Raptors... worth it?

[Diabolus]

I play games, lots of them. I do a bit of programming, web development (simple stuff), and the other misc stuff on the web.

Think it's for me? It is sure pricey but I usually build systems to last me 2 years before I have to pour money into it again... Additionally... I'm not building this new PC for another month or so, and it will be an Athlon 64 3000+ with an Albatron mobo, 1GB ram, and 9800 Pro for getting the most bang for my buck. So does the Raptor fit in? I know it's the best non-scsi drive but well.... how would I notice the speed, and under what circumstances?

Preciate the help!

 

[Corporate Thug]

well, for many sytems, the HDD is the bottleneck so i would think you will benefit with a raptor

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

What shady06 said, it's the biggest bottleneck except when gaming and some other situations. If you've got the money, a Raptor is a wise choice

 

[biostud]

It really depends on how intensive HDD work you do. For everyday use my guess is that games loads a few secs faster, and windows starts faster but besides that I don't think it'll do much. I found it to expensive to buy a Raptor and I can live with waiting the secs. My new HDD is still 2-3 times faster than the old so I still find it blazing
If you often find yourself waiting on programs loading/saving and it anoys you then you might want to buy a Raptor, otherwise I wouldn't buy it. When the programs first are loaded into the memory the HDD speed doesn't really matter.

 

[Algere]

Regular SATA 80GB Hard Drive = $80 (est.)
WD Raptor SATA 74GB Hard Drive = $200 (est.)

Think +150% in price is worth it?

 

[SilentZero]

I just had to make this decision 2 weeks ago. I opted for the 74gb raptor, and I definately don't regret it! This is a great drive and blazing fast. Is it worth the price tag? I would say no drive of this size is worth that much nowdays, at least for normal operations. But if an extra hundred or so dollars is in your budget...id go with the raptor over any other non-SCSI drive out there.

 

[Cypherdude1]

For the tasks you described a Raptor is hardly worth it. You will only notice the difference when you initially load your games. Buy two SATA 8 MB HDD's instead. On sale, you should be able to get them at half the price of a raptor. If you truly want blazing speed, RAID them together. Then you will really notice the speed.

The only time you need Raptors or SCSI is when you do disk intensive tasks such as database searches. Most people never do this. I have a 625 MB database which I scan. Each scan takes 5 minutes using a WD SE drive. This may not sound like much, but when you do 12 different scans it starts adding up. Even so, I don't feel the need to RAID another WD SE to it.

Get two 160 GB SATA 8MB's on sale. You will have the option of RAID'ing them and the added bonus of having 320 GB's of space.

I play games, lots of them. I do a bit of programming, web development (simple stuff), and the other misc stuff on the web.

 

[Diabolus]

It was my assumption that if I got two drives and put them into RAID 0, that I'd only get the size of one drive. So if I RAIDed two 120GB drives, I'd only have 120GB in total storage, right?

Additionally... I don't even need a very large drive. I have a server that houses all my files (200GB drive on that) like MP3s, car videos (got lots hehe), misc software installs, and other things so the only thing that really goes on my hard drive are things I download off USENET, my games, and the misc Windows files.

 

[Algere]

You get the sum of both drives for RAID 0 and the sum of 1 drive for RAID 1

EDIT: for = with

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Diabolus
It was my assumption that if I got two drives and put them into RAID 0, that I'd only get the size of one drive. So if I RAIDed two 120GB drives, I'd only have 120GB in total storage, right? Additionally... I don't even need a very large drive. I have a server that houses all my files (200GB drive on that) like MP3s, car videos (got lots hehe), misc software installs, and other things so the only thing that really goes on my hard drive are things I download off USENET, my games, and the misc Windows files.

That's with RAID-1, which is drive redundancy. The same data is copied to both drives so if one fails you have a backup. Thus since both drives are need for mirroring data you only have half of the capacity of both the drives total capacity.

However RAID-0 stripes data onto both drives for faster performance reading (and sometimes writing) data. This uses up the total capacity of both drives, so with both of your 120GB drives in RAID-0 you would get a total of 240GB of space with faster performance.

-Por

 

[Diabolus]

Originally posted by: PorBleemo

Originally posted by: Diabolus
It was my assumption that if I got two drives and put them into RAID 0, that I'd only get the size of one drive. So if I RAIDed two 120GB drives, I'd only have 120GB in total storage, right? Additionally... I don't even need a very large drive. I have a server that houses all my files (200GB drive on that) like MP3s, car videos (got lots hehe), misc software installs, and other things so the only thing that really goes on my hard drive are things I download off USENET, my games, and the misc Windows files.

