Hot or not? 74 GB WD Raptor HD SATA

[Hossenfeffer]

Dear lord, make it stop...

Vulva, it's called decaf.

For the person looking for a good price on a 74GB Raptor, this posted deal was a decent option. Maybe not hot, but hardly a "bad" deal. That you provided a possible way to get greater storage and/or reliability for less money is fine. Going that route, you may or may not have to deal with rebates, coupons, aliens, etc. For the person that doesn't want to take the time to do that, a relatively low price on a single drive minimizes hassle, let alone installation time (granted, it wouldn't take forever to install a RAID).

They want to spend their money on it? Fine. Big Deal. Might be that they've got space/power/etc concerns, in which case a 4 drive RAID setup simply isn't possible, let alone practical. You posted your opinion that you'd prefer to buy 4 cheap drives rather than fork over the cash for the Raptor drive. Ok. Fine. So you've proclaimed this deal isn't for you (and folks like you). Thanks for bringing up that point. No thanks on the relentless obsessive crusade.

You've gotta pick and choose your battles, chief. You have chosen.... poorly.

 

[loco21]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
By the time you guys are finished arguing about this the price of the Raptor will be down to $150.

LOL!!!!good point

 

[Dug]

You read up on it and address my points specifically without insults and general rambling. I'll bet you can't.

You have to resort to guessing someone's age? Where did you learn that? The third grade and your still using it.

You are proving all my comments about you though. Over and over again.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: Hossenfeffer
Dear lord, make it stop...

Vulva, it's called decaf.

Appealing to the Lord won't make it stop, although "vulva" isn't too bad of a corruption of my name...I've heard worse attempts.

For the person looking for a good price on a 74GB Raptor, this posted deal was a decent option. Maybe not hot, but hardly a "bad" deal.

Seeing as how the drives are available at buy.com for $180 (instead of $250), I'd hardly call this a "hot deal." What do you think about THAT, Hasselhoff?

That you provided a possible way to get greater storage and/or reliability for less money is fine. Going that route, you may or may not have to deal with rebates, coupons, aliens, etc. For the person that doesn't want to take the time to do that, a relatively low price on a single drive minimizes hassle, let alone installation time (granted, it wouldn't take forever to install a RAID).

Unfortunately, this is Anandtech HOT DEALS, and people are cost-conscious here. If you don't want to worry about rebates and coupons, why not just walk over to CompUSSR and buy all your gear there at above retail price?

They want to spend their money on it? Fine. Big Deal.

That's not the issue. I have absolutely NO problem with stupid people spending their mommy's money on low-value upgrades. The problem is that there a bunch of monkeys in this thread who refuse to believe what is so painfully obvious: that 4 cheap drives in RAID0 provides faster STR-performance for LESS money, while giving you more storage capacity.

You posted your opinion that you'd prefer to buy 4 cheap drives rather than fork over the cash for the Raptor drive. Ok. Fine.

It wasn't an opinion. I made an assertion that 4 RAID0 drives provided specific advantages for lower cost, and I provided evidence to support this notion. Thus, it's no longer an opinion -- it's an argument supported by facts... get with the program.

You've gotta pick and choose your battles, chief. You have chosen.... poorly.

I've chosen this battle specifically...because on any other internet forum with educated computer users, there should be no problem understanding the advantages of a 4-drive RAID config vs. a single Raptor...the difference here is there are buttload of people who have already purchased a Raptor for $250+ and have an emotional attachment to their drive. It hurts them to hear that they could have gotten way better performance and capacity for far less...so what you see is a barrage of desperate arguments as to why a Raptor might be better... as if hoping/wishing/praying could undo the $250 they spent on their marginal upgrade. This is an exercise in psychology (understanding cognitive dissonance) and a good way to practice reasoning with illogical people (i.e. why is Bob's argument irrational?).

But thanks for contributing, Mr. Hasselhoff.

Valsalva

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: Dug

You read up on it and address my points specifically without insults and general rambling. I'll bet you can't.

You have to resort to guessing someone's age? Where did you learn that? The third grade and your still using it.

You are proving all my comments about you though. Over and over again.

It wasn't a guess...it was a reasoned estimation based on your global inability to reason no better than a person with a chronological age beyond 12... Judging from your response, I'm probably in the right ballpark.

Valsalva

 

[Dug]

A quote from me.

You read up on it and address my points specifically without insults and general rambling. I'll bet you can't.

I'll repeat myself.

 

[Cat]

The buy.com deal just appeared, is with a rebate, and StorageReview has repeatedly made the claim that the Raptor is of more use than a 4-drive setup that's only better for large-file tasks, not every-day use.

