on your pc)

1x normal HDD for your documents etc.. (d:\)

 

Since ARMA is streaming it's content live from the HDD, it will help you to be able to use almost twice the speed of SSD, specially on higher view distance.

And put a normal harddrive for storage of your documents etc.

 

In case budget or connectifity is a issue: 1x 256gb is also lots quicker then any normal HDD and more then big enough for windows + ARMA + a whole bunch of other crap.

 

RAID-0 background:

+ speed, lots and lots and lots of speed

- any error in the filesystem will result in raid loss, and you will in most cases not be able to rebuild without loosing data.

 

It writes half your file to both drives simultaneously, and is thus almost twice as fast as a normal SSD (and normal SSD is already very fast !)

Keep your documents save on a normal hardrive (and backup)

Keep a basic image of whatever is stored on the SSD's handy so in case stuff goes sideways you quickly up and running again.

 

Don't bother with RAID-1

2x 128gb would only give you normal speed (normal SSD speed that is) but only 128gb storage, the second drive is all redundancy

Read REDUNDANCY, NOT backup. since the "backup" is live if you would you accidentally delete a file, it's also gone in the "backup".

 

RAID 5 \ 6 \ 10 are also not interesting for you as they would need more then 2 drives and are normally only used for bigger storage like NAS or other File storage, and only make things slower instead of quicker.

Example: with RAID-5 and 4 drives you loose the 4th drive from your effective storage capacity, however in return there is 1 disk redundancy so one disk can fully fail without loosing data (after a slow and painstaking rebuild process)

 

PS: If money is no issue to for the PRO-line from the Samsung SSD, they are very quick Without PRO they are cheaper but also a lot slower (specially writing)

[razgriz33]

Thanks kam that helps a lot

[Brooksie10]

I would agree with kamaradski.

 

Sorry I cant add anything more to what hes already said

[George]

I know I go on about this technology a lot but Intel Smart Response is seriously cool.

 

1) Confirm that your motherboard has a Z77 chipset and a Ivybridge processor (if it doesn't, blow your next pay cheque on a motherboard that does and return to this post)

 

2) Buy a super cheap 32 - 64gb SSD and a big HDD

 

3) Install your OS on the HDD and set up Intel SRT

 

4) Profit from the performance of an SSD and the reliability of the HDD without having to worry about the size limitations of SSDs 

 

:3 

[kamaradski]

Ola George,

 

I agree with you that ISR is cool and quick, and if you already happen to own a z77 also very cheap to implement with great speed increase even in a existing setup without re-installing your windows. All very good plusses !

 

However there are a few dis-advantages and reasons why i wouldn't use it in this situation:

1 - First time you run your application\OS it still loads from a normal HDD, and thus the first time not any quicker. Second time you use this same data is is very quick. (maybe even quicker then normal SSD, as it works a little similar to RAM-disk i think)

 

2 - ARMA streams the data live, unless pre-cached your game will still be slower when loading some terrain or other content for the first time.

 

Most other games pre-cache their content when loading the level, however ARMA is just too huge to do this and therefore streams what should be on your screen, and forget about it when out of view distance again.

 

So again it's also depending on budget again, (hey for 50 quid you might have a very good upgrade on a existing PC...).

And i would recommend this technology for every office PC in the world, and even for most home PC's this is very useful. However for a dedicated ARMA machine i would go with proper HD, or lots of memory (16GB or more) and RAMDISK (be aware of a slight CPU impact), 

 

 

 

What i personally have:

A single 256GB Samsung SDD, due to budget (i didnt even have money ávailable to get the PRO edition..) However i can also easly buy a second one later and put them in RAID.

[George]

So from that I guess we can conclude, get what ever suits you best razgriz33  

 

<waffle> I've got a couple of SSDs, I did have them in RAID0 as soon as TRIM was available for SSD RAID0 arrays runnign Windows 8. One day I was adjusting with my cable management but accidentally unplugged an SSD when I meant to unplug my CD Drive- RAID0 aray = broken But now you can have your Steam Apps on different drives I've just gone back to single drives. I'm going to have to throw another SSD in soon as I'm running out of space! That's when I wish I'd gone for Intel SRT cause of the costs, though I guess SSDS are coming down in price. </waffle> 

[Rarek]

I don't get too into hardware, but my setup, if you're interested is:

• 1 x 128GB SSD
  Windows OS installed + select few programs
   
• 2 x 2TB HDD
  One of these is my "Applications" drive and the other is my "Data" drive. You can guess what goes on each one.

[kamaradski]

• You can guess what goes on each one.

 

P0rn and more p0rn ??

[Rarek]

P0rn and more p0rn ??

 

Pr0n*.

[razgriz33]

Final question and probably a stupid one: can i turn this existing HDD into an external storage?

 

I'm set up to buy the following:

2 x 

Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s

1 x 

 

Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache

 

to run in Raid 0, i can see the risk of data loss and ill just hope to not mess it up

windows OS and only my favourite couple of games at the time on the SSD

Everything else on the HDD

[kamaradski]

1: Yes you can buy a external HDD enclosure and use it as a oversized USB disk. But as you know it won't suddenly get more relaiable So dont use it for backups that you might need later.

 

2: RAID can get fokked-up without proper reason, disks are known to fall out of the array sometimes. with RAID-0 in most cases a rebuild will not fix it. So keep your documents on the other drive and just make sure you run a image once a month and store it on the SATA disk or external drive, this way in case your array gets fokked you just do the following:

- Build a new raid and format drive

- Pop back the image you kept

- 15-20min later your good to go again.

 

good read

[razgriz33]

ok, good advice and will read and if all is well ill make the purchase

[iLLGT3]

Yeah, my 240GB Corsair Force 3 is for Windows 7, some programs, and ArmA 3. SSD's are the way to go especially if you can RAID them.

[razgriz33]

Well guys, they arrived monday. even a packet of haribo! fitting at the weekend

[George]

Ahha, a pack of Haribo in the box- looks like you ordered from Overclockers :3

[kamaradski]

sweet have fun with the rebuild and config, thats always the best part of getting some new toys in

[razgriz33]

Well guys thanks to your advice, i took the plunge and did it, thanks to everybody who helped out.