Warm deal - 74 GB WD Raptors for 119 at BB

[charloscarlies]

why do SO many people RAID0?

Because not everybody uses their rig primarily for games.

 

[xxrillixx]

nm

 

[rmrfhomeoops]

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Tizyler

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: GZeus

I know it is hard to take the news, it was hard for me to read as well

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=1

Our very own anandtech did a great article on RAID0 and RAID1.
It turns out, than it every day use such as gaming and extraction, RAID0 on two drives will give you *maybe* a 3% increase in performance.

To me, a 3% increase in performance is not worth the doubled risk.

The truth can be cruel.

And so I ask myself... why do SO many people RAID0? Because they don't know, because, they just don't know

do you own these configs? i mange 3 of each. i even have raid5's of BOTH 74gb and 150gb raptors. i don't know? suuure... how could i possibly know? oh wait, u said "people" don't know -- thanks that was appreciated.

why do SO many people RAID0? i offer a different answer...

simply because i disagree -- no one should take that hard, it isn't personal. and i wouldn't dream of debating or arguing my reality with any well-read Core2Duo-overclocking, TuniqTower-cooling CCNA certified gamer.

again, in short... do what YOU WANT -- my only point. i hope that's not nearly as painful as your reading.. i can't imagine it would be.

I'm sure it wouldn't be time consuming or painful if you ever have to re-install your OS & softwares/restore data due to single drive failure in Raid0. :roll:

 

[blacklit]

Originally posted by: rmrfhomeoops

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Tizyler

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: GZeus

I'm sure it wouldn't be time consuming or painful if you ever have to re-install your OS & softwares/restore data due to single drive failure in Raid0. :roll:

aww, you still reinstall? that's cute .. my nephews do that. one of these days, i'll teach them how to image and reimage. although in time, i'm sure the little idiots will smarten up and figure out there's a better way to do things.

 

[rmrfhomeoops]

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: rmrfhomeoops

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Tizyler

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: GZeus

I'm sure it wouldn't be time consuming or painful if you ever have to re-install your OS & softwares/restore data due to single drive failure in Raid0. :roll:

aww, you still reinstall? that's cute .. my nephews do that. one of these days, i'll teach them how to image and reimage. although in time, i'm sure the little idiots will smarten up and figure out there's a better way to do things.

I love it when tech-geeks thinks they're only one who does backup image. You must like to re-image often with your superior raid0 setup despite the marginal performance increase from raid0 for OS.

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: jamessb9

Originally posted by: GZeus
Good find OP!

These are excellent drives and this is a real good price.
If you really want to see 'em fly, put a pair in RAID0 with your OS on it. Windows loads like its sitting in RAM.

do they load that fast even though they're SATA 1.5gb/s?

Will i notice the speed if I am running it through one of those PNY/Netcell SCURE RAID Cards that only handle 1.5gb/s? THanks.

I read somewhere that no PC's can use more than the 1.5 currently, so that the drives that can go to 3.0 don't actually work faster.

That's true, SATAII is more of a marketing gimick than anything else, with performance increases of less than a % from what I've read.

 

[pcmax]

I don't care what the naysayers or Anand's reviewers say, I went from a single Raptor 36gb (ran this way for a year) to two of them in Raid 0 and I noticed a difference and to me that's more important than the benchmarks. As far as reloading or reimaging due to failure these drives are so reliable I am certain that I will be reformatting for software reasons before either of the drives fail and if one does I don't keep any irretrievable data on it anyway.

On another note I just picked up one of these 74gbs and hooked it up side by side with my raid 0 36gbs(the original 8mb cache Raptor I's) and ran benchmarks between them (yes I know but I didn't say benchmarks have no value ) and the raid 0 raptor I's scored slightly better than the single 74gb Raptor II. I then imaged my os from the raid 0 to the 74gb just to see if it felt any different and it seemed pretty much the same. I really don't want to fork down the cash for another 74gb although I'm sure I would really like them in Raid 0 performance wise so either I keep the single 74 and try and sell the 36's or take the 74 back and keep the 36's.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Craig234
I got two, and am deciding whether the expected performance improvement is worth the 5x premium (half the size and more than twice the cost of 320GB 7200.10).

