WD Raptor 74 - $157 Shipped (w/ 25$ Newegg Rebate)

[pclstyle]

Looks like a good deal to me, especially since I got my first two raptors at close to 200, and I still see these things going for over 170 used on ebay. <3 newegg

Link

 

[Drakkon]

157.25 shipped it looks like

and plenty of "free gift items" to go along wiht it too :-O

 

[VooDooAddict]

/bitchnMoan on

Nooooooo!

I managed to get through the Fry's Sale on the 74's
Now Newegg.com has them On sale.
I don't knoe if I can fight the temptation.

/bitchnMoan off

Looks good I'll probably end up snagging one

 

[Staver]

Says $155.25 AR now.

 

[tstrike]

must resist......

btw it's showing up as
Final Price: $153.49

 

[mitchafi]

It's awfully speedy Loads my UT2004 levels in the blink of an eye! Succumb to the goodness of teh rapt0r!!!!!!

 

[nugaluga]

i want to get two
does that mean i get 2 25 rebates?
or one 25 dollar rebate
the form isn't clear

 

[prometheusxls]

This is a great Deal. I just got mine from the earlier outpost.com deal... its a sweet drive and the price is great.

 

[cheap]

Not to thread crap but why pay so much for sata hard drive when you can get 200gig segate right now for $60? If speed is your argument then why not get SCSI then? Would probably cost about the same and still be faster.

 

[ViPerZX]

A SCSI drive of the same size and speed would run you $400+ with the controller.
It also beats most SCSI drives in desktop performance.

 

[imported_sjaxkingpin]

Yeah, I'd point out that in the single user enviornment, these Raptors essentially hang with the top 15K SCSI drives and smoke the rest. When I got my first one, it was the first time in a long time that the HDD made a noticable (by feel, not by benchmark) difference.

http://www.storagereview.com/a...20040126WD740GD_1.html

They're the best home PC drive available imho.... But the Media Whore in me sure does like the looks of those 400GB'ers

 

[Slappy00]

I got mine via Outpost deal, Windows boots hella-fast, only one time across on the "progress bar thingy", Having two of these RAID0 striped would be sick.

 

[cheap]

Are sata drives CPU dependent like EIDE drives?

I was going to get a SCSI drive for OS and use like 200GB EIDE drive for games and downloads and stuff but if you guys say these are just as fast I just might go with raptor instead of SCSI.

 

[ViPerZX]

Yes, I think they do still require more cpu than a SCSI drive would, but not as much as parallel ATA.

 

[adeno]

Nice deal... I got in on it

Thanks OP!

 

[ChineseGuy]

ever installed windows xp in 10 minutes??? and that is including typing in the serial #... I love this drive... too bad i got this drive @ $191... , great deal....

 

[Greg04]

HOw is the subjective sound level on this guy? I am considering it for my dell 8250, but don't want a screamer.

 

[cyrax78]

Actually, loading time for games like far cry are only a few seconds shorter than say, the 200gb seagate drive (there are quite a few websites that did test to show this). But I'm still gonna raid two fo them because.. I'm a fool and it looks good on benchmarks heh.

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: ChineseGuy
ever installed windows xp in 10 minutes??? and that is including typing in the serial #... I love this drive... too bad i got this drive @ $191... , great deal....

I have heard a lot of claims, but isn't this drive only 20% faster at best than say the 200GB barracuda? And then, wouldn't it only best that performance installing stuff by that %? Or, is there something else at work where the insatll times would be much better?

 

[uwannawhat]

I bought this drive last time it was on sale.

Aside from faster load times for programs it screams on disk cleanups &amp; defrags. I've got my OS &amp; my Utilite Progs as well as a few games loaded on this drive &amp; to me @ least the extra speed makes for a much more enjoyable experience.

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: uwannawhat
I bought this drive last time it was on sale.

Aside from faster load times for programs it screams on disk cleanups &amp; defrags. I've got my OS &amp; my Utilite Progs as well as a few games loaded on this drive &amp; to me @ least the extra speed makes for a much more enjoyable experience.

Curious, hasn't it been about 3 years since disk defrags amounted to any perceptible difference in speed?

 

[noctdeus]

Originally posted by: Greg04
Curious, hasn't it been about 3 years since disk defrags amounted to any perceptible difference in speed?

While it's true that you probably won't notice a difference unless there is major fragmentation of your files, it is still good practice because it extends the life of the hard drive. There is a lot more strain on the hard drive head when it has to jump around to different places constantly instead of sequentially reading from the disk. It also increases the likelihood of a premature failure. Even though the difference in speed is probably too small to notice nowadays it's still there and it doesn't hurt to defrag.

 

[z0ner]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the 5 YEAR WARRANTY that comes with these sick puppies. I've got two 36GB in RAID0 and my I/O is sick. 8m30s on a stopwatch for Windows XP install.

 

[z0ner]

Originally posted by: nugaluga
i want to get two
does that mean i get 2 25 rebates?
or one 25 dollar rebate
the form isn't clear

"Offer is limited to two (2) rebates per customer/name/address."

I don't know how much more clear they can make it :roll:

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: noctdeus

Originally posted by: Greg04
Curious, hasn't it been about 3 years since disk defrags amounted to any perceptible difference in speed?

While it's true that you probably won't notice a difference unless there is major fragmentation of your files, it is still good practice because it extends the life of the hard drive. There is a lot more strain on the hard drive head when it has to jump around to different places constantly instead of sequentially reading from the disk. It also increases the likelihood of a premature failure. Even though the difference in speed is probably too small to notice nowadays it's still there and it doesn't hurt to defrag.

Ah, good point.