HD154UI 3-Drive RAID0 Benchmarks

[DoFoT9]

Who, Me? Crazy? //whistles and eyes move about the ceiling.

i was referring to The Tess ™, but you can also be crazy too - your smart so it seems feasible

I know they're nutz on the pricing in Australia, but is it getting worse over exchange rates?

it seems to be getting much much much worse! i could get a MP shipped from NZ for cheaper then going to the local store!

Looking at it from what DoFoT9 has to pay, maybe we shouldn't complain so hard.

Nah. Never.

HA! sooks i paid $4.5kAus for my original CD MBP, maxed out.. it sucks now but it was worth the investment. lovely machine. its too expensive to upgrade now (poor uni student)

 

[nanofrog]

it seems to be getting much much much worse! i could get a MP shipped from NZ for cheaper then going to the local store!

Sorry, that has to suck.

How does a unit in NZ shipped to you work out?
Substantial savings, or just whatever you can?

HA! sooks i paid $4.5kAus for my original CD MBP, maxed out.. it sucks now but it was worth the investment. lovely machine. its too expensive to upgrade now (poor uni student)

Nothing lasts forever. Which is understandable if it breaks after a good service life. What truly gets depressing though, is that computers usually become obsolete before they actually fail. Though they can be a good source for screws and cables.

 

[DoFoT9]

Sorry, that has to suck.

How does a unit in NZ shipped to you work out?
Substantial savings, or just whatever you can?

a few months back i calculated it and it seemed to be about $300Aus cheaper, im fairly certain that is with tax (over here we advertise with tax added haha).. it seemed like a good deal

Nothing lasts forever. Which is understandable if it breaks after a good service life. What truly gets depressing though, is that computers usually become obsolete before they actually fail. Though they can be a good source for screws and cables.

unfortunately nothing does these days. im VERY happy with the 3 years ive got so far out of my MBP, i cant afford to upgrade to anything at the moment. its extremely underpowered for me - i only wish i had some money to upgrade (would get the 2.93GHz 15" MBP with 8GB RAM, so its NOT cheap).

i have TO many screws and cables..

 

[nanofrog]

a few months back i calculated it and it seemed to be about $300Aus cheaper, im fairly certain that is with tax (over here we advertise with tax added haha).. it seemed like a good deal

It would be worth it then, assuming the difference in your favor still holds.

unfortunately nothing does these days. im VERY happy with the 3 years ive got so far out of my MBP, i cant afford to upgrade to anything at the moment. its extremely underpowered for me - i only wish i had some money to upgrade (would get the 2.93GHz 15" MBP with 8GB RAM, so its NOT cheap).

Would the used or refurb market be an option, or still too pricey ATM?
I do remember being a student, and the money never going far enough. So I can certainly relate.

i have TOO many screws and cables..

That's blasphemy I tell you, BLASPHEMY!

 

[DoFoT9]

It would be worth it then, assuming the difference in your favor still holds.

oh yes very much so, i wonder what it would be like getting shipped from the US (probably wouldnt do that though, adaptor problems occur)

Would the used or refurb market be an option, or still too pricey ATM?
I do remember being a student, and the money never going far enough. So I can certainly relate.

the refurbs could be an idea, but the price difference is so tiny its hardly even worth considering it. besides, the higher end machines rarely become available - there are hardly even the base machine reburbs available (we have a small poopulation )

with everything at the moment im only getting like 4-hrs a week of work! which is $100Aus a week, i pay $60 in petrol getting uni each day (still at the rents) so im struggling to even save any money (trying to start a business )

That's blasphemy I tell you, BLASPHEMY!

Heh! thought you'd like that

 

[nanofrog]

oh yes very much so, i wonder what it would be like getting shipped from the US (probably wouldnt do that though, adaptor problems occur)

The PSU is operable in 230VAC. You'd only need the proper power cord.
The OS X would be for the US, so it would have some differences. I'm not sure, but you might be able to adjust this easily. Shipping, taxes, and customs fees I've no idea, but might be worth looking into.

with everything at the moment im only getting like 4-hrs a week of work! which is $100Aus a week, i pay $60 in petrol getting uni each day (still at the rents) so im struggling to even save any money (trying to start a business )

I remember things like that. Multiple jobs to pick up any income when possible. And always tired.