 

[theunholyroller]

To our dear misguided friend Valsalvaidioticsuffix,

First off, don't you even dare go grammatical on me, ye of myriads of abbreviations. If you're so verbally well endowed, you'd a) actually spell out your thoughts, and b) know that slander means "Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation", which I will admit my slightly overemphasized statements are variably false, and are also intended to imply that YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR A$$ FROM A HOLE IN THE GROUND, thus making it injurious to your reputation of actually being informed about the subject at hand. Look before you leap moron.

Second, allow me to applaud your rousing counter-argument, filled with nothing but childish insults, phrases such as "WTH are you talking about?" and inciting that blatantly faster hardware is indeed not significantly faster.

If you're running a 2.53GHz P4 or 2600+ Athlon with a decent video card and a couple of hard drives, you should have at least a 300w power supply. Maybe 350w will run your obscure concoction of drives now, but that power supply sure as hell won't last forever with that much power being drawn from it.

And my apologies that there isn't a server case in every household. Most cases you buy can hold 4 3.5" drives, but not with a ton of breathing room. I wouldn't want 4 hard drives barely squeezed into one little chassis. For many people, it's impractical. Also, think about all the people that have name brand machines that have little or no room for expansion.

And just for your information, I have an Antec 1080AMG, so eat that

I have to run to class, I'll write some more condescending things later.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: GetSome681
You are just flat out wrong. Take for example OS X. OS X has a metric ton of files associated with the OS. On booting (aside from many other operations), access times are more important that transfer speeds considering the size of these files are no where near as large are raw dv files/etc that you mention. When you raid, you do not increase access times, and if anything you raise them. http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20040123/wd740-08.html Have a look for yourself, although the increase in access times in a raid configuration could be considered negligible, it is still present.

Sorry, YOU are the one who is flat out WRONG, and the way you reason the system burden at boot-time is erroneous.

"SR Bootup DriveMark 2002. This particular test features higher-than-normal queue depths for a single-user machine, reflecting optimizations that Microsoft has made to the Windows XP bootup process. This high load allows an array's two or more independent actuators to service queued requests and improves overall performance. . .this individual test reflects the transfer rate advantage that one achieves through RAID 0. Therefore, if the primary purpose of one's machine is to start Windows XP, RAID 0 offers overwhelming performance benefits" -- Storagereview.com

Furthermore, who the HELL cares about OS X.

Sure, if you're transfering large files, raid systems make sense, and hence their large presence in the market, but you are just wrong if you think that a power user can't benefit from extremely low access times.

For the billionth time, if you are just running the "typical desktop environment," upgrade your HD to a Raptor will only BARELY improve your overall system performance because the tasks in the typical desktop are cpu/memory limited...NOT HD-bottlenecked...therefore, even if you dropped your access times down, it wouldn't matter that much because most of your tasks are not heavily dependent on HD activity to begin with.

The only time a faster HD-system makes a HUGE difference in overall system performance is when you're manipulating large files (like in multimedia editing)...in which case STR is far more more important than access-time...this is why RAID0 make a HUGE difference, even though the access time of RAID'd Maxtors isn't quite as good as a single Raptor.

Read it and weep:
It is true that for many aspects of computing, the hard disk's performance level is not much of an issue. If you are recalculating a massive spreadsheet, or doing complex rendering of 3D objects, the amount of sheer processing power in the system is of paramount concern; the hard disk will only come into play periodically . . . The applications where hard disk performance issues are most important are obviously those that do a lot of reading and writing to the hard disk. . . Multimedia editing applications, especially those dealing with large audio and video files, are probably the ones most affected by the speed of the storage subsystem. Also up there are applications that process files, including compilers and many disk utilities. Initially starting your PC is also a very I/O-intensive application, as the operating system loads literally hundreds of files. Improving hard disk performance can shave time off the boot process in a very palpable way. The need for improved performance is a major driving factor behind the rise in popularity of RAID -- Storage Review

You get 63.3 MB/s w/ the 74 raptor, and 84.9 MB/s with a raid0 seagate 7200 setup. Sure this is a big difference, but in comparison to most single 7200 setup (~40 MB/s), the raptor is still extremely fast, not to mention the raptor access time is 40% faster than the raid0 setup.

Who the hell is comparing a single Raptor to a single Maxtor? NS, the Raptor would be faster. The more valid comparison would be 4 Maxtor's in RAID0...That would have a theoretical STR of ~160MB/s (although the relationship is not completely linear)...160MB/s vs. 63.3MB/s???? Yeah, you do the math. Imagine manipulating that 4GB DVD rip with a single Raptor vs. RAID0 x 4 Maxtors. I laugh. bwhaahha.

OH WAIT...
I didn't mention that the above is solely for read speeds...let's take a look at write speeds, shall we?
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20040123/wd740-09.html
A SINGLE 74 RAPTOR BEATS A 7200 RAID0 SETUP IN WRITE SPEED, 63 MB/s to 53 MB/s.
Bottom line is this: The raptor boasts 40% faster access times, 26% slower read rates than a 7200 raid0, 58% faster read rates than a single 7200, and 19% faster write rates than the raid0.

