SSD vs HDD for BOINC DC Crunching

[DrPop]

The HDD I was going to use for the new build up (WD Caviar Blue 500GB 7200 RPM SATAII) just went into my brother's new rig I built him last night.

This leaves me wondering...on a budget...is it worth it to get a small SSD drive over a regular "decent" HDD? Would one see any benefit in crunching speed? In a way, I guess I'm asking, "is the time that BOINC programs either read or write to the HDD in any way a significant part of the time it takes to comlete a WU?" At the end of the day, does anyone know how much time the CPU or GPU sat idle due to I/O requests?

I would not be able to spend any more than what a 40GB - 64GB SSD cost at Newegg. Now, nothing really has to go on this rig except Win7 64bit, appropriate drivers, and BOINC...so I'm not that worried about storage space for it.

The other option is the HDD Joker suggested, or one like it: 500GB SATAIII WD Caviar Black 32MB Cache (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795)@ $59 (1/2 price of a small SSD) or a slightly larger / faster version: 640GB Caviar Black 64MB Cache (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136544) @ $69.
Of course, I could get 2 such drives and RAID 0 them, but then...may as well get a small SSD, I think.

What's the general consensus from the land of the BOINC Hardware Gurus? ;)

[Mumps]

No. Running on an SSD drive has little to no impact on BOINC production. The only exception there used to be to this rule of thumb was AlmereGrid, and they've updated their App to fix that. (And even there, it was better to run BOINC from a RAMDisk instead.)

Spend just a couple sheckles on a small normal drive and you'll be fine. At this stage, the only real benefit I see to an SSD drive for BOINCing is that most draw roughly 1/10th of what a regular drive would, so you'll save a bit on your energy bills.

[-GER-]

I don't see the HD light going on much with Boinc running. When I run Windows resource monitor it doesn't show much data being written/read.

It could be project dependent but I'm guessing in most if not all cases with disc cache the HD isn't getting worked too much.

I'd go with the HD over SD and keep the option to toss a bunch of movies on there :cool:

[Fire$torm]

Well, if you really, really want an SSD drive, and don't want to speed a fortune, then there is only one SSD to get. The Intel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2K5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148593&cm_re=Seagate_Momentus_XT-_-22-148-593-_-Product) Price: $94.99 at the Egg. It even comes with its own 2.5" to 3.5" mounting adapter. This drive is part of Intel's X25 Value series, a lower cost alternative to their M series which start at $172.00 on Newegg.

I would still recommend a standard HHD, over an SSD simply because of price, like the Western Digital Caviar Blue WD2500AAKX 250GB 7200 RPM HDD. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136771) Price: $44.99 at the Egg.

Note that a dedicated cruncher does not need a large HDD. I have two systems with 20GB drives and each utilizes less than 50% of that 20GB.


Edit Edit Edit..... I forgot to mention that there is a great and still relevant article on Solid State Drives from AnandTech titled "The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD." (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2829/8) If you don't wish to read the whole thing (All 27 pages) then just skip the last page "Final Words" (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2829/27)

[DrPop]

OK, thanks for the info and the SSD link. I think I'll wait awhile on taking the SSD plunge, then.

If we're talking regular HDDs now, would there be much benefit to ponying up the extra $10 for a 64MB cache (640GB) over 32MB cache (500GB) version on the Caviar Black SATAIII edition?
Anyone have a better drive to recommend, or is the Caviar Black the way to go for a SATAIII? I figure I may as well get a SATAIII since I'm getting the crazy motherboard that sparked all this... ;)

[joker]

You know what I think. ;-)

[Fire$torm]

OK, thanks for the info and the SSD link. I think I'll wait awhile on taking the SSD plunge, then.

If we're talking regular HDDs now, would there be much benefit to ponying up the extra $10 for a 64MB cache (640GB) over 32MB cache (500GB) version on the Caviar Black SATAIII edition?
Anyone have a better drive to recommend, or is the Caviar Black the way to go for a SATAIII? I figure I may as well get a SATAIII since I'm getting the crazy motherboard that sparked all this... ;)

That $10 gets you an additional 120GB so yeah. :-bd

[DrPop]

That $10 gets you an additional 120GB so yeah. :-bd

Right...and I am hard pressed to use even a quarter of one of those. ;). It's mostly speed I'm after, so I was wondering about the 64MB vs 32MB cache. But, you're right. The bigger drive should be faster with the little I'll load on there because of the platter size and loading pattern.

[John P. Myers]

OK, thanks for the info and the SSD link. I think I'll wait awhile on taking the SSD plunge, then.

