How fast is a WD Raptor?

[Behemth Daemon]

I have a Maxtor 7200RPM, and I need to know if getting a WD Raptor would make that much difference in gaming or not.

Thanks!

[EQuito]

The performance increase is noticeable but not worth the price IMHO.
You can buy the highly regarded Hitachi 250GB SATA drive for just about the same price as a 74GB Raptor.

[Reflex1]

raptors in RAID 0 is extremely noticible.

but a budget way of increasing performance, is to buy an identical HDD of that which u already have, and put them in RAID 0, if ur mobo supports it.

i just love RAID 0 :D ..both my rigs run it, its just such a cheap and easy way of increasing system performance.

[Samael]

In RAID 0 there is a noticable decrease in win loading and in overal feeling(file transfers-openings etc)
Also with 512 or less RAM there is a noticable gain in performance at games ;)

And a bench of 2x74raptors on a Sil3114

[EQuito]

Originally posted by Samael
And a bench of 2x74raptors on a Sil3114 See what I mean by not worth the price? you get roughly 120MB/s out of 2 x 74GB Raptors costing $360 and I get just about the same benchmark speed out of 2 x 80GB Hitachi for half the price with twice the storage capacity.

[Behemth Daemon]

Thanks! Where can I find this utility. so I can benchmark my Hdds?

[lalPOOO]

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

and

http://members.home.nl/rvandesanden/ATTO%20benchmark.html

Google is your friend ;)

[Soulburner]

Originally posted by EQuito
See what I mean by not worth the price? you get roughly 120MB/s out of 2 x 74GB Raptors costing $360 and I get just about the same benchmark speed out of 2 x 80GB Hitachi for half the price with twice the storage capacity.
You cannot compare results between HDTach and ATTO :rolleyes:

[Master_G]

Originally posted by a5h
i just love RAID 0 :D ..both my rigs run it, its just such a cheap and easy way of increasing system performance.
What do you do that shows up a difference, as all the tests i have seen have shown that a single raptor is so close to a RAID0 of raptors that the expensive is no where near worth it?

G

[masterofpuppets]

I don't bother with raid, it's a waste of time and when one disk goes down, all of your important and precious data is lost. So much for reliability. I find my raptor performs excrutiatingly slow and it's noisy, although, it's faster than my old WDC 80gb ATA/133.

[Samael]

Originally posted by Soulburner
You cannot compare results between HDTach and ATTO :rolleyes:

Yeap thats right...
Try HDtach 3 and post please

[EQuito]

Originally posted by Soulburner
You cannot compare results between HDTach and ATTO :rolleyes: Yeah that's right and you know why? because HDT means nothing. It bypasses the cache and file system giving you just a raw hardware benchmark which is only good to compare different drives against each other. You cannot use it to test the performance of the file system, cache, etc.

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Publi...?request=HdTach

HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get as close to the physical performance of the device possible.Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that a good SATA drive (if properly configured) can be as fast as a Raptor for everyday use, so people who spend big bucks for one of these drives are wasting their money IMHO.

Originally posted by Samael
Yeap thats right...
Try HDtach 3 and post please I don't own those Hitachi drives anymore but I can show you HDT results of my 2 year old 30GB Maxtors 2MB cache RAID0
So let's compare: 2 x Raptors 74Gb @ $360 vs. 2 x Maxtors 30GB @ $60. You get 104MB/s average and I get 92MB/s.
Do you think you can tell the difference during normal use? I don't think so but if you can, good for you!

:toast:

[Soulburner]

The real question is, can your system USE that extra bandwidth...

According to Anandtech, it can...barely.

[Rodzilla]

RAID 0 and Raptors... you will about cream your pants my friend!!

RAID two of those ponies up and they are damn near as fast as SCSI RAID for 1/3 of the price. Run the smallest strip size you can. And don't run RAID 0 if you fear data loss...

If you're afraid of getting cut... get off the cutting edge. tm.

[-=TriX=-]

Originally posted by Rodzilla
If you're afraid of getting cut... get off the cutting edge.

catchy rod :up: I could put that to good use in a marketing campaign. :D

For the user whose computer will not be primarily used for file transferring, heavy hdd useage like running a web/file server, RAID is pointless and expensive. I've ran RAID 0 setups in the past and yes they are damn quick and nice, but overkill nonetheless. If you've got the benjamins to waste go ahead, but I'd rather put them to use in a top end CPU/grafx/cooling.

[Rodzilla]

Originally posted by -=TriX=-
catchy rod :up: I could put that to good use in a marketing campaign. :D

See my Edit above ;)

[iboomalot]

good 7200 rpm is about 5% faster than a 5400 rpm drive.