 

[DoFoT9]

The PSU is operable in 230VAC. You'd only need the proper power cord.
The OS X would be for the US, so it would have some differences. I'm not sure, but you might be able to adjust this easily. Shipping, taxes, and customs fees I've no idea, but might be worth looking into.

we are on 240V over here there are lots of problems with bringing over the US adaptor, i had an american friend who had a MB and it would always not charge the laptop and it frequently shut off the computer so yea... wierd

I remember things like that. Multiple jobs to pick up any income when possible. And always tired.

its a tough life isnt it! ive been averaging 5hrs sleep on the weekdays gotta wake up at 5am 3days a week so i can get there for an 8am start.

so summing up.. i cant afford an SSD RAID

 

[Tesselator]

we are on 240V over here there are lots of problems with bringing over the US adaptor, i had an american friend who had a MB and it would always not charge the laptop and it frequently shut off the computer so yea... wierd

Wiring up a step-up transformer is cake and doable at 1000 to 2000 watts for like $150 or so. Here's mine:

All hand made. It's in storage now but it'll clean up nice...

so summing up.. i cant afford an SSD RAID

I think you're not missing anything.


.

 

[DoFoT9]

Wiring up a step-up transformer is cake and doable at 1000 to 2000 watts for like $150 or so. Here's mine:

All hand made. It's in storage now but it'll clean up nice...

i think im missing the point of that, sorry! haha

I think you're not missing anything.

performance increases are total w0wage! i would love a few SSDs! why wouldnt i want them?

 

[Tesselator]

i think im missing the point of that, sorry! haha

You said you were having trouble with devices on your native 240V system. If you use a step-down transformer (Sorry I meant step-down, not step-up) coil to supply 117VA at the mains and run the devices at their US specs (not switched up to 240VA) then you will never have any trouble.

performance increases are total w0wage! i would love a few SSDs! why wouldnt i want them?

Because there really is no performance increase over a 1K or 1.5K RPM stripe set? The benchmarks I see show almost none. I haven't seen SSD in RAID tested yet tho. But a 1K 3-Drive RAID 0 is about the same or faster than the fastest SSD - and offers MUCH MUCH more capacity! So you're not missing anything by not having SSD. I read somewhere on here that SSD in RAID 0 was little or no better than SSD single drive - so that was part of my assumption as well.

 

[DoFoT9]

You said you were having trouble with devices on your native 240V system. If you use a step-down transformer (Sorry I meant step-down, not step-up) coil to supply 117VA at the mains and run the devices at their US specs (not switched up to 240VA) then you will never have any trouble.

ahh!! i WOULD have trouble if i bought the US model, i dont possess a US powered laptop but if i did it doesnt look good (unless i were to make a step-down transformer-which i wouldnt be able to do haha)

Because there really is no performance increase over a 1K or 1.5K RPM stripe set? The benchmarks I see show almost none. I haven't seen SSD in RAID tested yet tho. But a 1K 3-Drive RAID 0 is about the same or faster than the fastest SSD - and offers MUCH MUCH more capacity! So you're not missing anything by not having SSD. I read somewhere on here that SSD in RAID 0 was little or no better than SSD single drive - so that was part of my assumption as well.

interesting.. was reading this thread and came across post #27 here (dont know how to link to posts) and the OP is getting quite reasonable speeds.

does this change anything from your understanding? he gets 750read/600write, seems quite reasonable compared to my laptops 30! hahahaha

 

[nanofrog]

we are on 240V over here there are lots of problems with bringing over the US adaptor, i had an american friend who had a MB and it would always not charge the laptop and it frequently shut off the computer so yea... wierd

Most adapters are universal. If on the odd chance something like this happens, just get a power adapter locally. Just make sure the output meets the specs, which most are using the same standard now, and has the same power plug for the laptop.

When I posted the 230VAC, I was thinking of a desktop, and european voltages (230VAC, 50Hz). Most PSU's are also meant to be as universal as possible. Cheaper for manufacturers, as they can make fewer models.

so summing up.. i cant afford an SSD RAID

I'd skip SSD's for now.

