Re: Lower Random Access Time vs RAID 0 / 1

1= a better HD comparison resource can be found at www.storagereview.com
http://www.storagereview.com/comparison.html

You will find that storagereview has better information on any and
all things HD than Tom's does.

2= DB servers work best with as many spindles as possible. None of
your example configurations is adequate; and any configuration with
only 1 HD is a data loss / data corruption disaster waiting to happen.
In general, the more spindles the better with any DB. The =minimum=
should be at least 4 HD's =dedicated= to the DB. OS HD's are
independent and in addition to the 4+ DB HDs.

3= "heavy duty large DB with mostly reads and heavy write actions
from time to time ( updates / huge transactions )." Does not have
anywhere near the precision needed to adequately describe your needs
in engineering terms.
How big a DB?
What % of the IO will be reads? % writes?
How big is a "huge transaction"?
Exactly what is the primary use case of this server?
etc. We need =numbers= if we are going to think about "speeds and
feeds" and specify HW.

4= =seriously= consider HW RAID controllers like 3ware (AKA AMCC) or
Areca. with BB IO caches.

You've got a lot more work ahead of you.
Ron

At 05:08 AM 3/22/2007, Michael Ben-Nes wrote:
>Hello
>
>I plan to buy a new development server and I wonder what will be the
>best HD combination.
>
>I'm aware that "best combination" also relay on DB structure and usage.
>so lets assume, heavy duty large DB with mostly reads and heavy
>write actions from time to time ( updates / huge transactions ).
>
>Here are the options:
>
>One very fast 10K RPM SATA Western Digital Raptor 150GB HD.
> Pro: very low access time and generally 30% faster regarding mainstream HD.
> Con: Expensive.
>
>2 mainstream 7.2K RPM SATA HD in RAID 0.
> Pro: fast transfer rate.
> Con: Access time is lowered as both HD has to sync for read /
> write ( true ? ).
>
>2 mainstream 7.2K RPM SATA HD in RAID 1.
> Pro: can access parallely different files in the same time ( true ? ).
> Con: Slower at writing.
>
>Random access benchmark:
><http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx=33&model1=280&model2=675&chart=32>http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx=33&model1=280&model2=675&chart=32
>
>
>Will be happy to hear recommendations and ideas.
>
>Thanks,
>Miki
>
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>Michael Ben-Nes - Internet Consultant and Director.
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