hard drive dilemma

[Elayne]

I am building a performance computer just for gaming and iv came across a problem. I can get an 18gig 15k Cheetah (SCSI) and a 200 gig Maxtor drive for about $130 bucks. Then again, I can get 2 Maxtor 200 gigs for about $150. Im wondering if i put in a RAID controller doing data stripping will my performance be better than using the Cheetah alone (its a very fast drive, blah 15000 rpm and 4.9ms avg seek time). Any input is welcome. THanks!

[grin_king]

If you are going *purely* for performance, then you can't go past the SCSI. However, if you don't mind taking a small performance hit, an extra 180GB of disk space *would* be rather handy ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing to note, though... 18GB isn't very big. A few games on that drive, and it'll be as full as you want it to be... (you'd obviously run this disk as your OS drive). So if you were only intending on having a few high performance games on your PC at any one time, i'd go the SCSI option.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, if you were looking at more than that, then having the fast drive isn't going to help much for your games, as your OS will load fast... but the games will still be on the slower 7200 drives...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for putting in a RAID controller - you'll find that a large # of the performance boards nowadays have RAID built-in on-board - mine has capability of running 10 IDE devices, with the standard 2 IDE ports, plus 2 IDE-RAID ports, plus 2 SATA ports with RAID capability... all on-board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So yeah - you have a few options, but it ultimately comes down to what, exactly, it is you want to get back from your PC...

[Pyro]

Depends on the RAID controller and what type of performance you need really. But personally I would go for more space, since the performance difference isn't near enough to compensate for the extra cost. Also, the performance gain will be mostly noticable for encoding, filetransfer and booting of operating systems. It will not affect games much if at all.

[Elayne]

I was looking to modify a Dell Precision 530. I got one from a friend. It has Dual 2.2GHZ Xeon processors (HT can be enabled). 1 gig Rambus PC800 ram and 128mb Quadro4 900XGL. I checked it over and decided that it should run the latest games fine considering that the video card is on par with the Geforce 6600 and PC800 Rambus isnt that slow. However the thing didnt come with any hard drives. Here is the mobo specs:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2) Intel Xeon sockets 603 -- support up to 2 Intel XEON 1.4Ghz to 3GHz CPUs

 

 

 

(2) VRM slots

 

 

 

(4) RDRAM memory slots support up to 2GB of PC800

 

 

 

(1) AGP Pro 4X Video Slot

 

 

 

(2) 64-bit PCI Slots

 

 

 

(3) 32-bit PCI Slot

 

 

 

(1) Floppy drive controller

 

 

 

(2) IDE hard drivers controller support up to 4 IDE devices

 

 

 

(4) USB Ports (2 back, 2 front ports)

 

 

 

(2) Fire Wire IEEE 1394 (1 back, 1 front port)

 

 

 

(1) 25-Pin Parallel Port

 

 

 

(2) 9-Pin Serial Ports

 

 

 

Integrated 10/100 3ComÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâî Ethernet controller

 

 

 

Integrated Adaptec AIC-7892 Ultra 160m LVD SCSI

 

 

 

Integrated Sound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now it doesnt have RAID support so im wondering if there is a good, inexpensive RAID 0 controller card? I dont think i will be using this computer that long since its already 3 years old so i dont want to spend too much money on it.

[runesmithie]

I was looking to modify a Dell Precision 530. I got one from a friend. It has Dual 2.2GHZ Xeon processors (HT can be enabled). 1 gig Rambus PC800 ram and 128mb Quadro4 900XGL. I checked it over and decided that it should run the latest games fine considering that the video card is on par with the Geforce 6600 and PC800 Rambus isnt that slow. However the thing didnt come with any hard drives. Here is the mobo specs:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2) Intel Xeon sockets 603 -- support up to 2 Intel XEON 1.4Ghz to 3GHz CPUs

 

 

 

(2) VRM slots

 

 

 

(4) RDRAM memory slots support up to 2GB of PC800

 

 

 

(1) AGP Pro 4X Video Slot

 

 

 

(2) 64-bit PCI Slots

 

 

 

(3) 32-bit PCI Slot

 

 

 

(1) Floppy drive controller

 

 

 

(2) IDE hard drivers controller support up to 4 IDE devices

 

 

 

(4) USB Ports (2 back, 2 front ports)

 

 

 

(2) Fire Wire IEEE 1394 (1 back, 1 front port)

 

 

 

(1) 25-Pin Parallel Port

 

 

 

(2) 9-Pin Serial Ports

 

 

 

Integrated 10/100 3ComÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâî Ethernet controller

 

 

 

Integrated Adaptec AIC-7892 Ultra 160m LVD SCSI

 

 

 

Integrated Sound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now it doesnt have RAID support so im wondering if there is a good, inexpensive RAID 0 controller card? I dont think i will be using this computer that long since its already 3 years old so i dont want to spend too much money on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How much did you pay for that? o.o

[kingjoe2002]

lol i gave it to her. Its my dad's company computer that is just lying around useless cuz they recently upgraded. I made her pay me for the "shipping" (ie buying lunch for me :P) Elayne is a rl friend blah and lives like 2 blocks away not to mention is in my school :wink:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for how much it costs...i would think that it is worth about $400. Its kinda old.

[Pyro]

 

 

 

Now it doesnt have RAID support so im wondering if there is a good, inexpensive RAID 0 controller card? I dont think i will be using this computer that long since its already 3 years old so i dont want to spend too much money on it.

You don't want to spend to much money on it, yet you are prepared to pay for a 15k RPM drive? :P I don't know much about RAID controllers, but you should look up reviews for them before you buy one. Some controllers let the CPU do the calculations required to stripe the drives, and obviously this is not very effective, so you obviously want to watch out for those.