[NTLUG:Discuss] Fastest Access for moving large (video) files?

[Burton Strauss]

The absolute fastest way to go would be Ultra320 SCSI RAID0.

Second choice (much better economics) would be the 10K Raptor SATA RAID0.
(I wouldn't bother w/ SATA-II or -300 as most drives can't yet saturate
SATA-150, especially on PCI bus).

2x 36GB Raptors + a decent SATA RAID card could run $500-700 (best prices
seem to be 130 per drive and 300 or so for the card).  You could do it all @
Fry's.

This will give you 72GB of 'work' space.  The raptors spec at 72 MB/s
(Sustained) transfer, so RAID0 will give you maybe 1.7x that (with overhead
and what not) or 122MB/s -- pretty close to the PCI bus limit.

RAM-drive's top out at 16GB - Toshiba has one coming out at this size - see
this month's MaximumPC.


-----Burton



-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at ntlug.org] On Behalf
Of David Simmons
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 7:38 AM
To: Discuss at ntlug.org
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Fastest Access for moving large (video) files?

Guys,

I have a box that does video work...so most of it's files are very large and
I've noticed that most of the time my CPU usage is low, but hard-drive light
is flashing like crazy - so, my bottle-neck is just moving this data around.

Root Question:  How do I create the (within a normal budget) fastest way to
move large files around?  Considering that my 'work area' could be as small
as 10Gb.

Thoughts:

1).  I know that a RAM drive would probably be the fastest...but given that
I'm looking for 10Gb, I don't know of 'normal' motherboards going that
high...and I'm sure dedicated RAM-Drive cards are way out of the price-range

2).  Have been reading some good results using SATA-300 or SATA-II.  But
given that I have the old standard PCI bus, will that be the limiting
factor? (as I'll have to add a SATA-II card to the system).

3).  Any comments on the WD Raptor?

4).  Instead of a single drive - do I go RAID0 (striping) - if so, any
recommendations on setup? (ie. go ATA/IDE or SATA?  (Again, will the PCI bus
be the limit?)

Thanks in advance,

dave



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