Why is it a waste? other than sizeVSprice. Performance wise the 74gig, which im now considering, is on par with scsi drives. A single one of these drives to run windows off of will greatly improve "percieved" performance with faster load times and such. For storage these drives are not a good choice. For storage I will probably go for a large sata drive like the Maxtor driveline 2 250 sata.
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited October 2004
Because the 36GB drive is no faster than a regular 7200rpm/8mb Maxtor DiamondMax 9. I've got at least 12 of the DiamondMaxes (8 160s, 3 80s, 1 60, possibly some others that I can't remember), and about 15 10,000RPM SCSI drives of varying capacities. The 36GB Raptor isn't going to make a noticeable difference to you. The 74 is significantly faster though, and that might not be a bad idea. But the 36 is just a waste of money.
Geeky, run a sandra benchmark on your Maxtor. Or do you only have it raid'ed?
I'm gonna do an atto on the raptor.
I get very similar scores as your Maxtor on the onboard sata controller on this DFI. Wouldn't say it's a waste of money though. Then again, i have never tried that Maxtor, so my opinion would be biased.
Geeky atto only shows str and doesnt reflect the raptors much faster access times which have more to do with the perceived speed of a desktop drive then str. I have IDE's that are about equal on ATTO to a 15,000 rpm 4ms access scsi but in real life that scsi feels so much faster. STR doesnt give a good indication of how its gonna perform for general desktop use. Its useful if the access time and rpm is equal and the only variable is STR. But thats not the case when comnparing the maxtors to raptors or scsi drives. I own four of those maxtors btw... Like them ! But your wrong about the raptors.
tex
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited October 2004
Tex, I'm well aware of the lower latency the Raptors have. But I think the reason for SCSI feeling faster is psychological. My system drive was a 36.7GB 10,000RPM IBM Ultrastar for a good year and a half or two years, with an 18.2GB 10k Ultrastar as a secondary drive. And my IDE drives "feel" faster than the SCSIs do. I mean you're talking about a few thousandths of a second here. I'm all but certain that that is too small a time period for a human to percieve.
geeky are you even thinking about what you say? Your comparing drives whoose access time is half that of your ide's. Yes it would be hard to "feel" the differance in only one acess to the disk but not when measuring the time to do mant concurrent transfers.
So much for your "sense of feel". I'll know to take anything you suggest as feeling faster with a grain of salt in the future.
And btw... the new raptors hit close to 70,000 not 55,000. you picked the slowest raptor score ever posted here to compare to the maxtor. Convenient.
Tex
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited October 2004
No Tex, I'm not thinking about what I'm saying. Why would I do an insane thing like that?
There's about a 5ms seek time difference between a 7200rpm drive and a 10,000rpm drive. So for there to be 1 additional second of seek time in loading a program, you're looking at 200 individual seeks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if your drive is seeking that many times for a single program, you probably need to defrag the drive...
The times that I notice the performance difference are when I'm doing large file transfers; when I'm backing up gigs of data from one drive onto another. And as that HDTach benchmark shows, the Maxtors are faster across the first 40GB of the drive than the Raptors are across their entire capacity.
I'll know to take anything you suggest as feeling faster with a grain of salt in the future.
*pats Tex on the head* you go right ahead and do that, mmk?
Anyhow, the ATTO score I posted was off the first review I found that had an ATTO on it, and the HDTach score for the Raptor was in their comparison database.
I've attached a HDTach score from a review Shorty just linked to today (http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=118). Gee, Tex, where's that "close to 70MB/s" you were talking about? I think you have the 74GB drives confused with the 36GB drives. The 74GB Raptors are very, very fast. The 36GB raptors are, at best, about as fast as a regular 7200rpm drive, and at worse, somewhat slower.
Now, since I'm not convinced that they "feel" any great deal faster (as in my experience, 10k drives don't really "feel" any faster) and we've already established repeatedly that even in the best case, they're not significantly faster in any quantitative sense, $100 for a 40GB drive is a waste of money.
