JP Posted July 14, 2010 Share Posted July 14, 2010 I'm probably just splitting hairs here, but since I can't be sure I just thought I would ask. After reading quite a bit about Unraid it seems clear to me that the parity drive sees the most work. I will have 2TB data drives in my Unraid server so I need a 2TB parity drive. What I don't know is whether it is worth spending a little extra money to get a 7200 RPM parity drive like WD's Caviar Black 2TB drive. Again, is this just splitting hairs and will any 2TB drive that is listed in the Hardware Compatibility WIKI do or will I be any better of from a performance perspective to move up to 7200 RPM? Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted July 14, 2010 Share Posted July 14, 2010 I'm probably just splitting hairs here, but since I can't be sure I just thought I would ask. After reading quite a bit about Unraid it seems clear to me that the parity drive sees the most work. I will have 2TB data drives in my Unraid server so I need a 2TB parity drive. What I don't know is whether it is worth spending a little extra money to get a 7200 RPM parity drive like WD's Caviar Black 2TB drive. Again, is this just splitting hairs and will any 2TB drive that is listed in the Hardware Compatibility WIKI do or will I be any better of from a performance perspective to move up to 7200 RPM? Writing to the unRAID array is limited by the slowest (rotational speed) drive involved. If only the parity drive is a 7200 RPM drive, then you are still limited by the speed of the data drive. You'll see NO improvement in write speed unless there are multiple slower data drives being written to simultaneously, and one faster 7200 RPM parity drive trying to keep up with both of them. As far as the parity drive doing the most work... I do not agree, not unless you are constantly writing to the array. It is only involved in "writes" and I stored all my movies once, but I play them a lot. Playing a movie does not involve the parity drive at all. Quote Link to comment
JP Posted July 14, 2010 Author Share Posted July 14, 2010 I'm probably just splitting hairs here, but since I can't be sure I just thought I would ask. After reading quite a bit about Unraid it seems clear to me that the parity drive sees the most work. I will have 2TB data drives in my Unraid server so I need a 2TB parity drive. What I don't know is whether it is worth spending a little extra money to get a 7200 RPM parity drive like WD's Caviar Black 2TB drive. Again, is this just splitting hairs and will any 2TB drive that is listed in the Hardware Compatibility WIKI do or will I be any better of from a performance perspective to move up to 7200 RPM? Writing to the unRAID array is limited by the slowest (rotational speed) drive involved. If only the parity drive is a 7200 RPM drive, then you are still limited by the speed of the data drive. You'll see NO improvement in write speed unless there are multiple slower data drives being written to simultaneously, and one faster 7200 RPM parity drive trying to keep up with both of them. As far as the parity drive doing the most work... I do not agree, not unless you are constantly writing to the array. It is only involved in "writes" and I stored all my movies once, but I play them a lot. Playing a movie does not involve the parity drive at all. Understood. Thanks for the guidance. Since this is the case I'll simply choose a 2TB drive from the hardware compatibility list. Quote Link to comment
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