I see the oos broken heart posts and if I don't want to keep them, I'd rather they go to those people for the same price, but shipping is a hassle... pickup in the SF area east bay might be ok.

i dont' think it's worth it.. but it's subjective no? begs me to ask.. how frustrated do you get now with your wait-times? i doubt you even do ~

i [also] have the 320gb in raid (and single). my 74gb raids (and singles) are always faster.. and more audible. by how much, it varies ~16 seconds booting on one [loaded] pc. how many times do you expect to boot [in a hurry]?

I'm less frustrated with the boot time than while playing games, where the noticable delays are disk activity, like when you are loading things in an mmorpg.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: rmrfhomeoops

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: rmrfhomeoops

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Tizyler

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: GZeus

I'm sure it wouldn't be time consuming or painful if you ever have to re-install your OS & softwares/restore data due to single drive failure in Raid0. :roll:

aww, you still reinstall? that's cute .. my nephews do that. one of these days, i'll teach them how to image and reimage. although in time, i'm sure the little idiots will smarten up and figure out there's a better way to do things.

I love it when tech-geeks thinks they're only one who does backup image. You must like to re-image often with your superior raid0 setup despite the marginal performance increase from raid0 for OS.

I'd hardly call increasing my computer's boot time by 20 seconds a marginal increase going from a single drive to a raid 0 (two 36gb raptors). My computer would boot into windows in about 60 seconds (counting bios). Now it boots in about 40 seconds, and that's including the time the raid controller takes.

As far as reliability, I personally am not concerned. I have not had a hard drive fail on me within the last 10 years, and I even had an IBM deathstar with no issues. These are server class drivers intended to be reliable.

 

[blacklit]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: blacklit

Originally posted by: Craig234
I got two, and am deciding whether the expected performance improvement is worth the 5x premium (half the size and more than twice the cost of 320GB 7200.10).

I see the oos broken heart posts and if I don't want to keep them, I'd rather they go to those people for the same price, but shipping is a hassle... pickup in the SF area east bay might be ok.

i dont' think it's worth it.. but it's subjective no? begs me to ask.. how frustrated do you get now with your wait-times? i doubt you even do ~

i [also] have the 320gb in raid (and single). my 74gb raids (and singles) are always faster.. and more audible. by how much, it varies ~16 seconds booting on one [loaded] pc. how many times do you expect to boot [in a hurry]?

I'm less frustrated with the boot time than while playing games, where the noticable delays are disk activity, like when you are loading things in an mmorpg.

farcry levels on my 320gb load in ~60secs, on my 74gb ~45secs, on my 74gb raid0 ~36secs. speed worth it at $119? for your purposes.. sure (it would be for me) -- you decide. possibly sell old stuff to recover some cost? anyway..

bear in mind, it'll only seem much faster in the beginning. you'll get used to the speed quickly, as with most upgrades. my fx-60 and e6600 hardly impress me now. all that said, it's not a bad time and sale to buy at.. considering what it used to cost. of course, it will get cheaper... say once perpendicular raptors creep out.

 

[blacklit]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim

Originally posted by: rmrfhomeoops

Originally posted by: blacklit
aww, you still reinstall? that's cute .. my nephews do that. one of these days, i'll teach them how to image and reimage. although in time, i'm sure the little idiots will smarten up and figure out there's a better way to do things.

I love it when tech-geeks thinks they're only one who does backup image. You must like to re-image often with your superior raid0 setup despite the marginal performance increase from raid0 for OS.

I'd hardly call increasing my computer's boot time by 20 seconds a marginal increase going from a single drive to a raid 0 (two 36gb raptors). My computer would boot into windows in about 60 seconds (counting bios). Now it boots in about 40 seconds, and that's including the time the raid controller takes.

