Thread: Scratch disk options

I bought an external HDD docking cradle with SATA extension lead from Jaycar.
It plugs straight into the MB next to the other SATA drive cables.
With the Quantum Fireball, or the WDD Caviar fitted into the cradle, it behaves just like another disk mounted internally, and doesn't seem to be any slower at all.
I use it for storing rendering temp files, so it would be like your scratch disk setup.
I haven't had any experience with Firewire, so can't help there sorry.

Unless it's Firewire 800 it will be about the same as USB2. Even Firewire 800 is slow compared to Sata speeds. I'd look at internal or external Sata.

Did you see if you could put an SSD in?

Originally Posted by dmdigital

Unless it's Firewire 800 it will be about the same as USB2. Even Firewire 800 is slow compared to Sata speeds. I'd look at internal or external Sata.

Did you see if you could put an SSD in?

The SSD cost about $400 to expensive for my purpose.

Originally Posted by Chucaro

An external Sata HDD would be as fast and efficient as the one inside or not?

yes eSATA is same speed as SATA, it's just an extension lead, more or less

Originally Posted by Chucaro

An external firewire HDD it is as fast as a Sata HDD or not?

firewire = faster than USB1 and in practice USB2
eSATA wipes the floor with both of them

i forgot to mention if you can get hold of USB3 in theory its faster than eSATA or firewire.
You can buy motherboards now with USB3 now sure about the availability of add-in cards though, even then I'm not 100% sure the motherboard it was put it would handle the through put.
bottom line go for eSATA now, if your in the market for a new motherboard go USB3

for the cost i would dump 2 x 500gb disks in Raid 0 inside the case and be done with it... you should get good read and write speeds and of course you dont need any kind of data security for a scratch disk. 500's are about $60 each at the mo...

Steve

Originally Posted by 5teve

for the cost i would dump 2 x 500gb disks in Raid 0 inside the case and be done with it... you should get good read and write speeds and of course you dont need any kind of data security for a scratch disk. 500's are about $60 each at the mo...

Steve

Raid is very good to protecting the data but not fast enough for scratch disk, for that reason I am considering using a stand alone HDD for scracth disk and live all my data in the exsisting pair of 500gb Raid Sata HDD

Incorrect..sorry


Raid is in several levels Raid 0 or striping as its known is rubbish at protecting data but you get performance closing in on N x single disk where N is the number of disks. so if a single disk writes at 60mb/s the raid 0 will give close to 120mb/s with 2 disks / 180mb/s with 3 etc etc etc

Protection happens when you use Raid 1 or Raid 5 & 6 Raid 1 is directly mirrored, ie 2 disks gives 1 disk capacity but it mirrors data to each disk. Raid 5 and 6 uses parity data to spread disk content across multiples of disks and give good performance + redundancy capacity is N-1 x single disk so 8 x 1tb disks in raid 5 have 7tb of data space roughly

I had 3 years designing raid storage systems so i do know what im on about

You might want to check what raid level (1 or 0) you are running on your system as if you are running raid 0 you are risking your data every second.

Thanks

Steve

Ps this is one of my designs http://www.nexsan.com/satabeast.php