That age old Debate... 5900 vs. 7200RPM in a NAS Device

[maximusfacq]

So, one more time.... (And PLEASE see the NOTE below before you reply)

I'd like to see a few replies to this thread in hopes to get some general ideas on whether it's necessary for a NAS, being accessed by Boxee, to have 7200RPM drives holding the data files.

5900 drives are CHEAP! When I say that, I really mean it! We're talking $129.99 (USD) for a 2TB 5900 RPM Seagate, vs. $279-299 (USD) for the 7200 RPM Seagate drive. I'd love to go out and snatch up 8TB for the price of 4TB and jam all those lovely drives into a NAS machine.

So, what are your thoughts?

*Gently pushes the soapbox out into the crowd*



NOTE: I'm not talking about a drive to rip or encode to or anything thing else other than to store movie/music data files, and have them played remotely from another machine on the network.

[ccjensen]

it all depends on the capabilities of the NAS, speed vs sound and the size/bitrate of the files you will be streaming.

If it's gigabit then you might see a small performance improvement with 7200, but its doubtful. The overhead of ethernet traffic often means you get less performance then say firewire-800. So if performance is the primary goal, perhaps a NAS is not the right choice…

Where will the NAS be located, and how will it be used? If it's going to be in the livingroom where the media will be consumed, sound should be considered. 5900rpm drives also consume less power, which can save you some pennies

Finally, if the files that will be streamed are mostly video then most of the data coming of the drives will be sequential reads. 5900 drives should be able to handle anything you throw at them.

As you probably have noticed, I am biased to the slower option. I currently own 2x2TB WD GP + 4x1TB WD GP drives.

[dan1son]

If you're streaming them remotely to one other machine... 5900 rpm drives are plenty.

7200rpm drives are only needed for serious throughput, which you simply aren't doing. I can stream multiple HD movies off of a USB2.0 drive through my NAS simultaneously as is. I have a 7200 RPM 2tb Hitachi drive in the server which works its little butt off and can still easily stream 2 full blu-ray rips at a time while busy.

[tlustig]

I use a 1TB NAS drive (four 250s in a raid 0) at 5200 and am able to stream 3 Blue Ray rips to three Dell Zinos at the same time. Personally, I'd make sure the router, cables, etc. are the best before worrying about the drives.

[maximusfacq]

Sounds like everyone wants to know about the network before they fully commit to their answers. So, here it is:

DIR-655 D-Link Router Giga-Bit Switch built-in
All cables are Cat6 or Cat5e
Netgear Giga-Bit Switch upstairs

All machines that will access the NAS will be wired with solid Giga-Bit cards, Full Duplex.

[robgue]

the slower rpm drives will be more than enough. i use them on a home built server. they are quieter. cheaper. and they run much cooler which is important since i have multiple drives in one box.