1. Expensive, especially if you need larger capacities.
2. UBE isn't as good as mechanical drives (high write usage). Not that important, if you're primarily reading, so they do make great OS drives.

Given these, you can get more bang-for-your-money from the mechanical drives and software RAID. ATM.

ahh!! i WOULD have trouble if i bought the US model, i dont possess a US powered laptop but if i did it doesnt look good (unless i were to make a step-down transformer-which i wouldnt be able to do haha)

Just get a new adapter locally at home. Cheaper than the step down transformer too I would think.

 

[Tesselator]

ahh!! i WOULD have trouble if i bought the US model, i dont possess a US powered laptop but if i did it doesnt look good (unless i were to make a step-down transformer-which i wouldnt be able to do haha)



interesting.. was reading this thread and came across post #27 here (dont know how to link to posts) and the OP is getting quite reasonable speeds.

does this change anything from your understanding? he gets 750read/600write, seems quite reasonable compared to my laptops 30! hahahaha

No.

Did you see my page one in this thread? I'm getting almost 600 MB/s writes and 350 MB/s reads out of three 5400 RPM green drives. I'm sure 10K or 15K RPM drives would be much faster!!! Seriously so far I'm not at all impressed with the I/O throughput of current SSD offerings. Accesses are a different story though. But access times aren't that bad at all in a 3-dire RAID 0 15K RPM stripe. My green drives of course suck major nuggets is this regard though. They're 4 or 5 times slower than even 10K RPM drives. I think these are rated at 16ms and I wouldn't doubt that the manufacturer fudged a little to get even that.

So, as I see it with SSD you're basically paying 4 times the money per gig from 15K RPM drives and only really getting faster accesses. If you compare SSD drives to my green stripe here you're paying exactly 56.25 times the price per gig for speeds no one can even tell the difference between in most operations. Even my boot times are near SSD speeds. Basically for the same money I get 4500 gigs and the SSD customer gets 80 gigs. Is such a high cost worth the higher speed accesses? The only configurations I can think of where it would be can't be applied because they also require large capacities beyond that of 3 or 4 SSDs.

.

 

[DoFoT9]

Most adapters are universal. If on the odd chance something like this happens, just get a power adapter locally. Just make sure the output meets the specs, which most are using the same standard now, and has the same power plug for the laptop.

good thinking! im sure if i saved say $500 buying overseas a $100 adaptor wouldnt really hurt...

When I posted the 230VAC, I was thinking of a desktop, and european voltages (230VAC, 50Hz). Most PSU's are also meant to be as universal as possible. Cheaper for manufacturers, as they can make fewer models.

our desktops still are 240V but at least most of the transformers are universal - unlike mobile phones.. ick. at least they are changing that now!

I'd skip SSD's for now.

1. Expensive, especially if you need larger capacities.
2. UBE isn't as good as mechanical drives (high write usage). Not that important, if you're primarily reading, so they do make great OS drives.

Given these, you can get more bang-for-your-money from the mechanical drives and software RAID. ATM.

it would seem so, i thought the improvement would of been something amazing, but really its not.. only access times, that may give you a really quite boot time but apart from that (for the average user) its hardly worth it. i could hardly afford a 30gb SSD let alone an array of larger ones stupid uni

No.

knew i shouldnt of doubted you haha!

Did you see my page one in this thread? I'm getting almost 600 MB/s writes and 350 MB/s reads out of three 5400 RPM green drives. I'm sure 10K or 15K RPM drives would be much faster!!! Seriously so far I'm not at all impressed with the I/O throughput of current SSD offerings. Accesses are a different story though. But access times aren't that bad at all in a 3-dire RAID 0 15K RPM stripe. My green drives of course suck major nuggets is this regard though. They're 4 or 5 times slower than even 10K RPM drives. I think these are rated at 16ms and I wouldn't doubt that the manufacturer fudged a little to get even that.

i did read it yes, read writes of the SSD are the only difference really (double infact) compared to your results. a small price to pay really for 1/50th of the price i didnt realise that the green drives were 5400rpm! they are 500gb platter drives right? thats how they seem to get the same speeds as the 320gb platters?

tbh with you i would rather these green drives over the 10k/15k rpm models as their capacity is minimal compared to the larger ones and if the difference is only 4 or 5 times slower then that isn't much, depends if you want speed or space i guess (im a space man).

