[chichow]

Forum,

I want to buy a FirmTek SeriTek/2SE4 PCI-X Serial ATA Host Adapter, but am wondering if it is overkill for my setup and needs.

Current Setup:
1.25Ghz DP MDD
2Gb RAM
24” Dell display (sorry)
4 Internal Drives (all PATA) ranging in 120Gb – 300Gb sizes
Numerous External FW400 drives

Current Usage: Just web, light gaming, office, file server, occasional encoding. 3x a week in front of workstation otherwise remote access

Desire:
1) Move to SATA
2) Start with 1 Tb space (all internal) and maybe a fast boot drive – Raptor
3) Still use drives at JBOD, but maybe go RAID down the line.

Question: So the question is that if I go to 1 internal boot drive (fast) and 3 larger size drives for SATA will I really feel the speed difference from the internal SATA boot drive for my type of usage?

Or do I just stick with a PATA semi-fast boot drive and get a much cheaper non-bootable SATA card for increasing my storage needs.

As for backups, I’ll just throw the current PATAs into enclosures and keep moving some offsite.

Here are references to the SeriTek/2SE4
AMUG FirmTek SeriTek/2SE4 PCI-X SATA PM Host Adapter Review

Here is a reference to the G4 bus speeds.
Comparison of G4 Dual 1.25 MDD to the G5 1.6 and Dual G5 2.0GHz
Maximum combined throughput on the PCI bus in the last G4 towers was 266 MB/s

Western Digital Raptor X 150GB

[Chito]

chichow...I sent you a PM

[OreoCookie]

You are aware that a JBOD will be as fast as one harddrive, right? Other than the speed increase from moving to newer harddrives, you won't benefit from this at all.

Judging from what you are doing, I don't think this will be a worthwhile investment. I'd probably save up the money for your next machine -- or, if you really want to make your machine faster, think about a cpu upgrade (or RAM if you need more).

[chichow]

I was looking though to the Raptor for the OS disk for snappier performance.
And I was looking to keep the old workhorse around for years more as my home server and I thought that larger disk drives are only coming in SATA now.

so if I don't need that snap from the OS drive, then just go to some non-bootable 75 dollar SATA card?

[bowwowman]

Originally Posted by chichow 

I was looking though to the Raptor for the OS disk for snappier performance.
And I was looking to keep the old workhorse around for years more as my home server and I thought that larger disk drives are only coming in SATA now.

so if I don't need that snap from the OS drive, then just go to some non-bootable 75 dollar SATA card?

YES, all that IS overkill for the uses you listed, however......

The Raptors DO make excellent boot drives, snappy for sure (I have 3), so if you wanna move to SATA anyways, go for it. But forget the raid......way mo money/time/complexity than you need

And BTW, I use a SIIG 4 channel SATA card w/ my Raptors in my QS and it IS bootable, and AFAIK, so are the Firmtek's. (at least the older SE2 I had in my B&W & ST was anyways). And do as you said w/ your PATA drives........

[chichow]

and no firmware issues with the SIGGs?

Any recommendation for SIGGs vs Firmtek or other bootable non-RAID SATA cards?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by chichow 

I was looking though to the Raptor for the OS disk for snappier performance.
And I was looking to keep the old workhorse around for years more as my home server and I thought that larger disk drives are only coming in SATA now.

so if I don't need that snap from the OS drive, then just go to some non-bootable 75 dollar SATA card?

Well, buying a SATA card is more future-proof, that's right. But on the other hand, you don't need that for server duties, if you want a storage server, you could also make do with FireWire drives. I also don't think buying a Raptor is a useful investment for you, get a large drive instead. Raptors only have a significant advantage if you are accessing tons of small files. Boot times will be faster, but honestly, they have 0 significance in real life. Get large drives instead.

If I were you, I'd just get one or several large PATA drives of your liking and be done with it. Even large capacities (750 GB) are still offered with PATA interface (e. g. by Segate), so you should be fine. 1 TB drives are very expensive anyway. The sweet spot ($$ per GB) is at around 500 GB anyway and you can get 500 GB PATA drives from each and every of your favorite manufacturers anyway. I would not go for a JBOD, especially with more than 2 drives.

Have a look at it this way: for significantly less, you get (almost) the same performance. You can use that money to do other things that'll have a much more significant impact on the way you work: (i) an extra LCD, (ii) cpu upgrades, (iii) RAM upgrades or (iv) start saving for a new machine.

Oh, and make sure to have a backup strategy.