Thread: what drive capacity would suit you?

  1. #61
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    Nope. I don't see it ever happening.
    You need half of the hard drive for storage for backups in some sort of way. Which could be converted into storage space.
    So either you get 2 x 500 GB for $25 each or 500 GB + RAID for $50 (theoretical future prices, of course).
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  2. #62
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    You need half of the hard drive for storage for backups in some sort of way. Which could be converted into storage space. So either you get 2 x 500 GB for $25 each or 500 GB + RAID for $50 (theoretical future prices, of course).
    Sorry I just wanted to quote this again.
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  3. #63
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I just don't see any special advantage to a integrated disk array(?).

    Assembly is bound to be more expensive, even on SSDs I think. I can't see how this would be otherwise. So, in my opinion, an integrated disk would almost certainly be more expensive in terms of $/Mb when compared to a normal one. I don't want to draw a straw man argument, but can't stop thinking about the reasons it wasn't done already...

    On the other hand there's no real significant gain. Assuming a RAID 0 implementation, here you have a "single" SSD that boasts two SSDs inside, still needs two cables to connect to the motherboard, probably asks more $ per MB and is half as reliable as a normal SSD.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  4. #64
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    Having RAID in an single drive is dumb. It would make the device more complex & expensive since it would need it's own RAID controller built in, and wouldn't necessarily prevent all types of failures. If part of the shared electronics of the drive dies, both storage units are lost (unless you bring it to an expensive data recovery lab).
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  5. #65
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    Probably 200Gb would be good at the moment (I currently have 150Gb). As for the future, the more the better, as long as it is relatively cheap. I am after all more of a gamer than a hamster.
    Last edited by MikkoM; 08-21-2009 at 06:38 PM.

  6. #66
    In my head happyclown's Avatar
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    I'll leave the fine technical details to people much smarter than myself, but I would not hesitate to pay more for:

    1. A drive with 2 or more internal storage media
    2. The drive has the option of real time mirroring(OS, drivers, data, everything) of one media to another, or no mirroring, so the extra media is simply used for storage. Therefore people won't only have half the storage capacity.
    3. The storage media is hot swappable. So the dead media can be replaced, or the good media can be swapped into another drive, just in case the reading mechanism of the first drive dies.
    4. Better would be if the drive had no shared electronics - if one media dies, the drive instantly switches to the second media, with no disruption. But as I said previously, I'll leave the fine technical details as to how it may be achieved to someone much smarter than myself.

    I run a business. I started this thread because I had to replace a failing drive. It was a PITA to have to reinstall the OS, drivers, and reconfigure settings. This was downtime for my business, and downtime costs me money.

    If a drive existed whereby drive failure resulted in no(or minimum) downtime, with no loss of data, I would be willing to pay double(even tripple) the price of a normal drive.

    EDIT: And of course, backups of data would still be made and kept offsite.
    Last edited by happyclown; 08-21-2009 at 07:11 PM. Reason: changed sentence

  7. #67
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by happyclown View Post
    but I would not hesitate to pay more for:
    ditto; same track.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  8. #68
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by happyclown View Post
    I run a business. I started this thread because I had to replace a failing drive. It was a PITA to have to reinstall the OS, drivers, and reconfigure settings. This was downtime for my business, and downtime costs me money.
    Well, you know now that you could have had an easier timer if you had gone through other methods (a system-wide backup comes to mind).

    If a drive existed whereby drive failure resulted in no(or minimum) downtime, with no loss of data, I would be willing to pay double(even tripple) the price of a normal drive.
    You can.
    So... exactly what's the advantage of having everything on the same disk, again?
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  9. #69
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    Assembly is bound to be more expensive, even on SSDs I think. I can't see how this would be otherwise. So, in my opinion, an integrated disk would almost certainly be more expensive in terms of $/Mb when compared to a normal one. I don't want to draw a straw man argument, but can't stop thinking about the reasons it wasn't done already...
    SSDs already have internal RAIDs, kind of. An SSD is made out of a few memory chips and a controller chip. The memory chips are used in a fashion similar to RAID, coordinated by the controller. That's the reason for SSDs' high performance. Larger SSDs tend to be faster, too, for this reason. They need multiple memory chips anyways, might as well access them in RAID.

    Quote Originally Posted by happyclown
    3. The storage media is hot swappable. So the dead media can be replaced, or the good media can be swapped into another drive, just in case the reading mechanism of the first drive dies.
    Good RAID solutions support hotplugging. SATA supports hotplugging.

    If a drive existed whereby drive failure resulted in no(or minimum) downtime, with no loss of data, I would be willing to pay double(even tripple) the price of a normal drive.
    Just get 3 drives and make a RAID-5 array. You get 2/3 the total capacity (the other 1/3 is the xor of the first 2 parts, to provide redundancy), with theoretically higher read speed than a single drive, and quite a bit lower write speed (since 2 drives need to be updated everytime you write). RAID-5 guarantees that your data will be intact if at most 1 of the 3 drives die.

    4. Better would be if the drive had no shared electronics - if one media dies, the drive instantly switches to the second media, with no disruption. But as I said previously, I'll leave the fine technical details as to how it may be achieved to someone much smarter than myself.
    RAID provides all those things .

  10. #70
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    RAID provides all those things .
    Yes thank god our technology has finally reached the pinnacle of perfection and the naysayers can be put to rest.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  11. #71
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    LOL, MK27.

    It's not a matter of being a naysayer. It's just that I still fail to see any advantage. Show me how this could be advantageous. And think for a moment why it hasn't been done already. Surely we are well beyond our capability to build such drives. So... where are they? Or why haven't they became mainstream?

    How for instance you propose to solve the replacement of such a drive if one of its internal disks fails? Buy a new one? But just one of the internal disks failed...
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  12. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F.
    How for instance you propose to solve the replacement of such a drive if one of its internal disks fails?
    Remember,
    Quote Originally Posted by happyclown
    3. The storage media is hot swappable


    (...which makes absolutely no sense at all)

  13. #73
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ctrl_freak View Post
    (...which makes absolutely no sense at all)
    Okay I'll admit: not so interested in "hot swapping" the hard drive, but it's not like, inconceivable.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Surely we are well beyond our capability to build such drives. So... where are they?
    They would have to be SSD so we are only approaching the capability. My point was there was no point with the old school mechanical model, because the "most significant part" of a normal HD is *not* the storage media.
    Last edited by MK27; 08-21-2009 at 09:41 PM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  14. #74
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    >Okay I'll admit: not so interested in "hot swapping" the hard drive, but it's not like, inconceivable.
    Yes, but what's the difference between this and RAID? I doubt hard drive manufacturers want to place bets that people will buy "all-in-one" RAID hard drives when they can just as easily purchase a RAID controller and a couple of individual drives.

  15. #75
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    [QUOTE=ctrl_freak;887361 I doubt hard drive manufacturers want to place bets that people will buy "all-in-one" RAID hard drives when they can just as easily purchase a RAID controller and a couple of individual drives.[/QUOTE]

    Again, the "turning point" here based on the fact that an all-in-one raid SSD drive will be cheaper than two drives and a controller, substantially.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

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