🚀 go-pugleaf

Tom:

Using RAID 5, I can use 5 x 80GB drives and get 320GB instead of buying two 250GB drives.
As for use of mirroring software, never.  Too much overhead *always* use hardware based RAID
solutions.

In addition, you suggest the best solution and work you way down not the worst solutuion and
work your way up.  That is why I start at RAID 5 SCSI.  That's the starting point and the OP
can go down the list.  And as also stated there is RAID 5 SATA.

I was just at SeaGate
Look at this SCSI drive
Seagate ST336607LC MTBF (Hours)  1,200,000 hours

I looked at SATA and Ultra ATA drives.  They don't even list the MTBF value for these
drives.  Why ? because they have a much lower MTBF maybe 80K hours at best.  Meaning, they
have a higher failure rate.   Below are three drives; SATA Ultra ATA and SCSI all approx
80GB.  The drives have been selected to be similar to level the playing field.  However, the
SCSI drive in all aspects beats the SATA and Ultra ATA except in price.  The SCSI is more
expensive.  rice comparisons done at http://www.cdw.com/

SATA drive
 Model Number:ST380013AS
CDW Price $119.85
Capacity:80 GB
Speed:7200 rpm
Seek time:8.5 ms avg
Interface:Serial ATA
Internal Transfer Rate (Mbits/sec) 683
Max. External Transfer Rate (Mbytes/sec) 150
Avg. Sustained Transfer Rate (Mbytes/sec) >58
Average Seek (msec) 8.5
Average Latency (msec) 4.16
Multisegmented Cache 8192
Spindle Speed (RPM) 7200

Ultra ATA drive
Model Number:ST380011A
CDW price: $86.95
Capacity:80 GB
Speed:7200 rpm
Seek time:8.5 ms avg
Interface:Ultra ATA/100
Internal Transfer Rate (Mbits/sec) 683
Max. External Transfer Rate (Mbytes/sec) 100
Avg. Sustained Transfer Rate (Mbytes/sec) >58
Average Seek (msec) 8.5
Average Latency (msec) 4.16
Multisegmented Cache 2048
Spindle Speed (RPM) 7200

Ultra320 SCSI drive
 Model Number:ST373307LW
CDW price: $409.50
Capacity:73 GB
Speed:10000 rpm
Seek time:4.7 ms avg
Interface:Ultra320 SCSI
MTBF (Hours)  1,200,000 hours
 Internal Transfer Rate, ZBR (Mbits/sec) 475-840
Internal Formatted Transfer Rate (Mbytes/sec) 43-78
External Transfer Rate (mbytes/sec)   320
Track-to-track Seek Read/Write (msec) 0.3/0.5
Average Seek Read/Write (msec) 4.7/5.2
Average Latency (msec) 2.99
Spindle Speed (RPM) 10000


Dave

"Tom Scales" <tomtoo@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:m9ydnV17zsB9tEyi4p2dnA@comcast.com...
| Your approach is illogical and irrational. You know it, but refuse to admit
| it.
|
| The approach I use, which is, uh, rational, is two IDE hard drives and
| decent mirroring software.
|
| Heck of a lot cheaper than any SCSI Raid solution. SCSI is not measureably
| more reliable than today's IDE drives.
|
|
| Tom
|