It's different when you're using them in a server environment; for a desktop drive, there are far, far better choices for $100.
If you bought that drive back when it first came out I don't think you made a bad choice per se ...but if you waited for the 74gb version I think you made the better choice. Look at any 74gb review. Just my opinion.
The second generation raptors are much better. The differance between even the older raptors and most scsi drives is the raptors formware is optimized for the desktop.
I modify the firmware in my scsi drives anyway so that doesnt apply to my scsi desktop drives. I tweak them for either desktop or server setups depending on where they will be deployed.
If I may add my humble opinion here, I don't think the 35Gb Raptor is a waste of money. Obviously, the 74Gb version is a better bet, it's quieter for a start, but if you're budget conscious I still think it's a good buy.
All I know is that I've been usinga pair of them in a RAID 0 for about nine months now and it's the fastest setup I've ever had. I've never used a SCSI drive.
Using them with an XP3200 and 2 x 512 Crucial PC3200.
I had upgraded from 2 x 40Gb Seagate barracudas and the Raptors are faster than them. I also have another machine, again with an XP3200 & 2 x 512 Corsair Value PC3200, using two x WD 120Gb 8Mb cache in a RAID 0. The Raptors are faster than them.
I'm not talking bench marks here either, just real life usage and a feel for each system.
I also have a couple of those Maxtor drives mentioned here, used singly, one has an OS on it. They're OK, but not as fast as the 35Gb Raptor. In my opinion.
First was with just an OS installed (Win XP Pro) and drivers, nothing else. There was an XP2600 in this board then, and 2 x 256 Corsair PC2700.
Second I done right now, not defragged, lots of apps on, office etc, and about 23 Games. UD running, AV prog running, motherboard monitoring software running. XP3200, 2 x 512 Crucial 512 PC3200.
Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA 700N Pro 2. 2 x WD 35Gb Raptors, RAID 0.
Just so happens, as I mentioned earlier, I also have a pair of WD 120Gb SATA drives in RAID 0 on another system, one I use for capturing/editing/burning VCR footage to DVD. And editing audio. And other stuff.
I'll give them an ATTO bench shortly. Can't atm, they're rendering a video file right now.
Well honestly I don't know what effect CPU FSB and RAM have on drive performance. I was under the impression that Specific Benchmarking tools tried to work "specifically" on there intended task. As in how fast The Drive can read and write not the system. I am sure it has to have some effect, But I claim ignorance on how much.
I am sure someone will chime in to "ejewcate" me . At least I hope so. that is how I lern stuff.
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
You have never used one. Your guessing. And your wrong.
Nothing new there though
Tex, even my little brother, who is in 5th grade, knows that resorting to ad hominem attacks reflects poorly on the user of said attacks. You're what, in your 40s? 50s? And you haven't realized this yet? Grow up.
It is important to note that the market for the Raptor is primarily the entry- and mid-level server segments and not the enthusiast desktop sector. When Western Digital raised the bar nearly 1.5 years ago, we repeatedly pointed out that the Special Edition (JB series) Caviar was what readers really wanted when they speculated over 10,000 RPM ATA drives. Equipped with an 8-megabyte buffer and accompanying firmware aggressively tuned for single-user scenarios, the WD1000JB easily matched and even exceeded the performance that the best 10k RPM SCSI drives of the era delivered when it came to desktop performance. While SCSI disks feature superior mechanics, their server orientation forces them to trade away firmware optimized for highly-localized patterns in favor of strategies that maximize returns in random access scenarios. In the Raptor, WD faces much of the same quandary. With its enterprise-class warranty and seek time, however, the firm attempts to target server markets.
If it is, i can't see where it's even close to the 36gb raptor.
It's an early revision of the drive, yes. And much like the early Raptors aren't as fast as the newer revs., the older DMax 9s are not as fast as the newer ones. See the benchmarks I posted above (and the ones I'm going to attach to this post) for the performance on the newer drives.