Access times = I have already addressed this. Only makes a marginal difference in overall system performance for typical desktop, makes virtually NO difference for HD-intensive applications (i.e. multimedia/large file editing).
Read-rate compared to a single 7200 = irrelevant. NS. I'm not making this comparison, you are.
Write-rate = you may have a weak point here...I'll have to examine the benchmarks myself. I'm not sure if I trust Tom's results, because according to that review, the write-speed actually SLOWS DOWN from Raptor x 1 to RAPTOR RAID0 x2...this goes against every other benchmark results we've seen prior to this. I'm worried that there was something wrong with his setup/config...or he did something different on his RAID0 setup...He also doesn't list his RAID0 array strip-size which can make a HUGE difference on performance.

Bottom line is this: the read-performance on the RAID0 x2 array is clearly faster than that of a single Raptor and would be MUCH MUCH faster if using 4 drives. This is the bottom line, my friend.

You saying that the 74 raptor isn't a power user's drive = you lose.

I never said that. Quote me exactly where I wrote that; otherwise, learn not to make up things to add to the fairy-tail world that you live in.

Edit: oh yeah, did i mention support for command queuing once sata controllers support it. can't get that w/ normal 7200 drive.

Oh, I'm sorry...the last time I checked, the Raptor does NOT support tagged command queuing...Oh, yeah...and thanks for the irrelevant point. appreciate it.

Valsalva

 

[GetSome681]

Originally posted by: ValsalvaYourHeartOut

Originally posted by: GetSome681
You are just flat out wrong. Take for example OS X. OS X has a metric ton of files associated with the OS. On booting (aside from many other operations), access times are more important that transfer speeds considering the size of these files are no where near as large are raw dv files/etc that you mention. When you raid, you do not increase access times, and if anything you raise them. http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20040123/wd740-08.html Have a look for yourself, although the increase in access times in a raid configuration could be considered negligible, it is still present.

Sorry, YOU are the one who is flat out WRONG, and the way you reason the system burden at boot-time is erroneous.

"SR Bootup DriveMark 2002. This particular test features higher-than-normal queue depths for a single-user machine, reflecting optimizations that Microsoft has made to the Windows XP bootup process. This high load allows an array's two or more independent actuators to service queued requests and improves overall performance. . .this individual test reflects the transfer rate advantage that one achieves through RAID 0. Therefore, if the primary purpose of one's machine is to start Windows XP, RAID 0 offers overwhelming performance benefits" -- Storagereview.com

Furthermore, who the HELL cares about OS X.

Sure, if you're transfering large files, raid systems make sense, and hence their large presence in the market, but you are just wrong if you think that a power user can't benefit from extremely low access times.

For the billionth time, if you are just running the "typical desktop environment," upgrade your HD to a Raptor will only BARELY improve your overall system performance because the tasks in the typical desktop are cpu/memory limited...NOT HD-bottlenecked...therefore, even if you dropped your access times down, it wouldn't matter that much because most of your tasks are not heavily dependent on HD activity to begin with.

The only time a faster HD-system makes a HUGE difference in overall system performance is when you're manipulating large files (like in multimedia editing)...in which case STR is far more more important than access-time...this is why RAID0 make a HUGE difference, even though the access time of RAID'd Maxtors isn't quite as good as a single Raptor.

Read it and weep:
It is true that for many aspects of computing, the hard disk's performance level is not much of an issue. If you are recalculating a massive spreadsheet, or doing complex rendering of 3D objects, the amount of sheer processing power in the system is of paramount concern; the hard disk will only come into play periodically . . . The applications where hard disk performance issues are most important are obviously those that do a lot of reading and writing to the hard disk. . . Multimedia editing applications, especially those dealing with large audio and video files, are probably the ones most affected by the speed of the storage subsystem. Also up there are applications that process files, including compilers and many disk utilities. Initially starting your PC is also a very I/O-intensive application, as the operating system loads literally hundreds of files. Improving hard disk performance can shave time off the boot process in a very palpable way. The need for improved performance is a major driving factor behind the rise in popularity of RAID -- Storage Review

You get 63.3 MB/s w/ the 74 raptor, and 84.9 MB/s with a raid0 seagate 7200 setup. Sure this is a big difference, but in comparison to most single 7200 setup (~40 MB/s), the raptor is still extremely fast, not to mention the raptor access time is 40% faster than the raid0 setup.

Who the hell is comparing a single Raptor to a single Maxtor? NS, the Raptor would be faster. The more valid comparison would be 4 Maxtor's in RAID0...That would have a theoretical STR of ~160MB/s (although the relationship is not completely linear)...160MB/s vs. 63.3MB/s???? Yeah, you do the math. Imagine manipulating that 4GB DVD rip with a single Raptor vs. RAID0 x 4 Maxtors. I laugh. bwhaahha.

