IO thruput via SATA ports

I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended way to
add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs indicate
that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.

Also, the motherboard supports SATA: IDE/Raid. I think I'm going with
IDE, any performance penalty?

Anyone have any recommendations? Anything I'm missing/overlooking?

thanx, mark

Kyp wrote:
I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended way to
add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs indicate
that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.

Also, the motherboard supports SATA: IDE/Raid. I think I'm going with
IDE, any performance penalty?

Anyone have any recommendations? Anything I'm missing/overlooking?

thanx, mark

What do you want to achive? Throughput is not very relevant,
except in specific situations. Also using several drives
you would either have to RAID them or partition your data.

Arno

--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

Kyp wrote

I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended
way to add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs
indicate that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better
to have 3 smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive.

You cant do it as simplistically as that. Some of the 1TB drives
have rather better thruput than the 320GB drives, the sectors
move under the heads rather more quickly and thats what
determines thruput with the movement of substantial files.

Corse you should be organising things so you dont move
substantial files much except for backup and with backup
the IO thruput usually doesnt matter much because most
do their backup when they arent using the PC anyway.

I suspect that more drive spindles is better.

Its rather more complicated than that, particularly when
with mulitiple spindles you are much more likely to be moving
substantial files around because they are on the wrong drive etc.

But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2 devices per channel.

All drives are one per channel with sata.

Also, the motherboard supports SATA: IDE/Raid.
I think I'm going with IDE, any performance penalty?

Normally not.

Anyone have any recommendations?

I prefer one physical drive and one partition per physical drive now.

Anything I'm missing/overlooking?

The partitioning.

On 28/03/2011 10:52 AM, Kyp wrote:
I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended way to
add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs indicate
that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

In general, the access method does not make a huge difference to the
performance of SATA drives. SATA drives can be accessed in one of three
modes: (1) IDE emulation, (2) AHCI native mode, or (3) RAID mode. The
3rd mode is a bit of a fake mode, it's really using the AHCI mode and
hiding the internal configuration of disks from the operating system.

The AHCI mode adds such capabilities as NCQ (Native Command Queuing)
which supposedly helps in organizing disk access patterns better. Also
it allows you to use eSATA external disks and make them removable
devices. Other than that, there's not much of advantage over the IDE
emulation mode; in this mode, everything appears as UDMA6.

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.

I think throughput seems to be limited by access time on these drives.
I've found that the disk queue length gets attacked pretty heavily while
under Windows. I haven't been able to determine what inside Windows is
attacking the disk queue that much, but it takes a lot of throughput out
of the system, if it's busy constantly trying to service numerous small
requests.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote
Kyp wrote

I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended way to add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs indicate that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port
(theoretically).

In general, the access method does not make a huge difference to the
performance of SATA drives. SATA drives can be accessed in one of
three modes: (1) IDE emulation, (2) AHCI native mode, or (3) RAID
mode. The 3rd mode is a bit of a fake mode, it's really using the
AHCI mode and hiding the internal configuration of disks from the
operating system.

The AHCI mode adds such capabilities as NCQ (Native Command Queuing)
which supposedly helps in organizing disk access patterns better. Also
it allows you to use eSATA external disks and make them removable
devices. Other than that, there's not much of advantage over the IDE
emulation mode; in this mode, everything appears as UDMA6.

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.

I think throughput seems to be limited by access time on these drives.

Nope, not with moving substantial files around.

I've found that the disk queue length gets attacked pretty heavily while under Windows.

Thats not right either. Few systems have their hard drive led on most of the time.

I haven't been able to determine what inside Windows is attacking the disk queue that much, but it takes a lot of
throughput out of the system, if it's busy constantly trying to
service numerous small requests.

Thats just plain wrong.

On 28/03/2011 16:52, Kyp wrote:
I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended way to
add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs indicate
that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.


The price difference between 320 GB and bigger drives such as 750 GB or
1 TB is pennies. So if you decide you want a raid system using three
disks, and a total of about 1 TB storage, you are better off using
larger disks and short-stroking them. I don't know if you can do this
with your motherboard's own RAID support (I normally avoid fakeraid).
It is certainly easily achievable with Linux software raid - I expect it
can also be done with Windows software raid, though I haven't used that
either.

To short-stroke, you would buy three 750 GB disks. Partition each disk
in two - say a 350 GB partition then a 400 GB partition. Tie all the
350 GB partitions together in a RAID 0 setup for 1050 GB fast access,
and you can use the other 400 GB partitions for something else -
individual partitions, another raid, extra copies, etc.

The point is that when you only use the first half of the disks for
normal use, access time is somewhat reduced (less head movement, as it
only covers have the distance) and data rates are significantly faster
(since you only use the faster outer part of the surface).


Of course, unless you have some very specific performance requirements
and have applications that require this sort of disk setup, you won't
notice any significant speed differences compared to just using 1 large
disk. And using RAID 0 makes you more vulnerable to disk failures.


