What is the best SATA II hd out? Looking for

[klrgreenis]

something from 60-120g.

I was running 2 hitachi SATA II 80G in raid 0 but one has some bad sectors and one has a bad bearing click. I am going to RMA them both and get just one hard drive since I really don't need the speed of a raid set up.

Is the raptor still king??

Thanks in advance.

[topaimz]

150GB 16MB cache SATA Western Digital Raptor!
or
74GB 8MB cache SATA Western Digital Raptor!

LoL, jks... If you don't need the speed of a RAID0 setup, you probably don't
need the raptors...

[klrgreenis]

LOL I was thinking about a 74g raptor. I might just bite the bullet and get one.

It seems like they are still the fastest single drive out there.

[nn_step]

Honestly if you are going for the BEST SATA II and only SATA II drive.. 150GB raptor is your only Choice...

[klrgreenis]

Yea that's a lot of mula though. Hmm decisions decisions.

Should I or shouldn't I???

[Serra]

I think I can honestly say if you're seriously contemplating the raptor, you should contemplate a SCSI adapter and SCSI drive instead. Because like you said, it's already a lot of money, and unlike a hard drive, a SCSI adapter should last a LOOONG time, through many hardware upgrades. IMHO, a better investment.

Serra

[klrgreenis]

Hmm wow I hadn't thought about that. Man another decision.

Good thought though. That's why I wanted some opinions!!

[nn_step]

I think I can honestly say if you're seriously contemplating the raptor, you should contemplate a SCSI adapter and SCSI drive instead. Because like you said, it's already a lot of money, and unlike a hard drive, a SCSI adapter should last a LOOONG time, through many hardware upgrades. IMHO, a better investment.

Serra
One Question how stoned are you?
A cheap SCSI set up Costs more than a Raptor :slapass:
and he is worried about Cost.. my Advice is for him to Get one of the new 74GB Raptors.. should be cheap enough for him without any real performance loss..

[Serra]

I've seen some pretty cheap SCSI setups actually. It's just a matter of looking. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes you get lucky and just find something. eBay offers mixed results, but you might do okay with local buying/selling papers.

Not new, obviously... but i'd probably prefer a used SCSI over a new raptor anyway. Sorry I didn't specify that.

[nn_step]

I've seen some pretty cheap SCSI setups actually. It's just a matter of looking. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes you get lucky and just find something. eBay offers mixed results, but you might do okay with local buying/selling papers.

Not new, obviously... but i'd probably prefer a used SCSI over a new raptor anyway

SCSI!=Cheap
SCSI is about performance
PCIe cards are way too expensive and PCI cards will just kill performance
Don't get me Wrong I love SCSI.. but I don't think it is feesable for his case..

[klrgreenis]

LOL, it OK. I think I am going to pull the trigger on a 74g Raptor.

Is there any performance difference between and new one and a used one?

I may be able to find someone that it going to the 150g and get a deal.

[nn_step]

LOL, it OK. I think I am going to pull the trigger on a 74g Raptor.

Is there any performance difference between and new one and a used one?

I may be able to find someone that it going to the 150g and get a deal.
well not really.. unless of course you are comparing a 16mb version and the original 8mb version..
But Honestly there isn't a huge difference.. I doubt you would be able to notice..

[klrgreenis]

Perfect, I didn't think that there were any big changes since I last looked at them, but just wanted to be sure.

Thanks for all of your help!!

[Steensen]

Here is some reading for you http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD1500ADFD_1.html
It's a review of the Raptor 1500, compared to both the 740, a bunch of SCSI drives an some SATA I and SATA II drives.
Raptor 1500 wins in "normal desktop performance", whereas the 740 wins in (file)server SATA, but the Maxtor Atlas III 15k is still thé king.
But for budget (Read: every day man) setup, the the Raptor 740 is the most power for the buck.

[nn_step]

Here is some reading for you http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD1500ADFD_1.html
It's a review of the Raptor 1500, compared to both the 740, a bunch of SCSI drives an some SATA I and SATA II drives.
Raptor 1500 wins in "normal desktop performance", whereas the 740 wins in (file)server SATA, but the Maxtor Atlas III 15k is still thé king.
But for budget (Read: every day man) setup, the the Raptor 740 is the most power for the buck.

Dude that is 74 not 740.. there are no desktop 740Gb drives period..:fact:

[Steensen]

Dude that is 74 not 740.. there are no desktop 740Gb drives period..:fact:
Dohhhh. The name of the Raptor is 740 :slap: :slapass: :stick: And Yes, theoretical it has 74GB, but real with One big NTFS partition it has only 69.3GB.

