300Gb Velociraptor - $99 @ the egg

[nyker96]

excellent price for this drive! but I'll save up that 100 bucks for a SSD later.

 

[Zap]

Can anyone comment on the platter density / number of platters, and how silent / quiet this drive is in terms of idle whine and seeks noises?

VelociRaptors are fairly quiet - as quiet or quieter than WD Black drives. The older Raptors (without the Veloci) were noisier, some VERY noisy.

But don't let me hold you back from buying 20 of these things... Hell you pretty much have an open wallet when it comes to stuff anyway. Never met someone who buys more of this stuff than they can even use.

I don't need to buy any more. I already have four of these 300GB VRs. Who says they were more than I could use? I had three in use for a while and the fourth was a spare which I would have used except it turned out DOA.

I cannot comment on it for these models. My older 74GB was rather loud... It sounds like Zap has some of these. I am sure he will let you know.

I've used other people's computers with 36GB and 74GB Raptors and they were pretty noisy. I think only later versions of the 74GB went to fluid bearings and became quieter spinning-wise, but seeks were still loud. I had some 150GB Raptor X and they were noisy when seeking. The 300GB VelociRaptors are pretty quiet. Can't even hear them spinning, and seeks are muted.

BTW I tend to use cases with grommets, which lowers HDD noise.

So the Samsung F3 and F4 are still slower than the VR? On this chart, the Samsung gets better scores.

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/high_end_drives.html

It looks as if latest generation 7200RPM drives can beat the 300GB VR in some benchmarks. Look at the Anandtech review that DominionSeraph linked. It is for the 600GB version (which is faster) but has numbers for the 300GB version.

 

[XAHeiNRicH]

While doing some searching on HD's I come across this thread. After reading, I'm taking it I'll be doing myself a large favor if I ditch my 6 year old 36gb Raptor for a new WD 1tb cavair black. Not just on sheer size, but on actual speed due to the old raptor's 1.5gb/s transfer and the new 3.0gb/s transfer.

Right?

 

[av911]

Not just on sheer size, but on actual speed due to the old raptor's 1.5gb/s transfer and the new 3.0gb/s transfer.

Right?

Neither hard drive will reach that limit alone, so 1.5 or 3.0 is moot. But yes, the Caviar Black will be faster than your 36GB Raptor, but not because of the theoretical SATA speed.

 

[XAHeiNRicH]

Ok, thank you very much!

 

[postmortemIA]

i have tf2 beta on this raptor and tf2 on the ssd ... raptor takes way longer to load map. on the other hand, ssd loads so fast that i am always first person in spawn point when map changes

truth is ssds are in most cases noticeably faster than this raptor. i'd rather get 40GB intel ssd for same price and set os on it and rest on whatever you have now.

 

[RaistlinZ]

There's only a VERY, VERY small segment of users where a VR would be their optimal option, I'm guessing. 1 TB Samsung F3's or 1 TB Caviar Blacks are close to them in performance, offer larger capacity, and cost half as much.

It's hard for me to see how $100 for a 300GB Velociraptor > $100 for 60GB SSD + $50 for 1TB HDD .

 

[Zap]

Alright this is starting to get old... a THIRD VelociRaptor just died on me. Maybe. Partition disappeared. Gonna hook it up to another system and run dlgdiag. Windows version wouldn't detect the drive but BIOS does and Device Manager does too.

EDIT: Drive is fine. Tested on another machine and all data still there. Ran dlgdiag full test and it passed. Hooked back up to my machine using the eSATA port and it works. Hmmm...

 

[Old Hippie]

Drive is fine. Tested on another machine and all data still there. Ran dlgdiag full test and it passed. Hooked back up to my machine using the eSATA port and it works. Hmmm...

What are you doing to those things?

Man, you've had some terrible luck with those drives.

 

[StrangerGuy]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/9

Loads Crysis 1 sec faster than the cheaper and bigger $70 F3, and actually slower than the F3 in boot times...How is that even worth $99?

 

[Zap]

What are you doing to those things?

Man, you've had some terrible luck with those drives.

LOL! So, been testing them. One of them is dead for sure. The other two are fine, they just don't work where they were in my main rig. Maybe the SATA port has a problem, or that SATA cable because both drives have issues there, but not while hooked up to the eSATA on same machine.

 

[edplayer]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/9

Loads Crysis 1 sec faster than the cheaper and bigger $70 F3, and actually slower than the F3 in boot times...How is that even worth $99?

Maybe it comes with stickers that say: VELOCIRAPTOR!

so you can put them on your case...


And that F3 goes on sale a lot in the $50 range