OH WAIT...
I didn't mention that the above is solely for read speeds...let's take a look at write speeds, shall we?
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20040123/wd740-09.html
A SINGLE 74 RAPTOR BEATS A 7200 RAID0 SETUP IN WRITE SPEED, 63 MB/s to 53 MB/s.
Bottom line is this: The raptor boasts 40% faster access times, 26% slower read rates than a 7200 raid0, 58% faster read rates than a single 7200, and 19% faster write rates than the raid0.

Access times = I have already addressed this. Only makes a marginal difference in overall system performance for typical desktop, makes virtually NO difference for HD-intensive applications (i.e. multimedia/large file editing).
Read-rate compared to a single 7200 = irrelevant. NS. I'm not making this comparison, you are.
Write-rate = you may have a weak point here...I'll have to examine the benchmarks myself. I'm not sure if I trust Tom's results, because according to that review, the write-speed actually SLOWS DOWN from Raptor x 1 to RAPTOR RAID0 x2...this goes against every other benchmark results we've seen prior to this. I'm worried that there was something wrong with his setup/config...or he did something different on his RAID0 setup...He also doesn't list his RAID0 array strip-size which can make a HUGE difference on performance.

Bottom line is this: the read-performance on the RAID0 x2 array is clearly faster than that of a single Raptor and would be MUCH MUCH faster if using 4 drives. This is the bottom line, my friend.

You saying that the 74 raptor isn't a power user's drive = you lose.

I never said that. Quote me exactly where I wrote that; otherwise, learn not to make up things to add to the fairy-tail world that you live in.

Edit: oh yeah, did i mention support for command queuing once sata controllers support it. can't get that w/ normal 7200 drive.

Oh, I'm sorry...the last time I checked, the Raptor does NOT support tagged command queuing...Oh, yeah...and thanks for the irrelevant point. appreciate it.

Valsalva

You aren't worth the rebuttle, although I will say a few things. Obviously you have no idea what you're talking about.

The 74 raptor supports command queuing:

Though the product itself features firmware-level tagged command queuing, at the time of this writing, no appropriate controllers were available from several likely manufacturers.

you just can't take advantage of it with the current controllers on the market.

Lastly, I'll conclude with the fact that never in any of my stuff did I mention this is geared towards the "normal" user. It is for power users.

Seriously, it's funny that every storage review place talks about how amazing this drive is and how it demolishes most scsi drives and raid0 arrays. YET, for some reason you seem to know more than them. You need to open your own review site, and need to profit off your enormous bank of knowledge.

I am not going to add anymore fuel to your fire as you cannot obviously READ AND COMPREHEND ANYTHING, since you shun off performance graphs and ignore writing that clearly says the 74 raptor supports command queuing. Please, just do us a favor and do not reproduce.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: theunholyroller
To our dear misguided friend Valsalvaidioticsuffix,

First off, don't you even dare go grammatical on me, ye of myriads of abbreviations. If you're so verbally well endowed, you'd a) actually spell out your thoughts, and b) know that slander means "Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation", which I will admit my slightly overemphasized statements are variably false, and are also intended to imply that YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR A$$ FROM A HOLE IN THE GROUND, thus making it injurious to your reputation of actually being informed about the subject at hand. Look before you leap moron.

LOL. First of all, slander implies a VERBAL statement, whereas libel is WRITTEN...if you actually knew the proper usage of these words, it should have been painfully obvious where the usage problem was. Secondly, it's painfully obvious that you put some serious effort into using some "big words" this time. Unfortunately, when someone isn't familiar with the connotative usage of particular words, and he attempts to use sophisticated diction, he sounds really dumb. That's you. WTF does "my slightly overemphasized statements are variable false" mean? Finally, this is an internet forum - I can abbreviate all i want, DA.

Second, allow me to applaud your rousing counter-argument, filled with nothing but childish insults, phrases such as "WTH are you talking about?" and inciting that blatantly faster hardware is indeed not significantly faster.

"Inciting" is used properly denotatively, but connotatively, it doesn't make any sense. Stop trying to use sophisticated language when you obviously aren't capable of doing so. That beign said, I only resort to the phrase "WTH are you talking about?" when somebody genuinely writes something so confusing or 100% irrational that I cannot even make it out. That's you.

If you're running a 2.53GHz P4 or 2600+ Athlon with a decent video card and a couple of hard drives, you should have at least a 300w power supply. Maybe 350w will run your obscure concoction of drives now, but that power supply sure as hell won't last forever with that much power being drawn from it.

Really? And which fairy-tale book did you read that in? Are you somehow under the impression that if you're running 300W, you're actually drawing 300W of power?? Do you even understand that you might be drawing different currents off each power rail?? And that depending on the power supply, different models will vary in how much power they can deliver off each power rail while still maintaing a "300W" rating??? You have absolutely NO idea what you're talking about...and I bet you cannot tell me specifically and without generalizing how exactly running 4 HD's off a 350W PS will suddenly shorten the life of my PS. gimme a break.

