WD Velociraptor still worth the premium price?

[BoomerD]

I'm about to replace my aging hard drive, and there have been some decent sales on the WD Velociraptor drives. They're a bit more expensive than a similar sized 7200 RPM drive...
I still haven't upgraded to an SSD...yet, but that will probably come next year.
In the mean time, I need a good, reliable SATA HDD for my primary drive. I prefer a drive that comes with a longer warranty...at least 3 years, preferably 5 years. (such as the WD Black, which are about the same price as the Velociraptor)

 

[Fallengod]

Ummm yup. I still run a 150gb vraptor for main. Performs great. And, they have come down in price considerably. Ive seen the 600gb for $100 a few times in the past few months.

Im not sure why you were mentioning a vraptor being more expensive than a 7200rpm drive, I mean, duh, of course it is.....

 

[BoomerD]

Ummm yup. I still run a 150gb vraptor for main. Performs great. And, they have come down in price considerably. Ive seen the 600gb for $100 a few times in the past few months.

Im not sure why you were mentioning a vraptor being more expensive than a 7200rpm drive, I mean, duh, of course it is.....

Yeah, duh...of course it is...but is it worth the premium in price?

 

[jolancer]

Its sercomstatial, if speed is your primary consern then the raptor will be worth more to you. If reliability is your primary consern then if it were me personally, no it wouldnt be worth it because a raptor will have a higher probabilty of failure.

reliability IMO = 54krpm>72krpm>raptor>ssd (current ssd's from what iv been reading anyway)

 

[Fallengod]

Yeah, duh...of course it is...but is it worth the premium in price?

Over what? A storage drive like a black? Its almost the same price in my book. As ive stated already there have been the 600 gb models for $100 many times, isnt that what a black goes for anyways? The significantly reduced access times for vraptor = win. I never run storage drives for mains, I have some type of standards.

Its sercomstatial, if speed is your primary consern then the raptor will be worth more to you. If reliability is your primary consern then if it were me personally, no it wouldnt be worth it because a raptor will have a higher probabilty of failure.

reliability IMO = 54krpm>72krpm>raptor>ssd (current ssd's from what iv been reading anyway)

Not really true.... Youll find many experienced people around this forum who have first gen raptors still chugging along.... Ive owned 4 raptors, none have ever had an issue. I see people with more issues with storage drives etc going bad if you ask me. Logic might dictate that what you are saying is true, but in the real world, not necessarily. Judging "reliability" is a pretty difficulty thing to do in the hard drive world.....

 

[Sleepingforest]

Well, SSDs are actually prettt reliable if you buy from the right brands (namely the Samsung 830). Also, Fallengod, WD Blacks are going for $100 for 1TB on Amazon right now--Raptors have a pretty huge premium over that.

If I were to buy storage right now for speed, I would just get a 64GB SSD for caching my hard drives (I assume your on Ivy Bridge). It'll speed up your current hard drive way beyond what a Raptor will for less money--and you keep your high capacity.

 

[BFG10K]

I run the 1TB version and it’s a great drive. I store all my games on it.

It’s even better value these days as the price has dropped quite a bit since it launched.

I’d definitely recommend one.

 

[BrightCandle]

The spinning disk needs to disappear. Right now you are better off getting a small SSD and a large and allow HDD for storage. Only because an SSD is still too expensive. But expensive hard drives aren't worth it anymore.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well, SSDs are actually prettt reliable if you buy from the right brands (namely the Samsung 830). Also, Fallengod, WD Blacks are going for $100 for 1TB on Amazon right now--Raptors have a pretty huge premium over that.

If I were to buy storage right now for speed, I would just get a 64GB SSD for caching my hard drives (I assume your on Ivy Bridge). It'll speed up your current hard drive way beyond what a Raptor will for less money--and you keep your high capacity.

I might agree with BrightCandle in the last remark, except that the electro-mechanical HDDs are appearing now in phenomenal sizes. As long as that's the case, there's still a use for them.

I bought a 600GB SATA-III VelociRaptor when I built this system in summer 2011. Then the ISRT caching feature of the Z68 mobo caught my attention. [And what I'm going to say here, I'd said before in threads about ISRT].

When you choose to do ISRT caching and use an SATA-III SSD on an SATA-III port, it doesn't make a lot of difference whether you use a WD-VR or a WD-Black-Cav as the accelerated drive on an SATA-III OR on an SATA-II port. The performance bump with the caching makes all these differences almost insignificant.

The VR's sustained throughput on either type of SATA port is about 145MB/s, while a good caching SSD on an SATA-III port should have sustained read speeds above 500MB/s. If a Cav-Black SATA-III has throughput of -- say (guessing) -- 110 or 120, that difference doesn't make a hill-a-beans for the SSD-caching.

So . . . I wouldn't waste the money on the VR now.

 

[BrightCandle]

I have a pair of velicoraptors that I retired once I got a decent size ssd. For space I now just run a nas instead with all the spinning disks. Locally I only run the ssd and its quieter and a lot faster.

So I still see a place for hard drives in big cheap storage but I can't recommend the faster ones because in the grand scheme of things they aren't worth the price premium. Big storage is all about large files that you do sustained transfers on, if doing random IO do it on an ssd. SSDs are cheap enough now and an entry level one will completely thrash any disk for your main OS drive.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Compared to SSDs, raptors are a relic. So unless you cant afford SSD, or the size matters alot more than speed. Then get a 256GB SSD or so instead. A cheap HD for storing movies etc is a good combo with an SSD.