If you are using Linux, however, it can be worth having something like
this (with perhaps two or three disks). Put a small boot partition at
the start of each disk, connected with a software RAID1. Make the rest
of each disk a single large partition, and tie them all together with
software RAID10. You half the usable disk space (1.5 TB with three 1 TB
disks), but you get the protection of RAID1 mirroring, the speed of
RAID0 striped access (though writes are a bit slower due to the
mirroring), and most accesses will use the faster part of the disks.


Also, the motherboard supports SATA: IDE/Raid. I think I'm going with
IDE, any performance penalty?

Anyone have any recommendations? Anything I'm missing/overlooking?

thanx, mark

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:52:10 -0700 (PDT), Kyp
wrote:

I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended way to
add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs indicate
that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.

Also, the motherboard supports SATA: IDE/Raid. I think I'm going with
IDE, any performance penalty?

Anyone have any recommendations? Anything I'm missing/overlooking?

thanx, mark

Add an external eSATA drive--up to 3TB, but can be 1TB and
up. That way, it can be removed when needed. Could go USB3
also, depends what you are backing up and how often.

I have a 4-drive eSATA box connected to my computer and have
few problems. There are 4x1TB HDDs running JBOD (4
independent drives each with its own drive letter). Been
using it for 2+years and do recommend it to others. The mfr
now offers the same box with eSATA and USB3.

On Mar 29, 3:53*pm, Gerald Abrahamson wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:52:10 -0700 (PDT), Kyp





wrote:
I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended way to
add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. *The specs indicate
that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. *Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. *I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. *But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.

Also, the motherboard supports SATA: IDE/Raid. *I think I'm going with
IDE, any performance penalty?

Anyone have any recommendations? *Anything I'm missing/overlooking?

thanx, mark

Add an external eSATA drive--up to 3TB, but can be 1TB and
up. That way, it can be removed when needed. Could go USB3
also, depends what you are backing up and how often.

I have a 4-drive eSATA box connected to my computer and have
few problems. There are 4x1TB HDDs running JBOD (4
independent drives each with its own drive letter). Been
using it for 2+years and do recommend it to others. The mfr
now offers the same box with eSATA and USB3.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I think in most cases the operating system and file system is the
slowest part of the equation. It does depend to a very large extent
on number and size of files being copied. Linux can be fast, Windows,
FAT32 is slow.

My feeling is that the easiest way to slow the drive down is to
'thrash' it by copying files within the same drive. These causes the
heads to be moving all of the time.

Do do file copies, three smaller drives could be better, as long as a
copy was always between different drives.

Adequate memory is also important.

Michael
www.cnwrecovery.com

Gerald Abrahamson wrote
Kyp wrote

I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended
way to add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs
indicate that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.

Also, the motherboard supports SATA: IDE/Raid.
I think I'm going with IDE, any performance penalty?

Anyone have any recommendations? Anything I'm missing/overlooking?

Add an external eSATA drive--up to 3TB, but can be 1TB and
up. That way, it can be removed when needed. Could go USB3
also, depends what you are backing up and how often.

I have a 4-drive eSATA box connected to my computer and
have few problems. There are 4x1TB HDDs running JBOD
(4 independent drives each with its own drive letter). Been
using it for 2+years and do recommend it to others. The
mfr now offers the same box with eSATA and USB3.

You didnt mention the manufacturer's name or model.

Trouble with those is that they cost as much as one of the drives, often more.

On Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:01:21 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

Gerald Abrahamson wrote
Kyp wrote

I'm new to using SATA and would like to know the recommended
way to add SATA drives to maximize IO thruput.

My mother board, Intel DQ965GF has 6 SATA ports. The specs
indicate that I can get 3Gb/sec for each port (theoretically).

I would like to add about 1TB of storage. Is it better to have 3
smaller drives (~320GB) or 1 1TB drive. I suspect that more drive
spindles is better. But for IDE, with the master/slave, with the 2
devices per channel.

Also, the motherboard supports SATA: IDE/Raid.
I think I'm going with IDE, any performance penalty?

Anyone have any recommendations? Anything I'm missing/overlooking?

Add an external eSATA drive--up to 3TB, but can be 1TB and
up. That way, it can be removed when needed. Could go USB3
also, depends what you are backing up and how often.

I have a 4-drive eSATA box connected to my computer and
have few problems. There are 4x1TB HDDs running JBOD
(4 independent drives each with its own drive letter). Been
using it for 2+years and do recommend it to others. The
mfr now offers the same box with eSATA and USB3.

You didnt mention the manufacturer's name or model.

Trouble with those is that they cost as much as one of the drives, often more.


http://www.chyangfun.com/pro01_2_5.asp

Here you go. I have the same box with eSATA. Big fan in back
to keep air moving. It was about $200 then, add $20 for the
dual-port PCIe/eSATA card. Not cheap, but it does work--and
it holds up to 4 drives. Just using one eSATA or USB3 cable.