So, as I see it with SSD you're basically paying 4 times the money per gig from 15K RPM drives and only really getting faster accesses. If you compare SSD drives to my green stripe here you're paying exactly 56.25 times the price per gig for speeds no one can even tell the difference between in most operations. Even my boot times are near SSD speeds. Basically for the same money I get 4500 gigs and the SSD customer gets 80 gigs. Is such a high cost worth the higher speed accesses? The only configurations I can think of where it would be can't be applied because they also require large capacities beyond that of 3 or 4 SSDs.

that is a MASSIVE difference, and NOT worth it. especially if the write speed are pretty much identical - thanks for showing how blind i was to this fact!

question:: would using a smaller block size on the SSD's give faster or slow read/write speeds? i know that smaller blocks are better for random access and things, and larger are better for bigger files (movies/photos etc). guess it all depends really..

.

,

 

[Tesselator]

it would seem so, i thought the improvement would of been something amazing, but really its not.. only access times, that may give you a really quite boot time but apart from that (for the average user) its hardly worth it. i could hardly afford a 30gb SSD let alone an array of larger ones stupid uni

Well they are "something amazing" as single units compared. I mean compare the $350 80 GB single SSD to the $250 320 GB single 10K drives and I guess it's close to double or 1.5x anyway - on the throughput.

knew i shouldnt of doubted you haha!

Naw, it keeps me from getting too full of myself. It's welcomed!

i did read it yes, read writes of the SSD are the only difference really (double infact) compared to your results. a small price to pay really for 1/50th of the price i didnt realise that the green drives were 5400rpm! they are 500gb platter drives right? thats how they seem to get the same speeds as the 320gb platters?

I think so, yes. I don't really know for sure and haven't read anything. At least no one is spouting off about superior controllers in these units. Platter density would make the most sense. If true (which engineers say it is) then this is great news as there's several technologies sitting in the lobby waiting to be implemented which promise stable multiples of current densities. That'll be nice aye: 2TB per platter!?! That will bring the high access-speed, high spindle-speed single platter drives up to very nice capacities too. At that point unless SSD speed also increases rotational magnetic media will surpass SSDs. So these SSDs might just be a flash in the pan.

tbh with you i would rather these green drives over the 10k/15k rpm models as their capacity is minimal compared to the larger ones and if the difference is only 4 or 5 times slower then that isn't much, depends if you want speed or space i guess (im a space man).

Hehehe... Spaceman. Yeah me too! But if I were large model DB programming or hosting to multiple users of the same I would want the 10K or 15K drives. For single user Mac-like systems I think you're right tho.

that is a MASSIVE difference, and NOT worth it. especially if the write speed are pretty much identical - thanks for showing how blind i was to this fact!

Yup, write speeds are close to the same. Reads suffer a bit on these green babies tho. Still 275 MB/s to 350 MB/s is fast enough to do pretty much any kind of video editing.

question:: would using a smaller block size on the SSD's give faster or slow read/write speeds? i know that smaller blocks are better for random access and things, and larger are better for bigger files (movies/photos etc). guess it all depends really..

Yes. By changing the block size you change the way the drives profile in I/O throughput and speed for various average file sizes. Small blocks is much better for like booting or DB accessing where records are small. Larger blocks are much faster for sustained or large file I/O and streaming - like what happens in Aperture, CaptureOne, LightRoom, Shake, Nuke3D, and etc. with a folder full of images or how iMovie, FCP, Premiere, and etc. access the drive.

In retrospect I should have run this entire set of benchmarks with 3 different block sizes before I filled them up. That would have been neat! Oh well.