And my apologies that there isn't a server case in every household. Most cases you buy can hold 4 3.5" drives, but not with a ton of breathing room. I wouldn't want 4 hard drives barely squeezed into one little chassis. For many people, it's impractical. Also, think about all the people that have name brand machines that have little or no room for expansion.

My God, you're dense. I already provide you with ample evidence that just about any mid-tower case you can buy out there at any price range will have a BUTTLOAD of HD mounts. Furthermore, if you assume the average mid-tower is 17" tall, 4 x 3.5" drives only takes up 4." If you have 2 more 5.25" drives and a floppy, that leaves about 11" for your 4 drives...gee...So for 4" of HD's, you have 7" of clearance...that's almost 2" of space between each drive. GIMME A BREAK. That's PLENTY of space for air to flow by.

And just for your information, I have an Antec 1080AMG, so eat that

Thanks for substantiating my point. Your case can fit 6 3.5" drives plus 4 more 5.25"...and btw, your case is fugly...eat that.

I have to run to class, I'll write some more condescending things later.

Don't forget to pack "Clifford the Big Red Dog," as your teacher might dock you points if you forget to bring your textbook to class.

Valsalva

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: GetSome681

Originally posted by: ValsalvaYourHeartOut[/i]

Originally posted by: GetSome681
You aren't worth the rebuttle, although I will say a few things. Obviously you have no idea what you're talking about.
The 74 raptor supports command queuing:
you just can't take advantage of it with the current controllers on the market.

I know that, MORON. What's the point of firmware-level TCQ when NO controller supports it?? And how much will it cost for a TCQ-enabled controller...when they eventually become available??? Gimme a break. I like how you fail to address all of the major points I made, yet you seem to pick on a very minor (and noncontributory) detail. I didn't think you had anything else to say. Ha.

Seriously, it's funny that every storage review place talks about how amazing this drive is and how it demolishes most scsi drives and raid0 arrays. YET, for some reason you seem to know more than them. You need to open your own review site, and need to profit off your enormous bank of knowledge.

You need to stop being a "lemming" to the review sites and start THINKING for yourself. One thing people often fail to do is read the methodology of a test in order to see if the results are generalizable to their own configurations. Another problem is that people fail to understand that most of these sites are supported by advertising, and it is to the author's advantage to write about a drive FAVORABLY for obvious reasons...hopefully the author doesn't fake any of the data, but it's very easy to only run or publish test results that are favorable and to write a conclusion that is biased towards that particular drive. Finally, many sites are just looking for the single-fastest drive out there...because you could always just take the fastest drive available and stick it in a RAID0 array. I have no doubt that the Raptor is the fastest IDE drive out there and it's faster than most SCSI drives...but I also know that you can't beat 4 RAID0 drives in STR (there's just no way).

the problem is that people here already have the preconceived notion that the Raptor is the fastest thing out there, and instead of being open-minded to other considerations (like RAID0), they come from a standpoint of disbelief and desperation not to believe otherwise.

I am not going to add anymore fuel to your fire as you cannot obviously READ AND COMPREHEND ANYTHING, since you shun off performance graphs and ignore writing that clearly says the 74 raptor supports command queuing. Please, just do us a favor and do not reproduce.

Listen, if this is your graceful way of signing off cuz you know you're PLAIN WRONG, that's okay. Good bye, no love lost. If you recall, you made several major points that I systematically DISPROVED using quotes from a major storage website...and all you can say is that the Raptor has TCQ, even though no SATA controller supports it at this time. Please, do me a favor and slap your mother for reproducing.

Valsalva

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

"he tasks in the typical desktop are cpu/memory limited..."

I most certainly don't max out my CPU while browsing the net or playing a flash game. Most D3D and OGL games are video card limited.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy

"he tasks in the typical desktop are cpu/memory limited..."

I most certainly don't max out my CPU while browsing the net or playing a flash game. Most D3D and OGL games are video card limited.

Dear GOD, how is this even 1% relevant???????? The typical desktop applications does NOT include gaming (as defined by SR)...but EVEN IF it did, as you point out (irrelevantly), fps performance is video card limited...and would NOT be appreciably affected by the HD system. That being said, 3dmark 2001SE benchmarks are also affected somewhat by cpu/memory speed, not just the performance of your graphics adapter.

Valsalva

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: ValsalvaYourHeartOut

Originally posted by: Dug

You read up on it and address my points specifically without insults and general rambling. I'll bet you can't.

You have to resort to guessing someone's age? Where did you learn that? The third grade and your still using it.

You are proving all my comments about you though. Over and over again.

