Storage Samsung Spinpoint F1 reliability problems?

The UK Samsung RMA system is through a company called rexo and they have a reputation for lightening quick painless turnarounds.

 

Go with a WD Caviar black.

Good stuff, not to mention that huge cache.

 

edit: double post.. weird

 

Wow lots of fantastic info as always! Well ok let me put out a few more points brought up:

1) Yea I'd like to have a "dedicated OS drive" as you put it, on the SSD, and have my files/documents ran off the mechanical drives.

2) Would using an SSD strictly for the OS instead of user documents help with the whole issue of performance degradation? My idea is that programs are usually just installed once, rarely deleted, so there wouldn't be a plethora of write cycles, or am I wrong?

3) Yes I have the OCZ Vertex 120gb SSD, I was told the greater size yields better performance over the smaller capacities. I've read very good reports on the drive so I'm more worried about the mechanical drives actually than the SSD's.

4) I'm feeling that a RAID 1 setup would be good for me. I understand the basics that it mirror's data across 2 drives, so this in a way automatically creating a backup with each and every write? I'm assuming if a disk fails, it should be replaced immediately right?

5) What about this idea - I've been considering having an extra smaller drive as my Photoshop scratch disk, and for other possible uses. (Experts suggest using a dedicated disk as scratch disk that isn't being used for user documents/OS etc) Could this affect a different route than using RAID? Perhaps one or two 1tb drives, with a third independant drive just for Pshop and placing system backups?

 

Me = Blue

 

Thanks Jared, ok my bad forget about the whole scratch disk idea. I checked and it's only for low RAM scenarios, which I'm covered

So I guess my only decision here would be RAID 1 to help cover for drive failures, or RAID 0 for performance but relying on backups much more heavily. I was just thinking about how I usually work in very large graphics files, some 75-100Mb. Constantly loading & moving huge files is a pain. Extra read/write performance would help keeping things moving fast and efficient, which I'd like.

However I'd then have to either create regular disk snapshots/backups. Perhaps then I could use a 3rd drive just for backups?

so:
1x SSD for OS
2x 640Gb or 1Tb HDDs in RAID 0
1x ???Gb HDD for backup

thanks again everyone!

 

It's unlikely that your documents are going to be written to often enough to cause a problem with SSDs. The Windows pagefile is what will be written to most often (with the Registry hive files in the Windows system folder being likely second) so it would be best to place that on a hard disk (set the pagefile min/max sizes to be the same - this should ensure that it stays in a fixed location without fragmenting).

For Photoshop's scratch disk, you could try a RAM disk if you have plenty of motherboard memory (4GB or more) using software like RamDisk 10 but it would be best to experiment for yourself after getting the rest of your system set up. This would probably be of more benefit with the 32-bit version of Photoshop (which would be limited to accessing 2GB of memory by default).

 

If you've got a tad extra money to spend go for the RAID 10. As I said earlier it's a combination of RAID 0 for performance, and RAID 1 for redundancy. The only thing I'm not 100% clear on, is how the array shifts if a drive fails. I would think since the drives are a mirrored stripped array, if one of the drives fails, the other drive it's stripped with would become useless (downside of RAID 0) until you were able to replace the bad drive and re-mirror the data from the still working RAID 0 stripe.

Someone please shine some light on this if you've got any info.

Here's how it works, basically...

Disk 0 + Disk 1 => Disk 2 + Disk 3

Where Disk 0 and Disk 1 are a RAID 0 stripe, and Disk 2 and Disk 3 are a RAID 0 stripe. The Disk 2 and Disk 3 RAID 0 stripe are running as one disk in RAID 1 mode, making a direct copy of the Disk 0 and Disk 1 stripe.

 

Does this mean the pagefile is separate from the OS, and I can run this on a harddrive while the OS is still dedicated on the SSD? Or are you saying the OS should be on a HDD?


Also Jared I believe I follow your explanation, although that means using 4 HDDs. Since I'm already over budget, is it possible to setup RAID later? Or would I need to backup, reformat, and restore everything?

I think I see the problem with RAID 0 now, if the data is striped and one drive fails, I can't simply just use the remaining drive.

What about just using one or two 640gb/1tb HDDs without RAID, and a 3rd drive for placing backups? If I backup often, I should be fine. Would the 3rd HDD need to be the same size? (for disk snapshots)

Argh now I'm thinking about that RAID 10 idea. I'm gonna have to think.. weigh my options vs $$$.

 

yeah agree with bindi.. probably a bad batch you got there.. I run one as external backup and it runs fine esata- it does make a clicking noise powering off but that's normal.. thing don't like about raid is- if it's a power failure like a spike.. everything goes XD then you wonder why you even bothered.. external backups are the best way to keep your data safe

 

I'm down for that then. Two WD Caviar Black (640 or 1tb not sure) in RAID 1, with external backup. If a drive drops, I'm guessing I'd have to wipe the other drive and restore backed up data from the external.

Last question then (I promise lol!) is if I'm going to be using an external backup, how is this done? Would it be automated entire disk snapshot, or manual selection of which files I'd like to copy?

Like I said.. being able to backup the whole system would be nice but if a drive dies I can afford to lose most documents just not my web design files. So I'd just be copying my important files every so often to the external?

edit: lol I was wrong sry, last issues - will I need to purchase a RAID controller then if I have the ASUS P6T Deluxe 2? Also, about to order in the Zalman GS-1000 case. The cheaper 'SE' version's only difference is it doesn't have HDD hot-swap connectors apparently. Is this something I should get the $199 version over the $160? idk if this means the case is no longer hot-swap compatible or it just means I'd need to buy a few cables if I really need em

 

My mistake, good so far on everything but I thought you said buy 2 drives in RAID 0. In the case of using RAID 1, I'd wanna buy the 1tb models so I don't run out of space.. and the prob there is, I don't even know if 1Tb is enough, because I'm also using the PC as a media center. 2Tb would be great

 

i get the impression that you want a reliable drive to store stuff? no need for speed.

in that case, IMHO it's cheaper and just as reliable to get a WD Green drive.

 

Spinpoint is eleet, period

 

Somehow this made me LOL...

 

Remember though that RAID is not backup. What if your computer gets stolen? What if the PSU fails spectacularily and kills all your hard drives? And the most likely scenario -- what if your files get infected with viruses? The nasties will be copied over to the second drive aswell...

 

And what if you catch a virus right before you backup? You'll backup the virus too.

Or what if the earth blows up? No file will ever be perfectly safe, so mirrored RAID is a fairly good way to go about it.

 

I'd go with a RAID 5 setup myself if I'd ever do RAID. It's faster than RAID 1, at least as safe and you lose only the equivalent of 1 drive. Downside is, you need at least 3 drives and possibly a dedicated RAID controller.