Which Drive is "Better"

[lambchops511]

In general, which are better 2.5" 7200rpm drives or 3.5" 7200 drives in terms of IOPS and random access.

And are enterprise versions of drives worth the price premium? ie. are they just less prone to data corruption with better warranty? and their performance is more or less the same comparing 7200 w/ 7200?

 

[Billb2]

That's like asking "Which is bigger, red or blue?"

...not enough data to tell.

There are many other things than RPM that effect drive performance.

Would a slow, long warranty "enterprise" drive be better than a fast, short warranty one?

Would you be willing to be paralyzed, from the neck down, for a year, if complete recovery was assured, to save the whales?

 

[lambchops511]

Originally posted by: Billb2
That's like asking "Which is bigger, red or blue?"

...not enough data to tell.

There are many other things than RPM that effect drive performance.

Would a slow, long warranty "enterprise" drive be better than a fast, short warranty one?

i don't care about capacity - i care more about iops . capacity is useless if i cant use it

Would you be willing to be paralyzed, from the neck down, for a year, if complete recovery was assured, to save the whales?

Yes, cost is more important that failures

 

[LokutusofBorg]

bit-tech just had a review of the new 1TB 7200.12 and they compare various drives under different conditions. You should read a couple reviews like that to see if they give you more of an answer.

Enterprise drives are worth the premium if reliability is the top of your priority list. Otherwise you should buy for bang/buck and just be smart and have a backup strategy. Performance is fleeting, as in the bit-tech review, the 7200.12 and the Spinpoint F1 outperformed not-very-old Velociraptors. Paying a premium makes absolutely no sense in my mind.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: aznium
In general, which are better 2.5" 7200rpm drives or 3.5" 7200 drives in terms of IOPS and random access.

3.5" drives

 

[taltamir]

don't even bother with generalizing performance based on engineering decisions. 7200 rpm is an engineering decision, 32MB of cache is an engineering decision, it doesn't matter to the end user, what matters is what a specific model has been benchmarked using real world apps by reliable reviewers.

 

[specialk90]

If you need more IOP, here is a list from fastest to slowest:
1) Fusion ioDrive - PCI-Express based SSD, $1000+ equal IOP to 5-Intel X25s, size ranges 80-320GB
2) SSD - Intel's X25 is the fastest Sata SSD
3) SAS - Seagate's 15k.7(brand new) 15k rpm SAS drive, 146-650GB, $300-$1200, fastest 15k rpm drive on the market; Seagate 15k.6, 146-450GB, $250-900, about 15% slower than 15k.7; Seagate Savvio 2.5" 15k rpm drive, 36-74GB slightly faster than 15k.6 for IOP but in 2.5" size, 4-2.5" drives take the same space as 1-3.5"(these are bigger than laptop 2.5" drives); Seagate ES.2 SAS & SATA, 250GB- 1TB, only 5-10% slower than Velociraptor in IOP and yet only 7200rpm, $75-180
4) SATA - Velociraptor

In terms of data security, SAS drives provide a far lower error rate than does Sata, which looks like something that possibly happened to you. Also, you would want to use Raid 1, 10, 5 or 6 for real data security. With all those mentioned, you can have a drive fail and lose NO data, and with Raid 10 and 6, you can lose 2 drives and still lose no data. And no downtime if a drive dies. SSD drives are very compelling but are not trusted yet by people who work with servers and need more IOP. They are still in their infancy and have some kinks that need worked out before they can be fully trusted with important data that needs to be available 24/7. Also, "Enterprise Class" drives are worth the money if the drives are running 24/7 because they are designed to do so, whereas desktop drives are not. The price premium for enterprise drives is not due to the warranty but due to better and more durable hardware.

 

[specialk90]

I forgot to add that Enterprise drives are designed to get higher IOP than their desktop siblings. For example, the Seagate 7200.11 desktop drive vs Seagate ES.2 enterprise drive, the ES.2 is 15-20% faster in IOP.

 

[Blain]

Why is the OP asking about 2.5" drives?

 

[LokutusofBorg]

Aren't Velociraptors 2.5"?

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: LokutusofBorg
Aren't Velociraptors 2.5"?

no... if you measure the size of a drive as an X-Y-Z. they have the X and Z sizes of a 2.5 drives with the Y size of a 3.5 inch drive.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: LokutusofBorg
Aren't Velociraptors 2.5"?

Yes they are (the IcePack heatsink bulks them up to 3.5"), but back on topoc, the OP asked...

Originally posted by: aznium
In general, which are better 2.5" 7200rpm drives or 3.5" 7200 drives in terms of IOPS and random access.

He's not asking about VelociRaptors, he's asking about laptop drives.