It wasn't a guess...it was a reasoned estimation based on your global inability to reason no better than a person with a chronological age beyond 12... Judging from your response, I'm probably in the right ballpark.

Valsalva

This deal IS hot. Hopefully after a couple reads of this thread I can learn to be an ASS just like ValsalvaYourHeartOut! Good stuff :beer: Good stuff!

 

[Dug]

Imagine manipulating that 4GB DVD rip with a single Raptor vs. RAID0 x 4 Maxtors. I laugh. bwhaahha.

I'm laughing too. I don't know anyone that manipulates an entire 4GB rip at one time.
It's done in segments unless you have over 4GB's of memory.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: Dug

Imagine manipulating that 4GB DVD rip with a single Raptor vs. RAID0 x 4 Maxtors. I laugh. bwhaahha.

I'm laughing too. I don't know anyone that manipulates an entire 4GB rip at one time.
It's done in segments unless you have over 4GB's of memory.

REALLY?? And how does the data get from the hard drive to memory....what..huh?...you mean..it gets READ from the HD???? OH YEAH! You mean you the file doesn't magically jump into RAM?? WOH!!!

Listen, Dug, I want to apologize for calling you a 12 year-old...because that was a clear insult to 12 year-old's across the globe...you're..probably about 10.

Valsalva

 

[theunholyroller]

It never ends . . .

I see your point on the whole slander debate, but I don't think you understand what I was trying to convey. I understand the difference between something being written and verbal, I chose slander because what I was writing was a real-time statement, not something published, but I can't be bothered continuing to specifically justify my choice of words to a raving hypocrite.

And my using "big words" isn't out of the ordinary, so don't assume what you do not know about someone; it happens to be how I choose to express myself.

Maybe this wasn't obvious the first time, but here's my argument to what you're saying: four ide hard drives is an impractical alternative to serial ata. I see we agree on doing two 37GB raptorsand that the 74GB model is overpriced, but that's where the train of thought hits the split in the tracks.

Just as a record of credibility, I'm a computer engineering major, I'm not some putz running his mouth about things. I do have a decent understanding about about electrical circuitry, and I've been a system builder for four years now, so I'm not naive to performance specs.

If you have a decently fast system, with a decent video card, decent sound card, and four hard drives, 350w really isn't going to cut it unless you have an exquisite 350w power supply. I know if you have a 300w supply it's not always sending a continuous 300w. Most power supplies, from what I've seen in some benchmarks, have just a slightly lower max threshold from what they say. Let's say yours is really 330w.

Here's a nice power dissipation chart from zdnet Australia:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/components/0,39023397,39115932-2,00.htm

And a dissipation chart for a 40GB WD hard drive
http://www.dove.co.nz/products/Western Digital/wd400JB.htm

Let's say with a mid to high end P4 or Athlon and mid to high end video card you're running ~150w. There's almost half of your max. Let's also estimate that your hard drives have a peak of 20w dissipation. There's 80w if you're doing heavy transferring. Now we're up to 230w. Let's say your optical drives are idling at 5w a piece. 240w. Let's guesstimate that 30w is being eaten up for the other components (devices using USB power, firewire, sound, etc). 270w. I understand it depends on what's putting what kind of strain on the 3.3, 5, and 12 volt rails, but that's a little tough on the PSU if you're hitting peaks on your hardware enough times in a given day.

Heat eventually does start to wear down power supplies, which eventually leads to them burning up/supplying innaccurate voltage/messing up other stuff. If you're running that many drives and a decent system, an Antec True430 would be a wise choice. Even on AMD's site they recommend a 300w PSU with 2 HDD's, 1 optical, mid range video card and a 1.9GHz CPU.

HDD's do get hot too, and I'd be willing to bet most cases people buy couldn't adequately cool that many hard drives at once, which can lower performance. I think you'd agree with me that it's intelligent to leave a gap between hard drives to help keep the case cool.

Anyway, to conclude this, yes, IDE would be cheaper, but for most, considering their mobo is more likely to have SATA built in then IDE RAID, and considering power and case practicality issues, and noting that (and I can vouch from personal experience) SATA is noticeably faster both on seek time and transfer speed in action and not just on paper, I think it's a better idea and easier to have two SATA's in raid than four IDE's.

Continue the debate as I know you will, but consider trying to do so in a more tactful manner, instead of coming off as arrogant and aggrivating.

 

[AStar617]

Wow, everyone still has missed the point of this thread: hot or not.

Many are saying "maybe not hot, but surely not a bad deal"... this is ATHD, and that qualifies as NOT HOT as far as I'm concerned.

I stated my opinion a page or so ago; it hasn't changed. Scroll back for details.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to watch Valsalva spray the room up like Tony Montana in the climax of Scarface. "I take all ju' fcuking bullet, mang!" Just remember you guys kinda brought this mudslinging match on yourselves--again, scroll to the very beginning and read from a neutral standpoint if you want a reminder.