[DriveEuro]

Honestly if you are going for the BEST SATA II and only SATA II drive.. 150GB raptor is your only Choice...
Please show me where the new raptor is SATAII. Every retailer has it listed as SATA150.

[Steensen]

Neather Raptor 740 or Raptor 1500 is SATA II
From page 2 in the article i linked to earlier

With the WD1500, the manufacturer finally moves the Raptor series to a native SATA implementation complete with NCQ. Like the server-oriented Caviar RE2, the Raptor features a standard first-generation 150 MB/sec interface rather than the 300 MB/sec conduit found on many newer units.
So close, but no cigar.

And yet again, SATA II is no standard!!!
Først people said, that disks with NCQ was SATAII, then it was SATA 300 that was SATA II, and then it was required for the harddiskdrive to have both, to become a SATA II drive.

But officially, there is no standard named SATA II. End of story.

[topaimz]

:slap: :nono:

[DriveEuro]

There may not be a standard. But drives that claim 3.0GB/s are definetly faster than drives that claim SATA150.

[SamHughe]

I've seen some pretty cheap SCSI setups actually. It's just a matter of looking. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes you get lucky and just find something. eBay offers mixed results, but you might do okay with local buying/selling papers.

Not new, obviously... but i'd probably prefer a used SCSI over a new raptor anyway. Sorry I didn't specify that.

If you want scsi, you gotta have a mobo which supports at least PCI-x, or you have to purchase one of those pci-e scsi controllers which cost an arm and a leg. Also you can't use your SLI setup if you have one. PCI scsi cards just won't worth it when it comes to performance unless you're running a server. Believe me, I would do anything to be able to use my Hitachi Ultrastars and LSI scsi adapter in my sli rig but only way to do this is to purchase a $500 dual cpu server mobo and switch to a socket 940 system which uses slower cpu and ram, plus expensive as hell for any kind of destop/gaming application.

[SamHughe]

There may not be a standard. But drives that claim 3.0GB/s are definetly faster than drives that claim SATA150.

I hope you're not telling this based on the couple of screenshots you posted earlier comparing the Hitachi's with Raptors. You were told at that time by several people that the burst speed is nothing and what really matters is the average read speed. Your 4 Sata II Hitachi's read average 160mb/s, I just posted a ss of my 4 raptors almost hitting 290mb/s. Do you have any other sources to back up your claim?

[[XC] leviathan18]

yes there is a standar

SATA IO 300MBPS and NCQ

[DriveEuro]

I know burst rate isn't everything... But when you're gaming you're not constantly reading from the hard drives in continuous lengths. You are typically reading in random segments. That is where saying that average read speed matters is actually false. That is more random access time.

And you can't say burst rate means nothing. Explain why the burst rate of a Raid 0 array of SATAII is faster than a Raid 0 SATA150. Its the same speed cache. What component on the hard disk is giving me a faster burst rate? Is it the different between a 1.5gb/s channel and 3.0gb/s channel.

[Steensen]

yes there is a standar

SATA IO 300MBPS and NCQ
No, there isn't http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2450


There may not be a standard. But drives that claim 3.0GB/s are definetly faster than drives that claim SATA150
Only when your comp. has to read from cache. When it has to acces the data platter, then its back to the average transfere rate, witch is much less than the 1.5/3.0 150/300 MB/s.


And you can't say burst rate means nothing. Explain why the burst rate of a Raid 0 array of SATAII is faster than a Raid 0 SATA150. Its the same speed cache. What component on the hard disk is giving me a faster burst rate? Is it the different between a 1.5gb/s channel and 3.0gb/s channel
It's true, that the burstspeed has an effect, but is is only worth something, when your hdd has to read from the cache.
If you have to read randomly from your hdd (not cache), then your transfere rates are actualy decreasing the reading performance, to lower than average transfere rates!!!

[bluebizkit]

SATA 150 still better than SATAII, especially for OC..and best choice are duo raptor 150GB RAID w/ Promise Fastrack SATA RAID PCIE..
Maybe you can try RaptorX 150GB, nice mirror looking but very expennsive price/MB...hummm at least for me

[wowza]

For the SCSI issue, they take a while to spin up, they run hot, and arn't made for gaming. Mainly for servers... and bigtime video editors. I would go for a RAID setup, give you the best preformance over any single drive.