hard drives

ronboronbo Connecticut
edited February 2005 in Hardware
I have a question about Raptor drives that WD sells. I see the speed of the Raptor drives is 10,000 rpm. But the size they come in is small compared to the other drives they sell. A drive spins at 7,200 rpm or 10,000 rpm. Will the user notice any real differance or do people buy these high speed drives just for bragging rights? I want large storage so I will stick to the 7,200 rpm for my rig...... :scratch:

Comments

  • ronboronbo Connecticut
    edited February 2005
    No replys yet? Did I say something wrong?
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited February 2005
    first - the drives are smaller BECAUSE they're faster, its a tradeoff

    people buy the faster drives because for anything other than file storage, faster access times are preferred. this is the same reason people do Raid-0 setups. you have to understand that the speed of your HDD is one of the biggest bottlenecks a pc has

    also dont feel bad about no replies, sometimes a thread just sneaks in under the radar...
  • ronboronbo Connecticut
    edited February 2005
    Thank you for your reply. Now I understand why some people prefer the faster drives. That Raid-0 setup scares the hell out of me, My nephew tried it when Raid first came out. It worked for about a year, was really fast too, then he lost one drive and the information on the other drive was worthless......guess you have to take your chances with that Raid-0...
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited February 2005
    Yeah, I think the extra speed of RAID-0 is NOT worth the risk.

    If I ever used a RAID setup, it'd be RAID-1. 2 hard drives mirroring each other for data backup ability.
  • DeibsDeibs
    edited February 2005
    It really depends on the controller card too. In my experience it's always worth the money to buy a higher end RAID card, at the very least 150+. I have the K8N Pro board from Gigabyte and it comes with SIL SATA controller and a GigaRaid IT8212 IDE. The IDE one lasted 6 months or so and crashed... not the hard drives just the Controller, so i've been in a never ending search for a new raid card with that chipset so i can obtain my info.

    As for the Silicon Image Sata, it's beautiful. I have two 36.4 Raptors in RAID-0 and they are lightning fast, it's painful to go onto another computer not setup with those drives.
  • DeibsDeibs
    edited February 2005
    Oh yeah, i do have a 40gig hard drive in FAT32 that i use to back up any really important information i have. Can never be too safe... maybe i should just go to tape backup.. :D
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2005
    ronbo wrote:
    I have a question about Raptor drives that WD sells. I see the speed of the Raptor drives is 10,000 rpm. But the size they come in is small compared to the other drives they sell. A drive spins at 7,200 rpm or 10,000 rpm. Will the user notice any real differance or do people buy these high speed drives just for bragging rights? I want large storage so I will stick to the 7,200 rpm for my rig...... :scratch:

    Its not the speed it turns at. The access time is almost half most other ide/sata drives. and the STR is also higher then any other ide/sata drive. People don't buy them to brag on how fast their disk spins at. They are faster period.

    Tex
  • ronboronbo Connecticut
    edited February 2005
    How fast is fast, Tex? I went back to Newegg an looked at the SATA Raptor drives again. Wow they are expensive for the 74gig size. I am running an older system right now..AMD Athlon 2000+, ATA 133, 1 gig of generic memory, Gforce 4 4600. And when I click on something it responds in a flash, as fast as I can click. With the new system I am bulding....AMD 64 3200+ Neo2 Platinum, 1 gig of Patriot memory, and SATA drives, it will only be that much faster. With Raptors drives the computer should be so fast that I will not have to touch the keyboard at all, the computer will know what I want, just kidding.....I find that by formatting about 4 times a year and not installing programs that I will never use, the computer is always fast. The Raptor drives do look inviting but I cannot justify the cost. For the price of one large Raptor 74gig, I can get two SATA 250 gig drives....
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2005
    Format 4 times a year?

    Oh for god sakes. You need a new hobby.

    Mine seems to stay fast without the formating. Formating 4 times a year is not needed to keep your computer running properly.

    Tex
  • DeibsDeibs
    edited February 2005
    Well in my case i have 3 setups of hard drives.

    Two 36.4gb Raptors in Raid-0 (SATA) - Used as Windows Drives

    Four 200gb DiamondMax 9 in Raid-0/1 (PATA) - Information

    One 40gb IBM, just on an IDE channel - Backup the Raptors.

    Just using Nero, i tested my 3 setups. The Raptors come out at 87,000kb/s, the DiamondMax come out at 65,000kb/s and the one drive is around 40,000kb/s.

    Now that is with programs running in the background obviously, this isn't an accurate test but it gives a decent idea.

    As for formatting 4 times.. yeah get a new hobby.. :D One is enough, unless you love downloading spyware.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2005
    My single scsi drives atto at a around 75,000. They run me about 60 bucks a pop.

    Tex
  • DeibsDeibs
    edited February 2005
    Heh, but how much for the SCSI card. That's way i want to go, it just seems a bit expensive.
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited February 2005
    ronbo wrote:
    How fast is fast, Tex? I went back to Newegg an looked at the SATA Raptor drives again. Wow they are expensive for the 74gig size. I am running an older system right now..AMD Athlon 2000+, ATA 133, 1 gig of generic memory, Gforce 4 4600. And when I click on something it responds in a flash, as fast as I can click. With the new system I am bulding....AMD 64 3200+ Neo2 Platinum, 1 gig of Patriot memory, and SATA drives, it will only be that much faster. With Raptors drives the computer should be so fast that I will not have to touch the keyboard at all, the computer will know what I want, just kidding.....I find that by formatting about 4 times a year and not installing programs that I will never use, the computer is always fast. The Raptor drives do look inviting but I cannot justify the cost. For the price of one large Raptor 74gig, I can get two SATA 250 gig drives....
    That's a good way of keeping things snappy bud, I'll give you that. I probably re-format once a year, but keeping my OS in ship shape zippy is a full time job some days. ;)

    I own two Raptors and in my opinion they are worth every penny. You'll definatley notice a difference in desktop performance, whether it's an old or new system. Hard drive's are still one of the greatest performance bottle necks of a PC. I can't deny the Raptors are expensive though. But you won't be dissapointed. The choice, as they say... is yours! :)
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