As far as reliability, I personally am not concerned. I have not had a hard drive fail on me within the last 10 years, and I even had an IBM deathstar with no issues. These are server class drivers intended to be reliable.

Amen -

 

[fire400]

xcellen

 

[Kyle]

so I've been building comps (just for personal/hobby reasons) since the mid 90's...usually about one a year, latley a bit less...however....
I've never used a RAID setup

is it very complicated to set up? I'm building a new rig here pretty soon and am thinking about picking up 2 of these...
is there a speed boost using RAID (pretty sure there is, just thought I'd ask)
I'm not lookin for a huge explanation here, just a "it's easy, you'll be fine"
I'm assuming most new mobo's for a core2 duo would support it?
ya I know...I havent started the research part yet =)

 

[Steven the Leech]

2 74g raptors raid 0 bought from this thread at BB
hd tach 3.0.1.0
burst speed 250.7 [not as high as scsi ultra 320 reference [scsi] drive should be around 325
random access 8.3ms
avg read 155.6 mb/s

I replaced 2 36g raptors raid 0 8m cache with the drives above.

I tried just one drive [more than once] and I can definitely feel the difference by using raid. I have read the AT reveiws and mixed opinions of others from this forum, [which I respect], that say raid is a waste, but because i can tell the difference so much for my particular uses I choose to raid.
I will probably try this drive [74] by itself just to make sure I am not wrong, but if I were a gambling man I would bet that I will go back to Raid ) in a matter of minutes. If $$ gets tight and I need an extra drive, I will pull one if these raid drives and convert it to a single drive in a heart beat.

 

[masonardo]

Steven the Leech - Picked up one of the same 74GB raptors at BB yesterday. Just for kicks here are my specs using the same HDTach version for comparison, just no raid.

Burst speed: 135.7
Random access: 8.0ms
Average read: 77.4 mb/s

I've used raid 0 with other drives for a long time. It can be a little more work for os installs and more risk but it is defintely faster. I don't have a floppy drive on my setup anymore so I just slipstream the raid drivers with nlite. I wanted to try one of these first but I'm happy with it so I'm heading back to BB to pick up another and will raid 0 them. Quiet and fast.

Kyle - You'll want to check your motherboard. CPU doesn't matter but some boards support raid and others don't. More newer boards seem to have it nowadays. It is easy to setup IMO. Like the speed difference, it's all relative. Driver support for raid cards/chipsets can be also hit and miss with OS's other than XP.

 

[Omniprezent]

Originally posted by: masonardo
Kyle - You'll want to check your motherboard. CPU doesn't matter but some boards support raid and others don't. More newer boards seem to have it nowadays. It is easy to setup IMO. Like the speed difference, it's all relative. Driver support for raid cards/chipsets can be also hit and miss with OS's other than XP.

To add to this, if you are running an older motherboard, even tho it supports raid, it may not support this drive because it(the newer 16meg cache versions of the drive) uses the newer NCQ (Native Command Queueing) which may not be supported by your controller. I had this issue with my Abit IC7g MB. The onchip SATA controller(Intel) would freeze up, when trying to access the drive, but luckily, my MB also has a separate SATA controller(SIL) built in, that does handle the drives ok, so I just use that. I'm telling you this to prevent the hair loss, that I experienced, from pulling it out, when I was trying to get my drives to work.

 

[R0CK3T]

Thanks OP. Got myself the last two at my local BB.

 

[pcmax]

Originally posted by: masonardo
Steven the Leech - Picked up one of the same 74GB raptors at BB yesterday. Just for kicks here are my specs using the same HDTach version for comparison, just no raid.