The 2 36gb raptors I have feel faster and perform better than my raided maxtor 9's ever did AND they are not even raided (which the maxtors were).
< shrugs >
shrug indeed. All I can say is that I haven't used the Raptors, primarily because I'm not going to throw away $100 on a 40GB drive that I haven't found to be any better than a regular drive for consumer-level applications, but, like I said earlier, my desktops' storage consisted of 36.7GB and 18.2GB 10,000RPM IBM Ultrastar SCSI drives for over a year, and when I switched to the Maxtors, they were noticeably faster.
Just what, Geeky1, makes you so vehement in your dislike of the Raptors?
What do you have to prove?
As pointed out previously, I have a couple of those Maxtor drives, they're OK, but nothing special.
I'll repeat. All I know is this. The Raptors work fast. In real life. And that's all I really know, which is enough for me.
You say if the benchmark was 'properly designed'. Well, is it? Do you know?
As for the rest of the specs, the ATTO benchmark tests read and write speeds.
Now, I ain't no expert, but I'd imagine that all the various busses, processor and memory could make a difference here. It's all about how fast 0's & 1's can fly around, is it not? OK, the physical act of reading & writing to a mechanical device forms the brunt of the test, but I'd guess the other components influence that action.
I could be wrong, I don't know, I'm just guessing.
Anyways, don't know why you've got a bee in your bonnet so much about this thing, I like my Raptors, they're serving me well, and I'm happy with them.
Now then, anybody got any failure figures on vanilla Maxtors and Raptor drives? Anybody here ever had a Raptor fail? Anybody here ever had a Maxtor drive fail?
I've had every make of hard drive fail on me, funnily enough, except Maxtor (only a matter of time though) and Samsung. Cos I've never used a Samsung.
What I'm trying to say is, the Raptors don't come more expensive just for their speed, they're built to a better standard. I reckon that the most common failure in all computer components has to be the hard drive.
And that's why I don't mind paying extra for a Raptor drive or two.
Comments
and the raptor is a waste of money.
First atto is of a 36GB raptor; it's off this page:
http://www.nordichardware.com/reviews/storage/2003/WDRaptorSeagate/index.php?ez=7
Second atto is of one of my 160GB DMax9s.
I'm gonna do an atto on the raptor.
I get very similar scores as your Maxtor on the onboard sata controller on this DFI. Wouldn't say it's a waste of money though. Then again, i have never tried that Maxtor, so my opinion would be biased.
tex
So much for your "sense of feel". I'll know to take anything you suggest as feeling faster with a grain of salt in the future.
And btw... the new raptors hit close to 70,000 not 55,000. you picked the slowest raptor score ever posted here to compare to the maxtor. Convenient.
Tex
There's about a 5ms seek time difference between a 7200rpm drive and a 10,000rpm drive. So for there to be 1 additional second of seek time in loading a program, you're looking at 200 individual seeks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if your drive is seeking that many times for a single program, you probably need to defrag the drive...
The times that I notice the performance difference are when I'm doing large file transfers; when I'm backing up gigs of data from one drive onto another. And as that HDTach benchmark shows, the Maxtors are faster across the first 40GB of the drive than the Raptors are across their entire capacity.
Anyhow, the ATTO score I posted was off the first review I found that had an ATTO on it, and the HDTach score for the Raptor was in their comparison database.
I've attached a HDTach score from a review Shorty just linked to today (http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=118). Gee, Tex, where's that "close to 70MB/s" you were talking about? I think you have the 74GB drives confused with the 36GB drives. The 74GB Raptors are very, very fast. The 36GB raptors are, at best, about as fast as a regular 7200rpm drive, and at worse, somewhat slower.
Now, since I'm not convinced that they "feel" any great deal faster (as in my experience, 10k drives don't really "feel" any faster) and we've already established repeatedly that even in the best case, they're not significantly faster in any quantitative sense, $100 for a 40GB drive is a waste of money.