That's with RAID-1, which is drive redundancy. The same data is copied to both drives so if one fails you have a backup. Thus since both drives are need for mirroring data you only have half of the capacity of both the drives total capacity.

However RAID-0 stripes data onto both drives for faster performance reading (and sometimes writing) data. This uses up the total capacity of both drives, so with both of your 120GB drives in RAID-0 you would get a total of 240GB of space with faster performance.

-Por

That is kickass!

Okay so here's a question... which is faster... two SATA 7200RPM drives in RAID 0, or one Raptor? I only require about 80GB of space so if I see that the Raptor comes out to the same price as the two 7200 drives then I'd like to know what's going to be faster for the money.

 

[JBT]

I just got a 74Gig Raptor and I can say it is one of the best choices I made It makes my entire computer feel much faster. I was going to get two 80 Gig Hitachi's and RAID 0 them but I went for the 74Gig and am Loving it it makes all normal daily tasks faster and more of a feeling of being "instant" rather than having to wait a few seconds.

RAID 0 is when the data is stripped across 2 drives though put should increase but access time can decrease so if you are moving large files all he time RAID 0 is beneficial if you are using lots of small files it can decrease performance. You will have the amount of space of both of the drives so two 120GB drives will be 240GB You do lose some amount of security I believe it is 1.4 times as likely that the one of your drives will die and all your data will be lost.

RAID 1 is when your data is mirrored writing to the disks can be alittle slower but reading from them can be faster. This way your data is safer as you have 2 identical drives but you also will only have the capacity of 1 of the drives so 120 GB if you have two 120GB drives.

I personally would opt for the Raptor I love mine I don't need that much space but for me 108 GB 70GB (Raptor) + 38GB (Maxtor) is enough space to do anything I need to do. If I do need more space I could always grab a cheap huge IDE drive.

EDIT: Bah I step out for a minute and people post a similar reply I feel stupid

 

[Algere]

not stupid, just late

Back On Topic: I assume Raptors are faster overall but RAID 0 does excel past Raptors in some ways.

 

[jimmygates]

Besides the size, is the 74GB Raptor that much better than the 36GB version?




-Jimbo

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Diabolus

Originally posted by: PorBleemo

Originally posted by: Diabolus
It was my assumption that if I got two drives and put them into RAID 0, that I'd only get the size of one drive. So if I RAIDed two 120GB drives, I'd only have 120GB in total storage, right? Additionally... I don't even need a very large drive. I have a server that houses all my files (200GB drive on that) like MP3s, car videos (got lots hehe), misc software installs, and other things so the only thing that really goes on my hard drive are things I download off USENET, my games, and the misc Windows files.

That's with RAID-1, which is drive redundancy. The same data is copied to both drives so if one fails you have a backup. Thus since both drives are need for mirroring data you only have half of the capacity of both the drives total capacity.

However RAID-0 stripes data onto both drives for faster performance reading (and sometimes writing) data. This uses up the total capacity of both drives, so with both of your 120GB drives in RAID-0 you would get a total of 240GB of space with faster performance.

-Por

That is kickass!

Okay so here's a question... which is faster... two SATA 7200RPM drives in RAID 0, or one Raptor? I only require about 80GB of space so if I see that the Raptor comes out to the same price as the two 7200 drives then I'd like to know what's going to be faster for the money.

One Raptor. RAID 0 will double your data transfer rate, but it's kinda like DC RAM...when the reads and writes aren't that big, seek times and such will do far more for you. For desktop use, a 74GB Raptor is equivalent to the big bad SCSIs. The only thing genuinely faster would be Raptors in RAID 0 or 15k SCSIs in RAID 0 or 5.

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: jimmygates
Besides the size, is the 74GB Raptor that much better than the 36GB version?




-Jimbo

The 74's have faster seek times, are guaranteed to have fluid bearings and also have TCQ which can help in multi tasking the disks but not many controllers have TCQ yet so you would have for SATA II to be here or find one of the more expensive controllers with it already.

 

[tallman45]

If your system is going to consist of 1-74 gb Raptor vs (2 or 3) 7200 8mb cache drives then the answer is easy. The multiple drives on separate channels will allow you the ability to load balance your OS/Apps and Pagefile which will greatly reduce any bottlenecks.

Additionally all of your eggs will not be in one basket as they would be with a single Raptor. If this were a server environment then yes the Raptor would be warrented.