Raptors also tends to be somewhat noisy.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Ummm yup. I still run a 150gb vraptor for main. Performs great. And, they have come down in price considerably. Ive seen the 600gb for $100 a few times in the past few months.

Im not sure why you were mentioning a vraptor being more expensive than a 7200rpm drive, I mean, duh, of course it is.....

Most new 7200 drives make your 150vr seem slow these days.

 

[Makaveli]

Most new 7200 drives make your 150vr seem slow these days.

Agreed

The larger platters in the new drives make up the difference.

The raptor will still have an edge in access times.

OP follow the rest of the advice in the thread most are spot on.

SSD+HD for storage is the new standard these days.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Yes, the Velociraptor still has a place. That $99 for 600GB was a great deal as, for a gaming drive, it gives you a bigger boost over a 7200RPM drive than a SSD gives over a Velociraptor, for 1/5th the cost of a SSD.

Looks to be $110 right now on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003FW9T0M/?tag=pcpapi-20

But games (and some video editing) are the niche cases where speed and size are both needed. If this is for bulk storage (movies/music), I'd get a SSD + 7200RPM drive, as the SSD for an app drive will outperform the Raptor.

 

[groberts101]

SSD+HD for storage is the new standard these days.

yep!

And once you go down that path?.. it's tough to go back to HDD based OS volumes.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I'd get a SSD + 7200RPM drive, as the SSD for an app drive will outperform the Raptor.

If its just for bulk storage, a 5400RPM drive is plenty. Some of the newer ones with 1TB platters have pretty high sequential R/W speeds. They suck at access time though...

 

[Fallengod]

Most new 7200 drives make your 150vr seem slow these days.

No they dont. Some people seem to forgot, vraptors are for access times, not transfer speeds. I dont know why some people say weird shit like that. I have new 7200 rpm drives, they are slower than a vraptor.....

If hes not going for SSD now, then a vraptor for sure. Id never run a 7200rpm drive as a main personally....that is just torture.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Yes, the Velociraptor still has a place. That $99 for 600GB was a great deal as, for a gaming drive, it gives you a bigger boost over a 7200RPM drive than a SSD gives over a Velociraptor, for 1/5th the cost of a SSD.

Looks to be $110 right now on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003FW9T0M/?tag=pcpapi-20

But games (and some video editing) are the niche cases where speed and size are both needed. If this is for bulk storage (movies/music), I'd get a SSD + 7200RPM drive, as the SSD for an app drive will outperform the Raptor.

It's $150 right now.

Even at $100, that's .18 cents / gb. A 500 gb samsung $840 can be had for $310, which makes the SSD $.62/gb, which makes it about 3.5 times the price.

At first, I was skeptical that the premium was worth it...until I used a SSD. I strongly believe that it's the single best upgrade for make a system considerably quicker in most scenarios.

 

[DominionSeraph]

At first, I was skeptical that the premium was worth it...until I used a SSD. I strongly believe that it's the single best upgrade for make a system considerably quicker in most scenarios.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33588015

3 times the price is not worth it for a gaming drive.

 

[Fallengod]

I dont think theres any question an SSD is faster, the OP was asking if a vraptor is worth it over a 7200rpm drive since he isnt going SSD yet.

IMO, yes.

 

[Corporate Thug]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33588015

3 times the price is not worth it for a gaming drive.

Most people use their PCs for more than just gaming...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/182?vs=678

 

[BoomerD]

I dont think theres any question an SSD is faster, the OP was asking if a vraptor is worth it over a 7200rpm drive since he isnt going SSD yet.

IMO, yes.

Yes, exactly my point. I'm a gamer, sure, aren't most of us? (well, casual gamer, anyway)
My PC is for gaming and surfing...and occasional MS Office use...that's about it.

I'd LOVE a nice, large SSD...but it's just not in the budget yet.

As you can see...I'm in need of a new drive...

(fortunately, that one is my secondary OS drive (XP Pro) and isn't "mission critical at the moment)

 

[ShintaiDK]

Backed up?

Geta regular HD, and then reue it when you get an SSD one day. Spending extra money on a raptor instead of putting it towards an SSD is abit of a waste.

 

[BoomerD]

Backed up?

Geta regular HD, and then reue it when you get an SSD one day. Spending extra money on a raptor instead of putting it towards an SSD is abit of a waste.

Nothing on that particular drive needs to be backed up...(thankfully)

 

[Makaveli]

Yes, the Velociraptor still has a place. That $99 for 600GB was a great deal as, for a gaming drive, it gives you a bigger boost over a 7200RPM drive than a SSD gives over a Velociraptor, for 1/5th the cost of a SSD.

Looks to be $110 right now on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003FW9T0M/?tag=pcpapi-20

But games (and some video editing) are the niche cases where speed and size are both needed. If this is for bulk storage (movies/music), I'd get a SSD + 7200RPM drive, as the SSD for an app drive will outperform the Raptor.

Wow that's a very good deal actually.

If I wasn't in canada I would consider it for just a games drive but by the time its shipped across the border it may be higher.