It's different when you're using them in a server environment; for a desktop drive, there are far, far better choices for $100.
Nothing new there though
I modify the firmware in my scsi drives anyway so that doesnt apply to my scsi desktop drives. I tweak them for either desktop or server setups depending on where they will be deployed.
tex
All I know is that I've been usinga pair of them in a RAID 0 for about nine months now and it's the fastest setup I've ever had. I've never used a SCSI drive.
Using them with an XP3200 and 2 x 512 Crucial PC3200.
I had upgraded from 2 x 40Gb Seagate barracudas and the Raptors are faster than them. I also have another machine, again with an XP3200 & 2 x 512 Corsair Value PC3200, using two x WD 120Gb 8Mb cache in a RAID 0. The Raptors are faster than them.
I'm not talking bench marks here either, just real life usage and a feel for each system.
I also have a couple of those Maxtor drives mentioned here, used singly, one has an OS on it. They're OK, but not as fast as the 35Gb Raptor. In my opinion.
There ya go, that's my contribution to the debate
Is that the drive you are talking about Geeky?
If it is, i can't see where it's even close to the 36gb raptor.
< shrugs >
First was with just an OS installed (Win XP Pro) and drivers, nothing else. There was an XP2600 in this board then, and 2 x 256 Corsair PC2700.
Second I done right now, not defragged, lots of apps on, office etc, and about 23 Games. UD running, AV prog running, motherboard monitoring software running. XP3200, 2 x 512 Crucial 512 PC3200.
Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA 700N Pro 2. 2 x WD 35Gb Raptors, RAID 0.
2 X WD SATA 120's Raid 0
Just so happens, as I mentioned earlier, I also have a pair of WD 120Gb SATA drives in RAID 0 on another system, one I use for capturing/editing/burning VCR footage to DVD. And editing audio. And other stuff.
I'll give them an ATTO bench shortly. Can't atm, they're rendering a video file right now.
Should be interesting.
P4 3.0
2gb pc3200
Intel D875 PBZ mobo (onboard raid)
Scott
Do you not think that an extra 780Mhz of CPU speed, faster fsb and twice the RAM that I have might not make just the teensiest bit of difference?
I am sure someone will chime in to "ejewcate" me . At least I hope so. that is how I lern stuff.
Here are the RAID benchmarks for the DiamondMax 9s; system specs are as follows:
2x 2.8GHz Xeons @ 3.2GHz (160x20)
2GB Dual-channel DDR400 (4x 512MB)
3x 160GB Maxtor DiamondMax 9s; 1 system drive, 2 in RAID 0
Benches:
What do you have to prove?
As pointed out previously, I have a couple of those Maxtor drives, they're OK, but nothing special.
I'll repeat. All I know is this. The Raptors work fast. In real life. And that's all I really know, which is enough for me.
You say if the benchmark was 'properly designed'. Well, is it? Do you know?
As for the rest of the specs, the ATTO benchmark tests read and write speeds.
Now, I ain't no expert, but I'd imagine that all the various busses, processor and memory could make a difference here. It's all about how fast 0's & 1's can fly around, is it not? OK, the physical act of reading & writing to a mechanical device forms the brunt of the test, but I'd guess the other components influence that action.
I could be wrong, I don't know, I'm just guessing.
Anyways, don't know why you've got a bee in your bonnet so much about this thing, I like my Raptors, they're serving me well, and I'm happy with them.
Now then, anybody got any failure figures on vanilla Maxtors and Raptor drives? Anybody here ever had a Raptor fail? Anybody here ever had a Maxtor drive fail?
I've had every make of hard drive fail on me, funnily enough, except Maxtor (only a matter of time though) and Samsung. Cos I've never used a Samsung.
What I'm trying to say is, the Raptors don't come more expensive just for their speed, they're built to a better standard. I reckon that the most common failure in all computer components has to be the hard drive.
And that's why I don't mind paying extra for a Raptor drive or two.
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