Raptor is one of the fastest on the market and is only 5% faster than a good 7200 rpm drive. two Raptors in RAID is about 2-3% faster.

Bandwidth and transfer rates are better but in real world applications the difference is small. Question is what is your time worth???

worried about $$$$ get a 5400 rpm drive and waste some time, otherwise get a raptor or two (36gig).
------------------------------
want storage get a 300gig HD or DL files to DVD.

[freecableguy]

Here is 2 x 36GB WD Raptors in RAID 0....

[tricknasty]

regardless, i use 2x 7200 rpm SATA drives and its really fast, load times are way down, if you mount and image on your hard disk for a game its ultra fast

[Lithan]

I love debates like this. Nice and civil and people are posting their performance, not just quoting reviews.

[Reflex1]

Originally posted by Master_G
What do you do that shows up a difference, as all the tests i have seen have shown that a single raptor is so close to a RAID0 of raptors that the expensive is no where near worth it?

G i don't havn't benchmarked my HDD's yet ...but load time on windows is wayy faster. when i benched them a few years back on PCmark with fresh install i got a whopping #

and wot do u mean RAID isn't worth it? ...ITS FREE!! hook 2 hdd's on and punch in the settings.

[Reflex1]

even if it's just a little performance gain (in a few cases) its still free performance.

[Dissolved]

raiding storage drives is a risk tho..

IMHO id take a 15k scsi 18gb over anything else.. 3.6ms access time i think there around 4-5ms avg. there not to costly and a single drive gets you around 70-80mpbs

[reject]

i find having a gig of ram makde more difference thatn getting a sata drive. but i had to get my drive cause the other one broke (WD) and i like its silence.

[Soulburner]

Originally posted by reject
i find having a gig of ram makde more difference thatn getting a sata drive. but i had to get my drive cause the other one broke (WD) and i like its silence.
An SATA drive does not have any speed advantage over an IDE drive. That's just the interface it uses...

[aoc007]

I think the main advantage of the raptors is supposed to be the seek times... I cant remember exactly but I think the 74gb ones are supposed to be 4.5ms? And normal SATA drives are 9ms... Also one 74gb raptor is supposed to be similar in performance to 2x 36gb raptors in RAID 0, however going to 2x 74gb raptors in RAID 0 doesnt give a lot of a performance increase.

I still the think the best drives on the market are the Maxtor Maxline IIIs, 300GB 16MB cache Native Command Queing and SATAII (if your SATA controller supports NCQ and SATAII) with performance around that of a 74GB Raptor all for less than $1 a GB is pretty good...

[Rooster]

i bought one about 6 months ago, definatly pricey, but it'l last, and its new technology, i notice some difference in performance compared to my 7200 8mb 80 gig WD, its nice and clean though. i have all my programs on the raptor, and most files on 7200 80 gig WD. plus i went onto the WD site to see what the specs are, i was worried at first it was going fry being on 24/7 at 10,000 rpm, but the site list expeted lifetime in hours and i converted it and it comes out to some exotic time of like 20-30 years. i also have an antec HD cooler cooling it.

[jumperfly]

I have a Maxtor 7200RPM, and I need to know if getting a WD Raptor would make that much difference in gaming or not.

Thanks!

It will improve load times, but you won't notice any FPS difference.


As for the whole raid debate - I thought the main plus side of a raptor was it's super low access times which makes a huge difference when dealing with small files. Two cheap drives in raid0 can never compete with these access times. Transfer rates aren't everything. I have lost over 100GB of data due to raid0 in the past and didn't notice the difference in performance, I now avoid it at all costs :)

[Disposibleteen]

the physical drive itself may have no advantage but the bus can handle more data and therefore they perform a little better. another advantage to SATA is that there is no master/slave settings becuase each drive has its own controller and cable so you can be writing data to all of your SATA drives at the same time while u would have to alternate which drive you write to on an IDE Chain

[bypolar]

Here is 36.7 on the New VIA KT880 single drive.
Link1 (http://home.bendbroadband.com/bypolar/iviewcapture_date_06_11_2004_time_17_42_30.jpg)

DFI UT 250 36.7 on Sata 3#
link2 (http://www.polarscomputers.com/DFI/iviewcapture_date_05_11_2004_time_06_19_20.jpg)


Controlers can make a huge difference also, out of the promis,Nvidia,VIA onboard solutions . the VIA has proven to be the fastest for me.
Here is a WD special edition link3 (http://www.polarscomputers.com/DFI/iviewcapture_date_05_11_2004_time_17_56_24.jpg)


hope I have the links sorted out!!

[Disposibleteen]

yes ive heard that lot too, the controllers make a big differnce weather they be in a controller outside or built into the motherboard.