The sound and video files used in multimedia applications tend to be large, gobbling up disk storage and placing heavy demands on disk I/O. RAID subsystems can provide the disk capacity and performance required for these applications. To determine which RAID array would perform best in an audio/video environment, we looked at the maximum recorded times of each subsystem for each test in our performance benchmark. We used the maximum recorded times, because when looking for disk storage for audio/video applications, you want a system with the least amount of slow I/O. For example, a disk array that was relatively fast, on average, but had several slow results on read tests might, in a real-world environment, result in video clips that would run correctly and then "freeze" at certain points before resuming. The result would
be similar to pressing the pause button on your VCR every 10 seconds or so while trying to watch a movie.
Once again, the
Digital StorageWorks Array
placed first. Although it was only the third-fastest, the
StorageWorks' features
and usability made the difference. The speed demon of this group was MicroNet Technology's RAIDbank Plus for PCI. The RAIDbank, which uses a dual-channel Mylex controller, had the best performance overall and fast speeds in the multithread tests. The RAIDbank features redundant and hot-swappable drives, power supplies, and a hot spare. When configuring this subsystem, we took advantage of MicroNet's walk-through service, available to all new RAIDbank users (see the article "Honorable Mentions"). The RAIDbank's NT Adapter Monitor utility needs work; it did not issue an alert during our single-drive failure test. However, the Administration utility correctly detected the RAID's status as "critical," and an automatic rebuild to
ok place as expected.
The Conner CR12-RAID and Mega Drive Systems' Enterprise E-8 PCI arrays were tied for third. The CR12-RAID performed multithread tasks faster than it did single-thread tasks, and the Enterprise handled single processes better. The Storage Solutions' Raca-Ray CM2+ was ranked fourth. It performed single-thread and multithread tasks at about the same speed.
Even though the StorageWorks RAID Array 230 Subsystem only ranked
third in our audio/video benchmarks, it was still the best overall
product in features and usability compared to the other products we
tested. Except for Storage Solutions' Raca-Ray CM2+, the other
top-five products were either very fast in our multitasking
tests -- such as the RAIDbank Plus for PCI from MicroNet Technology
--or fast in our single-task tests, but not both.
OVERALL
EVALUATION
PRICE SCORE FEATURES USABILITY
============================================================================
DEC StorageWorks RAID Array 230 $12,183 7.32 **** ****
MicroNet RAIDbank Plus for PCI $16,395 6.85 ** **
Conner CR12-RAID $16,593 6.79 *** ***
Mega Drive Enterprise E-8 PCI $11,900 6.79 *** ****
Storage Solutions Raca-Ray CM2+ $13,595 6.74 ** ***
PERFORMANCE INDEX
----------------------
SINGLE- MULTI-
OVERALL THREAD THREAD
===========================================================
DEC StorageWorks RAID Array 230 6.31 6.78 5.85
MicroNet RAIDbank Plus for PCI 7.22 5.14 9.30
Conner CR12-RAID 5.95 4.12 7.
79
Mega Drive Enterprise E-8 PCI 5.72 6.79 4.66
Storage Solutions Raca-Ray CM2+ 6.55 6.25 6.85
Key:
Ratings from 1 to 4: s is the lowest; **** is the highest.
BYTE Digest editors every month analyze and evaluate the best articles from Information Week, EE Times, Dr. Dobb's Journal, Network Computing, Sys Admin,
and dozens of other CMP publications—bringing
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Best for Audio/Video
