Storage Solutions Need to buy a super fast Internal HDD asap.

A

ashr

Skilled
Hello guys,

I need a new hard disk as my current ones are too slow. I am going to be using these almost exclusively for capturing real time video to disk. Some of you if you are gamers may be familiar with software like Fraps. Basically to use these to maximum potential (Uncompressed HD RGB video at 30 fps), you need very fast hard disks.

From what I've read, the average throughput required is about 80mb/s. My old internal and my Freeagent Pro external don't stand a chance... not doing more than 35mb/s.

Some searching tells me that the Samsung Spinpoint F3 is the best choice for my usage but sadly, these aren't easily available in India. Does anyone know of an alternative that is close? As I've mentioned, my requirement is speed.

On a related note, is buying a single fast disk the best option or will 2 HDDs in RAID work better? If so, how easy is this to set up and what are my options? I don't need more than 1 TB of space totally so if 2 500gbs in RAID would perform faster than a Samsung Spinpoint or similar, I'd go for that.

Thanks in advance.
 
@pratik, that would work out very expensive. I don't want to spend more than 5 to 6k.

@vivek, which ones are you talking about? I looked at the WD Black 1 TB and it looks pretty good.
 
Aces170 said:
A guy is selling an OCZ agility 60gb SSD for 6.1k in the market section. If you want speed look no further..
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I am not sure if that's a good idea considering his requirement:

ashr said:
going to be using these almost exclusively for capturing real time video to disk.
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Will wait for someone else to comment on this aspect.
 
Aces170 said:
A guy is selling an OCZ agility 60gb SSD for 6.1k in the market section. If you want speed look no further..
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60gb would be way too less for HD video capture. To put it into perspective, a minute of uncompressed 1080p video takes around 4 gigs. I will record files of 10 to 15 minute durations regularly. One recording would fill that up :)
 
I would recommend get the 2 500gbs and set em up in RAID -0 ...you need it only to to record video not to really store, so using RAID 0 is fine, I assume you have other drives for your backup.

RAID is easy to setup, infact very easy to setup. These would provide you with more than 80MBps transfer rate.
Alternatively you could get a VelociRaptor, but I believe the first is a better solution in your case, since the Raptors would work out more expensive, you could also RAID raptors...they would perform better than the 7200 rpm ones...

SSD is no good for your case, the amount of read and writes you would be doing would surley take a toll on the SSD eventually. Also think about using 500Gb of SSd would work out very expensive but it will be the fastest ofcourse. [read 2 of the 240Gb's in RAID 0 agian, using SATA 3 will probably give you about a max of 550-600Mbps...but would cost about 45K as well.]

Do you have a budget or we are just looking for all out performance and no regard of the budget....

But since you said you need about 80MBps transfer rate, the normal HDDs in raid 0 would be sufficient and the most economical option.
 
^This sounds good. As mentioned above, my budget is about 5 to 6k.

When I searched in the video capture software forum, people there recommended the Samsung Spinpoint F3. Tried and tested, works very well for this purpose. However, since it's not available here, I was looking for the second fastest single sata HDD which looks like the WD Black which does around 100mb/s if I'm not mistaken. Are there any Seagates which are better?

On the other hand, running 2 500gbs in RAID 0 would give me way more throughput in case I need it but I've never really tried it before. Do I need any special hardware or software? I'm not sure if my motherboard supports it. What do I check for?
 
Whats your motherboard? If it doesn't then a Raptor.

Though the a single WD black may give you techincally 90MBps....

I have noticed even the Raptor drops in transfer rates if I am copying a large Files,

ie. the continuous transfer rate will be just about what your limit is of 80MBps...

If the mobo supports it then get 2 500 Gb drives, thats the sweet spot for performace vs price, if you have a different drive to BackUp...I insist on this, as Power Failures have a -ve effect on Raid arrays if one is using disk Caching....I have destroyed a few arrays in my life and hence have shy-ed away form RAID 0 for home computing...

Else you could even try Raid 5 or something...

Post you mobo specs first though then we can think about what can be done.
 
SSD and Video Playback/Recording dont go together.

Thats what I understood from my research while buying an SSD.
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Whats the issue with Video Playback using SSD? Please enlighten me.....

I do have 3 TB of external storage space for back up so that isn't a problem. My motherboard is this one - MSI, P6NGM (MS-7366) benchmark results

I think RAID is supported but I didn't really understand the stuff about the controllers.
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Yes it supports RAID O/1/0+1/5/JBOD

For info on various RAID's read Wikipedia :)
 
^I am not sure on this part but I suppose SSDs aren't very comfortable with frequent write operations. Not sure if this is still the case with the present gen. SSD controllers.
 
^^ Yeah, its the frequent read and writes that cause an issue. Actually, SSD's work slightly different than HDD's...

There is a lot about it on AnandT3ch (Think the articles about the OCZ issues etc have info about it). Its long to explain the entire read write cycle and why SSD's performance degrades over time, with the amount of data being written and deleted and re written...

Let me look around and will try and post some link for more reading material...But m really busy till tomorrow so I dont even know if I am gonna be online any more today...

And Yes, this is still an issue with newer SSD's I believe....But how much exactly and how badly it affects performance I would let that be up to the the various Tech sites to figure out.
 
Thanks for the help guys.

I finally decided to go for a single hard disk in a non raid set up. The reason being, my area is highly prone to power failures. They happen very frequently on a daily basis. Now, the WD Caviar Black was indeed the best choice for a non raid set up. Sadly, all the dealers locally were out of stock and said it would take them 2 days to get it. As I needed to begin some capturing work right away, I picked up a Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200.12 (ST31000524AS). It was cheap and to my pleasant surprise, it captured all my video frames correctly without dropping any.

Of course it's a little slower than the Caviar Black so once this one fills up (and it will fast, 200gb / 1TB done in half a day :D), I'll go in for the WD.

Once again, thank you all for the help.
 
ashr said:
Thanks for the help guys.

Of course it's a little slower than the Caviar Black so once this one fills up (and it will fast, 200gb / 1TB done in half a day :D), I'll go in for the WD.

Once again, thank you all for the help.
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I Think its time you started saving / planning for a NAS device with 4 or 8 TB. There is some one selling a nice device here. check the for sale pages.
 
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