 

[Cypherdude1]

That's exactly how I set up my system. My O/S and most Apps are on my first drive, a WD SE. My music is on my second drive, a Maxtor 7200 RPM. My database for searches is on my third drive, a WD SE. Because my drives are mostly empty, I have made copies of my partitions across my drives.

Originally posted by: tallman45
If your system is going to consist of 1-74 gb Raptor vs (2 or 3) 7200 8mb cache drives then the answer is easy. The multiple drives on separate channels will allow you the ability to load balance your OS/Apps and Pagefile which will greatly reduce any bottlenecks.

Additionally all of your eggs will not be in one basket as they would be with a single Raptor. If this were a server environment then yes the Raptor would be warrented.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Algere
Regular SATA 80GB Hard Drive = $80 (est.)
WD Raptor SATA 74GB Hard Drive = $200 (est.)

Think +150% in price is worth it?

Where I live the Raptors are ~$300 while the normal SATA's are around $80, therefore I found the Raptors to expensive

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: biostud666
It really depends on how intensive HDD work you do. For everyday use my guess is that games loads a few secs faster, and windows starts faster but besides that I don't think it'll do much. I found it to expensive to buy a Raptor and I can live with waiting the secs. My new HDD is still 2-3 times faster than the old so I still find it blazing
If you often find yourself waiting on programs loading/saving and it anoys you then you might want to buy a Raptor, otherwise I wouldn't buy it. When the programs first are loaded into the memory the HDD speed doesn't really matter.

I agree with this 100%. I also don't like any system noise. So I went though 3 RMA's before I figured out it's normal to hear them. It's a really good deal though. 5 year warranty and much faster than any other non 15000 rpm scsi whcih are both loud and expensive.

 

[Sideswipe001]

A Raptor is not good at server tasks. SCSI is good at server tasks. Raptors are good at desktop tasks. They are the fastest desktop drive around, and yes, they are going to be much faster than a RAID 0 of 2 7200 IDE drives. RAID 0 doesn't help seek time any; the Raptors are naturally much better at that.

I swear, most non games would notice more of an improvement if they upgraded their HD to a Raptor than if they added 500 Mhz to their processor. I don't see why so many people don't realize how big of an influence HD speed can be.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Sideswipe001
A Raptor is not good at server tasks. SCSI is good at server tasks. Raptors are good at desktop tasks. They are the fastest desktop drive around, and yes, they are going to be much faster than a RAID 0 of 2 7200 IDE drives. RAID 0 doesn't help seek time any; the Raptors are naturally much better at that.

I swear, most non games would notice more of an improvement if they upgraded their HD to a Raptor than if they added 500 Mhz to their processor. I don't see why so many people don't realize how big of an influence HD speed can be.

Because it doesn't increase FPS in any games. It starts the game faster and loads/saves games faster but when first you're up running it doesn't matter. That is if you have enough memory.....preferebly >=1Gb

 

[Sideswipe001]

Originally posted by: biostud666

Originally posted by: Sideswipe001
A Raptor is not good at server tasks. SCSI is good at server tasks. Raptors are good at desktop tasks. They are the fastest desktop drive around, and yes, they are going to be much faster than a RAID 0 of 2 7200 IDE drives. RAID 0 doesn't help seek time any; the Raptors are naturally much better at that.

I swear, most non games would notice more of an improvement if they upgraded their HD to a Raptor than if they added 500 Mhz to their processor. I don't see why so many people don't realize how big of an influence HD speed can be.

Because it doesn't increase FPS in any games. It starts the game faster and loads/saves games faster but when first you're up running it doesn't matter. That is if you have enough memory.....preferebly >=1Gb

The very reason that I said "non gamers". My mom doesn't care if her computer will do 5 fps playing Quake, or 500. She does care if Juno takes 5 seconds less time to open though, or if the computer boots 5 seconds faster. She cares if Word opens instantaneously, or how long it takes to start up Internet Explorer.

In cases of non-gamers, I get a budget video card and spend the money instead on a faster hard drive. Upgrade the part that will let you notice the biggest difference in what you do.

 

[Diabolus]

Thanks for all your help folks. I'm going to go with a single (yes, no RAID) Raptor 74.6 GB. That should give me enough space to do all the work I want to do.

Since I download a lot of huge files and ISOs... uncompressing them takes forever on my current PC so it will be nice to have a fast method to do that.

 

[JBT]

I think you made the right choice I love mine. Alot of the people who are anti Raptor have not used them or are SCSI freaks, which is understandable because it is probably the better technology but not necessarily aimed at your needs.

The Raptor is extremely fast at all the things I use it for and I love the "instant" feeling it gives my system. Definitely the best upgrade I have done in terms of over all system performance.