If we're talking regular HDDs now, would there be much benefit to ponying up the extra $10 for a 64MB cache (640GB) over 32MB cache (500GB) version on the Caviar Black SATAIII edition?
Anyone have a better drive to recommend, or is the Caviar Black the way to go for a SATAIII? I figure I may as well get a SATAIII since I'm getting the crazy motherboard that sparked all this... ;)

WD Caviar Black is the way to go. Period. I have one myself.
The absolute best thing about the Cav Blk is it has a 5 year warranty and is very very fast for a physical drive. And yes, get the 640GB version. Any higher than that and you lose a bit of efficiency due to the way data space is stuffed on the platters. The 640GB is the best of them all. Grab it :)

[John P. Myers]

Err..to be a little more specific on why the 640GB is better than even the 500GB, is, as i said, because of the platters. The 500GB uses 3 166GB platters. The 1TB uses 3 334GB platters, but the 640GB only uses 2 320GB platters, which gives less wear on the motor and spindle, faster seek times, etc. It's good stuff.

[DrPop]

OK, that makes a good argument for the Caviar Black 640GB SATAIII 64MB Cache model.

Just for kicks, how do you think an 80GB Velociraptor SATA II 10K RPM drive would compare to that? About $50 on EBay. Older tech and smaller platter(s), but 10K RPMs. Probably pretty close, I suppose.

[Fire$torm]

OK, that makes a good argument for the Caviar Black 640GB SATAIII 64MB Cache model.

Just for kicks, how do you think an 80GB Velociraptor SATA II 10K RPM drive would compare to that? About $50 on EBay. Older tech and smaller platter(s), but 10K RPMs. Probably pretty close, I suppose.

That raptor drive is faster but it comes with a handicap. It runs HOT. Most of the heat is from that 10K motor but a decent portion comes from the chipset (motor controller, data buffers, etc...) because everything has to run faster to keep up with the platters. Bottom line, increased wear n' tear, accelerated entropy.... you get the idea.

[DrPop]

Gotcha! ;) Good for a high-end gaming rig that's on for a few hours per day at max usage...then off. Not for 24/7 crunchin'.

[rgathright]

OK, that makes a good argument for the Caviar Black 640GB SATAIII 64MB Cache model.

Just for kicks, how do you think an 80GB Velociraptor SATA II 10K RPM drive would compare to that? About $50 on EBay. Older tech and smaller platter(s), but 10K RPMs. Probably pretty close, I suppose.

You are in luck my friend! I have been writing a detailed series of reviews about USB 3.0 and the Thermaltake BlacX 5G HDD Docking Station. For my scientific analysis, I used 3 hard drives (Raptor 36GB, Caviar Black 1TB, WD Scorpio Black 2.5" 250Gb) and 3 transfer technologies (USB 2.0, USB 3.0, SATA 2.0) all while using TMPGEnc to create a 1080P movie from 2000 still TGA frames. Since the source frames and destination MPEG are on the same drive, this simulates the load that CPDN would put on your machine.

Attached is an Excel chart that I created from all the results.

Today, I am writing a 25Gb SQL Server 2005 BAK file to each of the drives using all three transfer methods to see if any large differences appear in burst write speeds.

Enjoy!

139

[DrPop]

Sweet, the WD Caviar Black is really fast, then. Beats the first generation Raptor - the second gen VelociRaptor is supposed to be about 30% faster, so it and a new SATA III Caviar Black would be really close, I think.

What blows me away is that USB 3.0 is faster than SATAII? Amazing. USB has some overhead, so I'm floored that it was faster than the direct SATAII connection. That is sweet.

[rgathright]

Sweet, the WD Caviar Black is really fast, then. Beats the first generation Raptor - the second gen VelociRaptor is supposed to be about 30% faster, so it and a new SATA III Caviar Black would be really close, I think.

What blows me away is that USB 3.0 is faster than SATAII? Amazing. USB has some overhead, so I'm floored that it was faster than the direct SATAII connection. That is sweet.

All depends on the definition of "direct connection". I am using a USB 3.0 PCIe x4 controller over here. The same interface that your video card uses! :cool:

[Dandasarge]

All depends on the definition of "direct connection". I am using a USB 3.0 PCIe x4 controller over here. The same interface that your video card uses! :cool:

This I'm sure is a bad question and sure the cost is high. Can you plug a Video card into it and crunch?

[Dandasarge]

I also am serprised that usb 3 is faster then sata II.

[rgathright]

This I'm sure is a bad question and sure the cost is high. Can you plug a Video card into it and crunch?

Of course I can! Of course if I did then I would have to find another computer to perform testing for my hardware reviews. Chances are very likely that computer would have a PCIe slot as well... the cycle continues. :D

[DrPop]

Alright, thanks for all the comments on this. Finally just decided to go with the Caviar Black 640GB 64MB cache 6.0Gb/s drive.
Should be here in a day or two...Newegg ships out of LA and that's only about 90 min. drive from here.

[c303a]

I have a WD Caviar Black 64mb 1tb Hard Drive and love it. I always get WD drives and have not had problems with them.