✎

 

[DoFoT9]

Well they are "something amazing" as single units compared. I mean compare the $350 80 GB single SSD to the $250 320 GB single 10K drives and I guess it's close to double or 1.5x anyway - on the throughput.

true that, they are good as single units - i would sure love one for my laptop (would have to be a 512gb version though because im a Spaceman {when they come out that is})

Naw, it keeps me from getting too full of myself. It's welcomed!

yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck haha kidding! your one of the smartest fellas i know! and i dont even know you lol

I think so, yes. I don't really know for sure and haven't read anything. At least no one is spouting off about superior controllers in these units. Platter density would make the most sense. If true (which engineers say it is) then this is great news as there's several technologies sitting in the lobby waiting to be implemented which promise stable multiples of current densities. That'll be nice aye: 2TB per platter!?! That will bring the high access-speed, high spindle-speed single platter drives up to very nice capacities too. At that point unless SSD speed also increases rotational magnetic media will surpass SSDs. So these SSDs might just be a flash in the pan.

what is the name of that technology that IBM (or someone like that) is working on? something to do with using the wall of something giving up to 20x more storage for basically the same price! i wonder how far that is off.

Hehehe... Spaceman. Yeah me too! But if I were large model DB programming or hosting to multiple users of the same I would want the 10K or 15K drives. For single user Mac-like systems I think you're right tho.

oh yes of course, if your doing anything hosting or very large database you would HAVE to. for a poor user like me i cant even resort to backing up my data

Yup, write speeds are close to the same. Reads suffer a bit on these green babies tho. Still 275 MB/s to 350 MB/s is fast enough to do pretty much any kind of video editing.

thats darn fast! very impressive when you consider the price and capacity that you have..i wouldnt be complaining eheh

Yes. By changing the block size you change the way the drives profile in I/O throughput for various average file sizes. Small blocks is much better for like booting or DB accessing where records are small. Larger blocks are much faster for sustained large file I/O and streaming - like what happens in Aperture, CaptureOne, LightRoom, Shake, Nuke3D, and etc. with a folder full of images or how iMovie, FCP, Premiere, and etc. access the drive.

right i presumed so. a couple of weeks ago i was in a thread where you were suggesting different drive sizes & different partitions on each drive. is it possible to have different block sizes per partition or is it strictly per drive only? would be interesting if you could do it per partition.

In retrospect I should have run this entire set of benchmarks with 3 different block sizes before I filled them up. That would have been neat! Oh well.

that would have (of?) been ideal!! you have filled up 4tb in the space of a week or so?!?!?!? is that even possible?? PDF's arent THAT large (oh btw, YEP is awsome!)

p.s. i just had a Gray Screen of Death im scared! im not at home so i cant make a backup!!!! ARGH

 

[Loa]

Hello,

Let's assume that a 4 RAID0 set is just as fast as a SSD.

The following question is: would you fill up the 4 HD slots on a Mac Pro to do that, and end up with a single volume?

Even with a huge 2TB back-up drive in the 2nd optical bay, you still have a single volume with your OS and ALL your data. That is not something I'd like to have.

Is the old adage "put your OS on a different drive" a thing of the past? Or is a partition sufficient to isolate the OS?

Thanks

Loa

 

[DoFoT9]

Hello,

Let's assume that a 4 RAID0 set is just as fast as a SSD.

4 RAIO0 as in using mechanical HDs? ill assume that.

The following question is: would you fill up the 4 HD slots on a Mac Pro to do that, and end up with a single volume?

ok i misread...

personally i wouldnt do that, i would rather have a way to sort everything onto different discs (somewhat like my setup now) what would be the advantages and disadvantages or this setup?

Even with a huge 2TB back-up drive in the 2nd optical bay, you still have a single volume with your OS and ALL your data. That is not something I'd like to have.

why not?

Is the old adage "put your OS on a different drive" a thing of the past? Or is a partition sufficient to isolate the OS?

it depends really, if i had the chance and the money i certainly would do it properly - and maybe even have backups! my current system only backs up my laptop HD and misses a good 3tb of other data un-backedup, ideally you would implement a system that would cater for your situation.

Thanks

Loa[/QUOTE]

 

[Loa]

Hello,

I'm hoping that Tess will reply to my questions, because he's the one comparing a 3-4 RAID0 (15K drives) to a SSD. I'm not saying he's wrong, but the thing is that, right now, most ppl are only using SSDs as OS volumes (because of their incredible I/O and especially the random read speeds which is crucial on a OS volume).

If you want your OS on a different drive, the comparison is only theoretical: I'm not going to build a 3-4 HD RAID0 just for a OS volume!