Burst speed: 135.7
Random access: 8.0ms
Average read: 77.4 mb/s

I've used raid 0 with other drives for a long time. It can be a little more work for os installs and more risk but it is defintely faster. I don't have a floppy drive on my setup anymore so I just slipstream the raid drivers with nlite. I wanted to try one of these first but I'm happy with it so I'm heading back to BB to pick up another and will raid 0 them. Quiet and fast.

Kyle - You'll want to check your motherboard. CPU doesn't matter but some boards support raid and others don't. More newer boards seem to have it nowadays. It is easy to setup IMO. Like the speed difference, it's all relative. Driver support for raid cards/chipsets can be also hit and miss with OS's other than XP.

Can you report back your HDTach's on the raid if you do so? I want to see if they are consistent with Steventheleech's. If so you guys are killing me, may have to go get another one

 

[imported_sushicide]

dont forget the BB 12% coupon Here

gonna run to the store now ^_^

 

[Kyle]

Originally posted by: masonardo
Steven the Leech - Picked up one of the same 74GB raptors at BB yesterday. Just for kicks here are my specs using the same HDTach version for comparison, just no raid.

Burst speed: 135.7
Random access: 8.0ms
Average read: 77.4 mb/s

I've used raid 0 with other drives for a long time. It can be a little more work for os installs and more risk but it is defintely faster. I don't have a floppy drive on my setup anymore so I just slipstream the raid drivers with nlite. I wanted to try one of these first but I'm happy with it so I'm heading back to BB to pick up another and will raid 0 them. Quiet and fast.

Kyle - You'll want to check your motherboard. CPU doesn't matter but some boards support raid and others don't. More newer boards seem to have it nowadays. It is easy to setup IMO. Like the speed difference, it's all relative. Driver support for raid cards/chipsets can be also hit and miss with OS's other than XP.

Thanks for the info- is Vista supposed to be better/easier to install on a RAID setup? (no floppies etc)?
I think I'm going to head down to BB and pick up a couple- seems like a good deal.

 

[Tyrant222]

I just got mine, note only got 1. Its faster than my 3200ks from what I can tell. Web surfing, opening programs, things like that. As far as boot times who knows though, my 3200ks use to boot in less than 1 roll on the windows logo screen. the raptor takes 3.

Its silent at idle, slightly audible when working. I still really like the ks line probably better than the raptor cuz of its good speed and its super silent (i couldnt hear anything when my ks is working).

 

[masonardo]

Got my raptor raid 0 setup today after picking up another at BB.

HDTach numbers:

Burst speed: 164.0 mb/s
Random access: 8.6ms
Average read: 128.9mb/s

I also ran PCMark05 before and after and I can tell you that the numbers were similar, roughly 25-35% faster for general use. There are plenty of other benchmarks done by reputable sites (extremetech, tomsh) that show similar numbers with raid 0. Theoretically you're doubling the throughput, but after overhead it ends up being 1/4-1/3 faster generally than a single raptor. Regardless it's definitely more than 3%... Plus you are doubling the available space, the add'l performance is just bonus.

 

[BuckNaked]

Originally posted by: sushicide
dont forget the BB 12% coupon Here

gonna run to the store now ^_^

Thanks for the coupon link! and thanks to the OP!

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: masonardo
Got my raptor raid 0 setup today after picking up another at BB.

HDTach numbers:

Burst speed: 164.0 mb/s
Random access: 8.6ms
Average read: 128.9mb/s

I also ran PCMark05 before and after and I can tell you that the numbers were similar, roughly 25-35% faster for general use. There are plenty of other benchmarks done by reputable sites (extremetech, tomsh) that show similar numbers with raid 0. Theoretically you're doubling the throughput, but after overhead it ends up being 1/4-1/3 faster generally than a single raptor. Regardless it's definitely more than 3%... Plus you are doubling the available space, the add'l performance is just bonus.

Good info, I wonder how much faster 2x raptor are than 2x WD 7200.10 for 5x the price/gig.

 

[Cali3350]

Damn this is tempting... Argh. Wondering the difference from a standard 8mb cache / 7200 sata drive...