Velociraptor 150GB (Backplane) Speed

Question

Level 3

545 points

Velociraptor 150GB (Backplane) Speed

Hi,

I installed a VR 150GB (backplane) into my G5 1.8DP at work to use as a boot drive. I was just wondering if anybody else had experience with the 150 VR? It seems pretty much to same speed as my old 7200.8 Seagate. It is fast is sequential transfers, but the access time and boot times are pretty much no-change...

Is the 150 VR slower than the 300?

Also, does the fact that the G5 only support SATA 1.5 make a big difference?

On a side note, after doing a fresh install, it helped produce better benchmarks under Xbench 1.3 The overall score was about 104. Is that regular?

Thanks in advance~
noice_T

Mac Pro Quad 2.66 -- Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 -- 17" Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Sep 23, 2008 3:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Sep 23, 2008 4:07 AM in response to noice_T

Hi noice_T-

Others will have a better answer regarding performance. I suggest that you look here for information from other users like yourself: Accelerate Your Mac drive database

Yes, a limiting factor will be the fact that the native SATA bus of your G5 is limited to 1.5Gb transfer speed. Adding an internal PCI SATAII controller would allow you to take advantage of the faster transfer speed.

Luck-

-DP

Reply

Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Sep 23, 2008 4:51 AM in response to noice_T

It should be as good or better than the 300GB version VR.

http://www.barefeats.com/hard103.html

Tom's included the VR in their recent 1TB review
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hitachi-western-digital-terabyte,2017-5.html

I don't worry or put a lot of weight behind something written 10.3.3 to gauge system or disk performance, never felt it was even consistent on same system. I would look at other software for testing.

Just using SuperDuper from time to time along with Disk Warrior can keep a drive in top performance.

And as for your old 'Cuda .8.... this doesn't include it, and looked at 1TB drives:
http://www.barefeats.com/hard94.html

Do you have the 300GB VR to compare to? Looking at the old Raptor:
http://www.barefeats.com/harper9.html

Reply

Answer 3

noice_T Author

Level 3

545 points

Sep 23, 2008 5:26 AM in response to The hatter

Yeah I wasn't really sure if xbench was consistent...it was free though. We do have a copy of SpeedTools 2.5 at work, maybe I'll try run Quickbench on it. Perhaps it will produce more real results.

I think I'll try and run diskwarrior, like you said. That might help things get in order.

Unfortunately, I don't have 300 VR to compare too...I figure more people would have the 300, that's why I posted to see their results on a G5.I guess I'm just kinda bummed, because I was so surprised and happy with the performance of the WD 640, and was expecting something "even greater" with the VR.

Maybe I should have gone with Raiding 2 x 640s instead of the VR for a boot drive in the G5. Would a striped set give shorter access times in regards to something like reading linked images in adobe illustrator? I mostly work in Illustrator and Photoshop together, and the part that really slows me down is when I have a bunch of linked .eps image files in illustrator. I thought the VR would help me in that area, but it hasn't changed a bit.

Reply

Answer 4

noice_T Author

Level 3

545 points

Sep 23, 2008 5:30 AM in response to DaddyPaycheck

Hi DaddyPaycheck,

Thanks for the link~ I checked the other "old" raptor stats (there wasn't any VRs) people had, and it gave me a sense of where I'm at. Maybe things are actually normal, although I'd like so see other VR stats first.

Thanks!
noiceT

Reply

Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Sep 23, 2008 5:52 AM in response to noice_T

I think the VR 150GB is or would be good safe bet for boot drive, but depends on your work, size of files, amount of memory, and whether you have your scratch volume on a dedicated drive or not, or on stripped RAID.

Number of things to look at to be sure your system is configured for best performance using CS3 (and soon CS4).

You might want to continue to boot from the 640GB and use the VR for dedicated scratch. Or buy 2-3 and stripe them into one volume as scratch.

These two give a good start, though you may already have read them before.
http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401089
http://homepage.mac.com/boots911/.Public/PhotoshopAccelerationBasics2.4W.pdf

QB is now 4.x and I know its been improved, not sure how accurate or compatible it is or if there is a free or not update to latest.

