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Raid0... Hitachi, Samsung or Seagate?

M

mjsmke

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 2, 2010
512
0
UK
Hi,

I'm planning on buying x2 1TB drives to use in RAID0. I have limited money so cant afford WD blacks.

Im looking at these 3:

Hitachi Hds721010cla332 3.5inch 1tb 32mb Sata 7200rpm Hard Disk Drive

or

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1 TB Hard Drive, SATA, 7200 RPM, 32 MB Cache

or

SAMSUNG SPINPOINT F3 S-ATA/300 1TB INTERNAL HARD DRIVE 7200RPM 32MB BUFFER

They all list as the same speeds but i'm thinking about noise/reliability/performance in RAID0.

Thanks in advanced!
 
I have used the samsung 1tb f3's in a 4 drive raid0 very fast and quiet. I will give you a link in a minute.

4 of these were used

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=samsung f3 1tb



inside this unit






http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEQX2KIT0GB/



I have some test scores somewhere. they are smoken fast and they are quiet.. this is an xbench with my wife's 2009 iMac


http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=428527

all of my wife's xbench scores;


http://db.xbench.com/search.xhtml?text=zzzzz5


as you can see the best score was with the 4 samsung's in a raid0 with fw800 hookup.
 
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Thanks for all the replies. :)

Ill be buying them from amazon as we have a small voucher and need some other stuff. It sounds like a cant go wrong with any of the drives i'm looking at.

I'm leaning towards the Samsungs as loads of reviews say they'r very quiet.

No to work out what to do with my stock 640GB WD Black, lol. Maybe just extra storage for now. Or another external backup.
 
Hitachi are good I've been using Deskstars for years without problems, touch wood. Mine are silent too. Have been happy with Western Digitals too.

In non server grade disks it pays to consider who has the best warranty.
 
philipma1957 said:
I have used the samsung 1tb f3's in a 4 drive raid0 very fast and quiet.
...
as you can see the best score was with the 4 samsung's in a raid0 with fw800 hookup.
Click to expand...

+1 on the Samsungs, either F3s and F1s. So far, great drives - fast, cool, quiet, good value for money. Also, the F4 EcoGreens make great low power backup drives.
 
DeeEss said:
Hitachi are good I've been using Deskstars for years without problems, touch wood.
Click to expand...
For the older ones (Malaysian made), they were quite reliable. Unfortunately, their consumer drive reliability has suffered quite a bit since they relocated to China in my experience (others have run into it as well though, so I know I'm not alone on this one). :(
 
Hitachi - NO WAY!

nanofrog said:
For the older ones (Malaysian made), they were quite reliable. Unfortunately, their consumer drive reliability has suffered quite a bit since they relocated to China in my experience (others have run into it as well though, so I know I'm not alone on this one). :(
Click to expand...

Bought two new Hitachi SATA 1TB drives and in less than 5 months they already developed bad sectors and read errors.. Stay away from Hitachi.. WD or Seagate are better choices.
 
Joshuarocks said:
Bought two new Hitachi SATA 1TB drives and in less than 5 months they already developed bad sectors and read errors.. Stay away from Hitachi.. WD or Seagate are better choices.
Click to expand...

Listen to this man...I think Hitachis are the worst drives around! They are prone to failing, and they are really, really noisy. I have two of the Seagate Barracuda-LP 1TB drives for my 2TB RAID0 and they are the best drives I have ever owned. They are very fast, very reliable, and very, very quiet. These drives are much quieter than the WD drives, even. I threw the WD drives in my old Mac Pro that I sold because I did not like these Caviar Black drives. I'm getting rid of the stock Hitachi in my system and replacing it with an SSD because it is too noisy. But, the Seagates are staying in there -- really, really good drives. Most other people are really happy with the Western Digital drives, they are reliable drives, I have had success with them in the past. I just don't think you can beat the quiet-ness of the Seagates though, and the speed too.
 
Joshuarocks said:
Bought two new Hitachi SATA 1TB drives and in less than 5 months they already developed bad sectors and read errors.. Stay away from Hitachi.. WD or Seagate are better choices.
Click to expand...
I won't use Seagate's right now either (7200.12 series = consumer SATA line), as they've too high a defect rate as well (~30% DOA/or shortly after use for the 7200.12's going by newegg's reviews; not good at all).

For the moment, WD's disks are working the best for me (keeping it to SATA). Personally, I the noise isn't that big an issue to me (put reliability over noise). But all of mine are in a server case with rubber grommets on each drive (RAID, which tends to get noisy, so I learned long ago to use dampening mounts when possible).
 
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WD, hitachi, or samsung.

I've had nothing but bad experiences with seagates. WD is my favorite.
 
WD or Samsung is best bet. I use a Seagate 500GB 7200.12 single platter that is super quiet and fast. No fails yet, obviously. Get best performance for tasks failure rate speculation is misleading unless there is a re-call or that 20% noted above on the Seagates.
 
Just had an idea. I'm about to oreder the 2 samsung F3 drives but I then wont have any use for my current WD black 640GB.

I could just order a 2nd WD black 640. 1.28TB should be big enough as its just for my current files and scratch volume for Photoshop.

Also I read somewhere on here that leaving a RAID0 volume in 1 partitian works better than having a 2nd partitin for scratch.

Or if i stick with the 2 samsung F3 drives the WD black would be free for me to use as a scratch disk on its own.
 
Last edited:
mjsmke said:
Just had an idea. I'm about to oreder the 2 samsung F3 drives but I then wont have any use for my current WD black 640GB.