Give 'em hell, V.

 

[Dug]

REALLY?? And how does the data get from the hard drive to memory....what..huh?...you mean..it gets READ from the HD???? OH YEAH! You mean you the file doesn't magically jump into RAM?? WOH!!!

Listen, Dug, I want to apologize for calling you a 12 year-old...because that was a clear insult to 12 year-old's across the globe...you're..probably about 10.

Like I said, not all 4GB at a time. Most are in segments and manipulated individually in different packages that are placed all over the drive, not in a continuous file.


I'll repeat myself.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You read up on it and address my points specifically without insults and general rambling. I'll bet you can't.
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Third time in a row. You're on a roll.

It wasn't a guess...it was a reasoned estimation based on your global inability to reason no better than a person with a chronological age beyond 12... Judging from your response, I'm probably in the right ballpark.

Let's try again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You read up on it and address my points specifically without insults and general rambling. I'll bet you can't.
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mmm... still can't do it, can you?

OBVIOUSLY, I'm not saying that RAID is "better at acceleration"...cuz that doesn't even make any sense. I'm using "better mileage, faster acceleration, and better handling" as markers for PERFORMANCE...and the analogy is that if XYZ car has better performance and is cheaper than a Porsche, then XYZ car should be strongly considered if performance is most important. Get it?? If not, ask your parents.

Really? Please explain how your XYZ car gets better mileage, faster acceleration, and better handling.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: theunholyroller
It never ends . . .

I understand the difference between something being written and verbal, I chose slander because what I was writing was a real-time statement, not something published, but I can't be bothered continuing to specifically justify my choice of words to a raving hypocrite.

Sorry, man. Slander is verbal, and libel is written. Your usage was 100% incorrect, and suggests that you have no idea of the connotative usage of the two words.

And my using "big words" isn't out of the ordinary, so don't assume what you do not know about someone; it happens to be how I choose to express myself.

Not surprisingly, you completely missed my jab at your verbal abilities. I wasn't COMPLIMENTING your usage of big words, but rather, pointing out that you were clearly NOT accustomed to using sophisticated diction judging from all fo your usage errors and connotative blunders. Put simply, using big words you found in a thesaurus don't make you sound smart.

Maybe this wasn't obvious the first time, but here's my argument to what you're saying: four ide hard drives is an impractical alternative to serial ata.

4 drives is hardly impractical....especially at HALF the price of a single Raptor.

Just as a record of credibility, I'm a computer engineering major, I'm not some putz running his mouth about things. I do have a decent understanding about about electrical circuitry, and I've been a system builder for four years now, so I'm not naive to performance specs.

Computer engineering major?? HAH! I've seen more competent people here..

If you have a decently fast system, with a decent video card, decent sound card, and four hard drives, 350w really isn't going to cut it unless you have an exquisite 350w power supply. I know if you have a 300w supply it's not always sending a continuous 300w. Most power supplies, from what I've seen in some benchmarks, have just a slightly lower max threshold from what they say. Let's say yours is really 330w.

Let's say with a mid to high end P4 or Athlon and mid to high end video card you're running ~150w. There's almost half of your max. Let's also estimate that your hard drives have a peak of 20w dissipation. There's 80w if you're doing heavy transferring. Now we're up to 230w. Let's say your optical drives are idling at 5w a piece. 240w. Let's guesstimate that 30w is being eaten up for the other components (devices using USB power, firewire, sound, etc). 270w. I understand it depends on what's putting what kind of strain on the 3.3, 5, and 12 volt rails, but that's a little tough on the PSU if you're hitting peaks on your hardware enough times in a given day.

Heat eventually does start to wear down power supplies, which eventually leads to them burning up/supplying innaccurate voltage/messing up other stuff. If you're running that many drives and a decent system, an Antec True430 would be a wise choice. Even on AMD's site they recommend a 300w PSU with 2 HDD's, 1 optical, mid range video card and a 1.9GHz CPU.

Blah blah blah blah. So you're saying that for a decent system, you're running 270W...on a 350W PS...BIG DEAL. What's your point? Do you think it requires LESS heat to run 270W off a 350W PSU vs. a 450W PSU??? Unless the 450W is substantially MORE EFFICIENT, the answer is NO. So it's irrelevant how big your PSU is as long as you're not exceeding its recommended capacity. Thank you for the irrelevant point.

HDD's do get hot too, and I'd be willing to bet most cases people buy couldn't adequately cool that many hard drives at once, which can lower performance. I think you'd agree with me that it's intelligent to leave a gap between hard drives to help keep the case cool.

I have already explained this to another person on this thread...please refer to that post. Briefly, almost all mid-tower's you can buy have WAY more than enough drive mounts, and are about 17" tall. If you have to optical drives, a floppy, and FOUR HD's, you can still have ~2" of clearance between your HD's. enough said. If you're system is a high-end machine (requiring a Raptor), it most certainly will be in a decent case...so most people shouldn't be running in a case with poor cooling anyway.

