Thinkpads Forum

T61 Performance: 100G-7k vs 320G-5k x2 RAID in Ultrabay?

I have a few 320G WD (Slow / 5400 or so drives) and a 100G Hitachi (7200 drive) kind of lying idle for experiments as I am moving a bunch of that stored data to a NAS.

Mostly I will want to run VMs on it for Middleware and similar Enterprise tools. A little portable play box.

I am wondering the following:

- RAID Possibilities on T61 with Ultrabay HDD - At all Possible? - With Desktop or Server instance of Windows / Linux / Maybe a Bare Metal Virtualization Environment?

- If at all possible, Performance comparative between the two options below:

A - 320G-5k x 2 - RAIDed (Slower Drives Raided)

B - 100G-7k (Main) + 320G/120G (5k) (2nd in Ultrabay)

Even if the above RAID is not possible in the T61 (from my signature), any thoughts / experiences on how this A vs B would compare/ perform on a MACHINE that could support the RAID.

Thoughts from the respected veterans and experts. ??

The Ultrabay, being PATA, is not fast. It won't even saturate a 5400 rpm drive never mind RAID or even a SSD. Benchmark it and find out for yourself.

I run a 256gb m4 ssd in the main bay and a seagate momentus xt hybrid drive in the ultrabay. I run 3 virtual machines on my ssd and 2 virtual machines on the hybrid. This has been a very good setup for me and if I had more than 8gb of ram I could definitely run more vms.