To me, right now, the SSDs are only interesting if you're stuck on a laptop, or to be used as OS drive. Other than that, they're not quite ready for prime time yet.

Sure a 8-SSD RAID0 = incredible speeds, but who in the world actually needs that kind of money/speed ratio???

---

On the other hand, and that's where I'd like to have Tesselator's (and others) input, if you don't gain anything by separating your OS and data volumes, then SSDs in Mac Pros are of little interest.

Loa

 

[Tesselator]

yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck yousuck haha kidding! your one of the smartest fellas i know! and i dont even know you lol

Yeah but it's true. Everyone sucks at something.

what is the name of that technology that IBM (or someone like that) is working on? something to do with using the wall of something giving up to 20x more storage for basically the same price! i wonder how far that is off.

I dunno but Dr James Chon is working on 5 Dimensional Micro-Photonics at Swinburne University that will a allow DVDs to hold up to 10,000 times the current capacity. 300 times is already prototyped on several machines.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...winburne+University&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

I wonder how long those will take to write?!!?!?

right i presumed so. a couple of weeks ago i was in a thread where you were suggesting different drive sizes & different partitions on each drive. is it possible to have different block sizes per partition or is it strictly per drive only? would be interesting if you could do it per partition.

You could have different block sizes per partition yes. I dunno if the Mac OS File System will allow it or not but others will. It's part of the logical format AFAIK so anything that can be formatted separately can use different block sizes. And I dunno what the physical format is. Wiki might know.

that would have (of?) been ideal!! you have filled up 4tb in the space of a week or so?!?!?!? is that even possible?? PDF's arent THAT large (oh btw, YEP is awsome!)

Well I have 1.4 TB on there anyway. More than I want to remove for testing.

 

[Mac Husky]

Let's assume that a 4 RAID0 set is just as fast as a SSD. The following question is: would you fill up the 4 HD slots on a Mac Pro to do that, and end up with a single volume? Even with a huge 2TB back-up drive in the 2nd optical bay, you still have a single volume with your OS and ALL your data. That is not something I'd like to have.

Why not ?!

 

[Tesselator]

Hello,

Let's assume that a 4 RAID0 set is just as fast as a SSD.

The following question is: would you fill up the 4 HD slots on a Mac Pro to do that, and end up with a single volume?

You could partition it I guess, yes.

Even with a huge 2TB back-up drive in the 2nd optical bay, you still have a single volume with your OS and ALL your data. That is not something I'd like to have.

Yeah, in a 4-drive RAID you have two more unused SATA connections (in 2006 and 2008 systems) and two HDDs will juuuust sandwich under the the optical drive. I did it to copy the data from my old 3-drive RAID0 to this new 3-Drive RAID0. And surprisingly they didn't even get warm. So I guess you could have a 4-Drive RAID 0, a 2TB back-up, and a boot drive if you wanted. I think I would want any backups to be external though. It safer IMO and backups are about safety.

Is the old adage "put your OS on a different drive" a thing of the past? Or is a partition sufficient to isolate the OS?

In other threads I've alluded to as much yes. But it's not 100% true either. It's like maybe 95% true tho. A lot depends on the software you use, how you use it, and how much RAM you have.

Let's thought-model some examples:

• Condition: Your mdworker + ATSServer hits 70% to 100% CPU usage and stays there for hours while at the same time you're browsing on the web.
  Problem: this slows page loading by approximately 2 seconds per page and adds some time to the PDF indexing that ATSServer is performing.
  Solution: Web browser cache and PDF (eBook) folder should be on different drives.
  
  
• Condition: You're ripping CDs or DVD while you also work on a video for work?
  Problem: The video becomes jerky while you try and edit it and the DVD takes 20% longer to encode.
  Solution: The Video Data and the DVD target file should be on different drives.
  
  
• Condition: You set about compressing or re-compressing several hours of music while you rearrange a large photo library.
  Problem: Depending how aggressive you are at the rearrangement the music encoding takes up to 20% longer and you start noticing too much lag as your system renders the photo icons and copies the files around.
  Solution: The photo library and the source and/or destination for the music need to be on different drives.
  