Anyway, to conclude this, yes, IDE would be cheaper, but for most, considering their mobo is more likely to have SATA built in then IDE RAID, and considering power and case practicality issues, and noting that (and I can vouch from personal experience) SATA is noticeably faster both on seek time and transfer speed in action and not just on paper, I think it's a better idea and easier to have two SATA's in raid than four IDE's.

Excuse me?? SATA (without TCQ) has absolutely no benefit in terms of seek time and transfer speed. For a self-proclaimed experienced computer builder, you sure don't know squat. Are you sure you're passing your computer engineering classes?

Continue the debate as I know you will, but consider trying to do so in a more tactful manner, instead of coming off as arrogant and aggrivating.

I come off as "arrogant and aggrivating [sic]" as I am provoked by the person I'm responding to.

Valsalva

 

[mdbound]

Originally posted by: AStar617
Wow, everyone still has missed the point of this thread: hot or not. Many are saying "maybe not hot, but surely not a bad deal"... this is ATHD, and that qualifies as NOT HOT as far as I'm concerned. I stated my opinion a page or so ago; it hasn't changed. Scroll back for details. Meanwhile, I'll continue to watch Valsalva spray the room up like Tony Montana in the climax of Scarface. "I take all ju' fcuking bullet, mang!" Just remember you guys kinda brought this mudslinging match on yourselves--again, scroll to the very beginning and read from a neutral standpoint if you want a reminder. Give 'em hell, V.

<Flame Suit on>

Finally chiming in to this thread too, after having followed it since day 1. I absolutely agree with AStar here. Nobody has fully addressed his main argument (which he again summarized for the 8th time), instead attacking secondary or tertiary details. New people come on the thread, jump on the attack bandwagon, and contribute nothing. As someone who likes to get the best price/performance ratio, this is definitely not a hot deal. If you don't care about price, then fine, go buy the Raptor and shop at Sak's Fifth (and keep reading ATHD as obviously cold deals are posted here too).

And, as AStar said in his previous posting, as well as the quoted post, "this is ATHD." Valsalva already proved part of his point of this not being a hot deal as we've noticed the price at buy.com already down to $180 (albeit after rebate etc....). It is VERY obvious that this is going to drop in price again very soon. Having somebody point out that you are OVERPAYING, and not getting a hot deal is a GOOD thing! That's the whole point of having the forums, so people realize that they may NOT be getting a hot deal. And again, as already addressed, if you don't care about getting a hot deal, then you can pay whatever price you want. In fact, i'll sell you a raptor for $500....it's really freaking FAST!!!

MD.

 

[GetSome681]

I said I wouldn't reply to this thread anymore, but I just can't take it anymore. When will people realize that just because the deal isn't hot for them, that it doesn't automatically not make it hot for others. When the 9800 pro first came out @ what like $450 (I can't remember) people were like LOL, you are fine with just a 9700 pro, etc. Maybe you are fine with the 9700 pro, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth $450 to someone to have the newest card on the market at that exact moment. There are others that will wait till prices come down, but in the meantime, the fellow who dished out $450 has enjoyed his wonderful card for a number of months. So, if the deal is not hot for you, then you can say that. There's no need to call people stupid and start derailing the thread about how the item just doesn't hold up to what's already out there. IF the raptors are such crappy drives, WD wouldn't have made a 2nd version. Companies aren't dumb, and there's lots of research that goes into releasing a new product. Obviously they have released a product in the 74gb raptor that competes quite nicely with its competition - high-end scsi drives. If you don't believe so, that's fine, yet there are lots of qualified people who would tend to disagree with you.

PS - I don't want to start arguing with you again Valsalva, just wanted to let you know that I used to run a 36 gb raptor and decided that I'd switch to a seagate 7200.7 raid0, which I am currently running. I actually ordered the buy.com 74gb raptor two days ago as I was more satisfied with the single raptor, for many reasons. Most notably having 2 (or 4) drives in your system inhibits the ability to have more drives. If someone likes to run a single drive for OS, and other drives for data, then have a raid0 (raid01) complicates issues unless they have a full tower case and a very good psu. Of course you could always partition your raid setup into a small portion for OS, and the rest for data. However, I have tried this too, and have been unhappy with the performance. Try writing/reading to your data portion while trying to do intensive stuff with your OS drive. It sucks for obvious reasons. Hence the switch back to a single fast OS drive and two data drives. I can safely rip dvds, transfer files to my data drives without worry of it slowing down access to my OS drive.

 

[Mill]

Wow, I thought I was self-centered and arrogant, but Valsalva makes me look like a philanthropist.

 

[jodhas]

Quoting from Val.

Furthermore, who the HELL cares about OS X.

I do.