some help with HardDrives

[Ploki]

yet again, sorry...

i was considering a few options.
two caviar black 640gb 3.5" in raid 0 for system disk.
thats too big for a system drive. (and 500GB cost almost the same )
is there a way to partition the slow part of the disk as an "Archive area" and have it unmounted by default?
second thought was, using two 2.5" 250gb Scorpio Black hardrives in an adapter to use up only one 3.5" space, also in raid 0 array..

i was also considering SSD, but ****... i wOULD like to have more than 128gb for a system drive, and 128gb drive (or two 64gb in raid0, which i wanted) costs as putting 4 2.5" drives into Raid 0.
which is faster then?

is there ANY way to put two 3.5" drives into the 2nd superdrive slot? (i have two spare sata ports, id need a power adapter though,right?)

 

[nanofrog]

yet again, sorry...

i was considering a few options.
two caviar black 640gb 3.5" in raid 0 for system disk.
thats too big for a system drive. (and 500GB cost almost the same )
is there a way to partition the slow part of the disk as an "Archive area" and have it unmounted by default?
second thought was, using two 2.5" 250gb Scorpio Black hardrives in an adapter to use up only one 3.5" space, also in raid 0 array..

i was also considering SSD, but ****... i wOULD like to have more than 128gb for a system drive, and 128gb drive (or two 64gb in raid0, which i wanted) costs as putting 4 2.5" drives into Raid 0.
which is faster then?

is there ANY way to put two 3.5" drives into the 2nd superdrive slot? (i have two spare sata ports, id need a power adapter though,right?)

The bigger the drive used, the faster the throughput off the outermost tracks.

So, you make 2 partitions (or more if you wish), and make the outer most a boot partition (called short stroke partitition). You limit the data on the fastest tracks of the drives.

The remaining can be set up as another array, and used for archival data. Just don't use it for a backup of anything on the primary boot partition. You don't even need to leave it unmounted.

Please note, if you use one of those devices you speak of (Drive Pro, IIRC; 2x 2.5" drives in a single 3.5" MP HDD bay), it uses a PM chip to split a single port to 2 drives. So it's limited to 250MB/s (absolute max) throughputs. It's fine for Scorpio Blacks, but not usable for SSD if you plan to upgrade later, when the prices fall/capacities increase (lower cost/GB).

You can also mount 2x 3.5" drives in the empty optical bay rather easily. The easiest way, is to take an old optical drive, and disassemble the metal plates. These make wonderful and inexpensive mounts. Just drill some holes, and get the proper cables for data and power. Maybe a SATA card, if needed ('09's would, but doesn't apply to your machine).

The other option would be to use a ready made mount. Maxupgrades and Trans intl both offer them, but are rather expensive for what they are IMO. So if you have an old optical drive, that would be the best way to go for time and cost (nothing to buy, and no waiting for UPS or whatever). It's also really easy to do.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ploki]

thats some great advice, thanks..
yeah i thought id be upgrading to SSD down the line.. i just cant go for it now, i just cant justifiy the price.. :S

is there any measuring software for speed of RAID0 array?
i mean, could you partition together the outertracks of two drives so the boot only writes and the outertracks of both drives? that would be rockin..

now that i think of it, scorpio black costs as much as 640gb caviar black, and im pretty sure caviar black is faster.. i have to google some benches.
especially if i can cram it into the optical bay..
just one question though,
whats with the cooling in the optical bays?

nah, i didnt mean backup, i meant just like "the crap you will never need but you for some reason hesitate to delete it".. and that i use only the fast portions of the drive for system, so it doesnt write all over the 1.5tb partition then.
ill put an old 320gb drive into firewire enclosure for real backups (not timemachine, i dont care if the system crashes, i like fresh installs)

 

[nanofrog]

thats some great advice, thanks..
yeah i thought id be upgrading to SSD down the line.. i just cant go for it now, i just cant justifiy the price.. :S

I understand, and wrote in that frame of mind.

It's still just too expensive in terms of cost/GB for quite a few it seems.

is there any measuring software for speed of RAID0 array?

Yes. AJA is one of them. Just do a search, and see what else comes up or OS X. Plenty available for Windows, if you plan to run it.

i mean, could you partition together the outertracks of two drives so the boot only writes and the outertracks of both drives? that would be rockin..

Yes, this is possible. It's called short stroke partitions. The actual implementation can vary, depending on the specifics (OS and specific hardware). Search the forum, as this has been covered IIRC for both hardware RAID cards and OS X's software RAID implementations.

whats with the cooling in the optical bays?

A pair of HDD's would be fine there. It's been done many times before.

nah, i didnt mean backup, i meant just like "the crap you will never need but you for some reason hesitate to delete it".. and that i use only the fast portions of the drive for system, so it doesnt write all over the 1.5tb partition then.
ill put an old 320gb drive into firewire enclosure for real backups (not timemachine, i dont care if the system crashes, i like fresh installs)

NP.

I just wanted to make sure you understood that as it being the same drives, you don't have much protection if that space were used for backups (really only useful for user error; drive failure = Gone).

 

[Ploki]

thanks man,much appreciated.
ill just buy it, prolly 2x640 and 2x1tb and go further from there if i get lost.

thanks again

 

[nanofrog]

thanks man,much appreciated.
ill just buy it, prolly 2x640 and 2x1tb and go further from there if i get lost.

thanks again

NP.

 

[Ploki]

WOW.
Xbench showed score 163 for the fast raid (made two partitions on both drives, and used the first two partitions for the first raid)
and 85 for the slow RAID.

im going to do some more testing..

some more configurations.