  
• Condition: Photoshop is applying a filter to an image 10 times larger than the memory you have free and you decide to load iTunes and play some tunes while you wait.
  Problem: iTunes takes 10 extra seconds to load and Photoshop takes an extra 5 seconds to apply the filter.
  Solution: Your photoshop cache should be on a different disk than your iTunes app and music library.
  
  
• etc.

Notice that I'm saying different disk and not different partition. Separate partitions would actually make the problem worse in each example as the heads would likely have to skate further across the platter surface for each seek resulting is slower seeks and reduced performance. The OS itself doesn't do much in terms of drive accessing and what it does do usually gets placed in the system cache (RAM) so having lots of RAM (>8GB) would probably be the solution for any problem where the OS is getting in the way. Likewise more RAM can be the solution where some application would otherwise need to cache that application data. You can't have infinite RAM so there's always the potential for a clash but the more RAM you have the less potential. And when there is a clash it's usually not significant for a home user. I mean look at the times I put in the examples. I tried to make them as realistic as I could imagine based on my experience with a 4GB and 12GB RAM 2.66 GHz 2006 Mac Pro 1.1 octad with a single large internal drive. To have no clashes at all you would need a separate drive for every kind of data you deal with. The best solution is to task yourself such that you're not performing multiple disk intensive tasks at the same time - and if you have to very often for some kind of work then add another separate drive just for that.

✐ Edit: Also to consider is that what is lost in the examples above may be gained back in every circumstance just by the sheer speed if we apply these models to a RAID 0 stripe.


On the topic of back-ups there's lots of software for free and cheap that will allow you create schedules and jobs in such a way that the OS and settings get backed up to one drive, partition, or folder, while other types of user data gets backed up to a different drive, partition, or folder. So if you're concerned about backing up and restoring different parts individually then that's pretty easy.


✺

 

[Tesselator]

To me, right now, the SSDs are only interesting if you're stuck on a laptop, or to be used as OS drive. Other than that, they're not quite ready for prime time yet.


---

On the other hand, and that's where I'd like to have Tesselator's (and others) input, if you don't gain anything by separating your OS and data volumes, then SSDs in Mac Pros are of little interest.

Loa

I think they're great for laptops yes. I agree with that. I think they're too small for an OS drive on a well used Mac Pro.

---

Yes, you gain almost nothing from placing your OS on a separate drive. What you might gain in small part you would loose in large part from having it on a single drive at those speeds as opposed to on the 3 or 4 drive RAID 0 that we're talking about.

You might gain something in neatness from creating a partition (volume) on the RAID.

 

[Loa]

Notice that I'm saying different disk and not different partition.

✐ Edit: Also to consider is that what is lost in the examples above may be gained back in every circumstance just by the sheer speed if we apply these models to a RAID 0 stripe.

Yes, you gain almost nothing from placing your OS on a separate drive. What you might gain in small part you would loose in large part from having it on a single drive at those speeds as opposed to on the 3 or 4 drive RAID 0 that we're talking about.

You might gain something in neatness from creating a partition (volume) on the RAID.

I'm confused here: different drives for different data is the best way to improve performance short of a RAID. So If I'm planning a 3-4 drive RAID, I should be OK with all the examples you gave.

Then you say that partitions would decrease performance, by making the heads seek data further across the platters.

In the end, we arrive at the same conclusion: OS + all your data on the same huge RAID0, partition-less volume.

...Maybe it's my old habits that are hard to dispel, but having a single volume for everything seems dangerous to me. If something bad happens to that (logical) volume, you're toast. Especially with a hard-to-recover RAID0.

By having a RAID0 with a few partitions (4-5) to isolate any volume damage that could occur, how much of a performance loss are we talking about?

Loa

 

[Mac Husky]

Sorry for beeing a kind of off topic:

Having a 3 or 4 drive RAID0 and a disk fails:

a) how to find out what disk it is ?
b) how to recover the full RAID0 after having replaced the faulty disk ?

What would be the best preparation for such a "crash"?
I planned to have a clone from my OS X and apps when setting up the Mac.
This clone will be complemented by a regular time machine backup.
Also planning a backup of these backups on an extern disk or NAS.
Will this be enough? Or should I clone the whole RAID0 in fixed time distances?