I could just order a 2nd WD black 640. 1.28TB should be big enough as its just for my current files and scratch volume for Photoshop.

Also I read somewhere on here that leaving a RAID0 volume in 1 partitian works better than having a 2nd partitin for scratch.

Or if i stick with the 2 samsung F3 drives the WD black would be free for me to use as a scratch disk on its own.
Click to expand...
You'd be better off using a separate disk for scratch. Chopping up a stripe set into multiple partitions and using them simultaneously will slow down data transfers from both (same disks, same channels on the SATA controller, but performing double duty = servo that holds the heads is swinging back-and-forth like crazy to reach the different sectors for both working data and scratch). This sort of usage places the disks under additional strain, which consumer grade disks tend not to like very well (i.e. die early).

So I'd strongly recommend using the WD640 as a dedicated scratch location. And make sure you've a good backup solution (always needed, but especially so when using a stripe set for your primary storage location).
 
nanofrog said:
You'd be better off using a separate disk for scratch. Chopping up a stripe set into multiple partitions and using them simultaneously will slow down data transfers from both (same disks, same channels on the SATA controller, but performing double duty = servo that holds the heads is swinging back-and-forth like crazy to reach the different sectors for both working data and scratch). This sort of usage places the disks under additional strain, which consumer grade disks tend not to like very well (i.e. die early).

So I'd strongly recommend using the WD640 as a dedicated scratch location. And make sure you've a good backup solution (always needed, but especially so when using a stripe set for your primary storage location).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply,

I'll stick with the 2 Samsung F3's for working files, home folder and use the WD640 for scratch.

As for backups...I'm one of those paranoid people that wont leave the house without a backup, lol. Friends keep making sarcastic comments because i carry a HDD with me everywhere. I use a 2TB WDgreen for TM + CCC for a boot clone. All completed work is kept on an internal 2TB WDgreen + externals hidden away.
 
mjsmke said:
Thanks for the reply,

I'll stick with the 2 Samsung F3's for working files, home folder and use the WD640 for scratch.

As for backups...I'm one of those paranoid people that wont leave the house without a backup, lol. Friends keep making sarcastic comments because i carry a HDD with me everywhere. I use a 2TB WDgreen for TM + CCC for a boot clone. All completed work is kept on an internal 2TB WDgreen + externals hidden away.
Click to expand...
Data wise, you'd be fine then under all but natural disasters (i.e. fire, flood, ... that takes out the system + all backups simultaneously).

The only issue remaining, and I presume you're also fine here, is whether or not you can afford the time necessary to recover a damaged stripe set (replace the bad disk, re-initialize the array, restore from backups, and re-perform any work that was lost - that which occured after the last backup, but before the array failed).
 
nanofrog said:
Data wise, you'd be fine then under all but natural disasters (i.e. fire, flood, ... that takes out the system + all backups simultaneously).

The only issue remaining, and I presume you're also fine here, is whether or not you can afford the time necessary to recover a damaged stripe set (replace the bad disk, re-initialize the array, restore from backups, and re-perform any work that was lost - that which occured after the last backup, but before the array failed).
Click to expand...

Time isn't really an issue for me. If in the future it is i'll set up a mirrored external set to prevent any down time for when a disk fails.
 
mjsmke said:
Time isn't really an issue for me. If in the future it is i'll set up a mirrored external set to prevent any down time for when a disk fails.
Click to expand...
Not quite sure what you mean...

As in combining the internal disks with external disks and creating a level 10 array? Or do you mean to continue with a stripe set for working data, and use a mirror as your backup?

IF the latter, it's a bad idea, as it doesn't eliminate the issues with a stripe set (no redundancy, so you'll still have to put in the time to restore it all).

By creating a level 10 array as listed above however (using software RAID I presume to keep costs low), you get n = 2 redundancy (2x disks have to fail before the data on the array is lost). The "cost" of course, is that the usable capacity is 1/2 of the total capacity (i.e. if you've 4 * 2TB disks = 8TB total, then you'd only be able to use 4TB of it).

It's best to put the redundancy in your primary storage pool, and keep the backup simpler (better use of your time and tech resources). ;)
 
I mean at the moment i have an external TM/CCC backup but in the event of a disk failure i would have to spend a few hours restoring, but thats fine for me.

If in the future i cant afford the downtime ill keep the current backup plan + include a mirrored set so if a disk fails due to mechanical error, i wont have any downtime.
 
mjsmke said:
I mean at the moment i have an external TM/CCC backup but in the event of a disk failure i would have to spend a few hours restoring, but thats fine for me.

If in the future i cant afford the downtime ill keep the current backup plan + include a mirrored set so if a disk fails due to mechanical error, i wont have any downtime.
Click to expand...
Do you mean to use a 10 later for your primary data (what you mean when you indicate adding a mirror)?

It would keep performance the same as a 2x disk stripe set, but also provide n = 2 redundancy.

Keep in mind though, no RAID configuration is absolutely 100% infallible. Things can and do go wrong.
 
Yes, i may add a RAID10 later if i cant afford the downtime. I know a RAID1 is not a backup but it would be there just in the event of a disk failure.

Right now i keep a 2TB external drive with 3 partitans. (1.5TB TM, 150GB boot clone, 350GB home folder clone)

All complete work is backed up on other external drives, so i have backups of everything.

In the event of disk failure, fire, flood, thieft, i'll be covered with external backups. It will just take several hours to restore to another machine, but that doesnt matter for me.
 
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