RAID isn't always the best for boot drive.

OWC $199 "pending"
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD1500HLFS/

DW can fix errors, but depending on how you installed or copied your system, I usually just clone (SD) and then run DW, then do Safe Boot, and then normal boot. But I keep data and media files off the boot drive.

It might seem like you want to let CS3 use your boot drive as default primary scratch location, but you don't. You might want a partition on the 640GB, or on a fast but dedicated drive just for scratch (and that gets erased as needed).

The difference between the 640 and 10K VR may not be as huge as it was from older drive though.

Take a look at Tom's hardware I posted, and there are other reviews (but no one had or used the 150GB).

One person has one in his G5 Quad (300GB) and another in PCI-X 2.7DP. The early G5 probably has some limitation, but without seeing numbers or knowing more... just guesses.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14583
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=432

PCMark05 requires both high throughput and quick access times, and apparently, fast drives do not always necessarily dominate this benchmark as well. Both Hitachi and Seagate do very well, but the drives do not overtake the Fujitsu 15,000 RPM drives—those seem to be the better choice for workstation-type PCs that have to handle lots of applications, while Hitachi and Seagate have probably optimized their firmware for server-type workloads.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/HDD-SATA-VelociRaptor,1914.html

Reply

Answer 6

noice_T Author

Level 3

545 points

Sep 23, 2008 11:40 PM in response to The hatter

hmmm...I wonder if the fact that I'm running CS2 with 10.4.11 make a difference? Do you think upgrading to leopard and CS3 would give better results? (in regards to access time and random reads) Even on a G5?

We actually have leopard and CS3 for some computers, but I felt keeping with Tiger and CS2 would be more "lighter" and stable running on a G5. What do you think? Am I losing out on VR speed by downgrading my software?

Reply

Answer 7

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Sep 24, 2008 3:07 AM in response to noice_T

Hard call on the CS2 / Tiger G5.

It depends - on your work load, amount of memory, whether you need to use the Tiger fix for VM Buffer plugin or not too. And all the other questions I had above (free space, other drives, and configuration).

And now with CS4.

The best way to know is to try. But the bottleneck is not the VR. It could be the G5 has reached at far as it can take you.

Reply

Answer 8

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Sep 24, 2008 4:07 AM in response to noice_T

Try putting it in your Mac Pro.

The Seagate 7200.8 I would term "dog slow" drive then, and only more so compared to today's 7.2K drives.

Cost/performance wise the WD 6400AAKS is hard to beat, and more capacity.

I assume you already read or were using Adobe's tips, and MacGuru's guide:

http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401089
http://homepage.mac.com/boots911/.Public/PhotoshopAccelerationBasics2.4W.pdf

In the old days, people used 4-8 15K or 10K SCSI drives for their scratch volume. Today, they might still, but drives are much faster and larger, and memory is more important.

CS2 + Tiger - http://www.barefeats.com/quad13.html
Best boot drive: http://www.barefeats.com/quad08.html

Who/where sold the VR? only place I find is Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296

Reply

Answer 9

noice_T Author

Level 3

545 points

Sep 24, 2008 1:10 PM in response to The hatter

I just run Disk warrior, and it seems to have REALLY helped out ^^ Even after the fresh install, after installing all my programs graphing the drive showed a lot of things out of order. Boot time finally seems more snappy~ Thanks for all your help & patience!

As a side reference, I'm currently working with 5.5gb of ram (4gb G.skill / 1.5gb stock). As for work load...not really big files at all. Usually working in illustrator with frequently linked eps images or psd, that never go over 100mb.
Currently I am using 12gb of the entire 140gb available on the VR. Stock vid card: GeForce FX 5200.

BTW what is the Tiger fix for VM Buffer plugin? Is that a CS2 plugin?

Anyway thanks again, I can rest easier knowing the VR is not the bottleneck. I am also considering your idea of picking up more WD 640s for scratch, love that drive ^^

Thanks,
noiceT

Reply

Answer 10

noice_T Author

Level 3

545 points

Sep 24, 2008 1:12 PM in response to The hatter

Oh yeah, and I bought the drive from newegg.

Reply