Raptor X is LOUD!

[Mugen1516]

Wow, just swapped out my (2) 250gb seagate 32mb cache HD's for a raptor x 150 and another WD 500gb drive. These are WAY louder than those 2 seagates which were slient. i'm almost thinking about returning the two WD drives because of it. also because i thought i would get better performance out of 1 raptor than 2 seagates in raid. but, the vista install took significantly less time to install with the seagates in raid.

[hmz]

When I got the 74GB one, I was like ok, its loud.. But when I went to sleep (in other room) I could hear the raptor clicking. I was like, this thing is ridiculously loud. It was clicking a lot after Vista installation, but after a couple days it got quiet. Now, I can barely hear it, unless I run antivirus scanner or smth.

[Mugen1516]

quiet as in like it takes time to break in or something?

[NKDietrich]

You probably get used to it... but if it bugs ya, you shouldn't feel bad about returning it.

They are no longer the fastest drives except in high multi-user workloads with a lot of concurrent I/O requests. WD hasn't refreshed the Raptor in a long time now, and the latest 7200RPMs absolutely crush it and the slightly older 7200rpms are not noticeably slower.

The faster seek time just isn't important in single user desktops, sequential transfer rate is going to be far more noticeable. For example when copying files around or loading levels and so forth.

I kinda feel like a broken record, a lot of these Raptor threads come up but there just isn't any reason to buy one anymore. Odds are if you need the high speed multi-user I/O, you're going to get a server grade 15krpm SAS drive. Some will come in here and swear their Raptor "feels" faster. I for one don't place any stock in peoples feelings. I'm a scientific kind of guy.

Newegg has the 750GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 for $139.99 shipped right now. That is an incredible price on an _extremely_ fast drive. It is also pretty quiet and runs pretty cool, even for a 7200 RPM drive.

[Deliximus]

750gb F1s are not based on the new platter tech. 334x2 =! 750gb.

raptors are still fast. they are more responsive compared to other single drives. Newer drives are faster at transfer rates but the snappiness of one raptor compared to one 7200rpm is still better.

[NKDietrich]

750gb F1s are not based on the new platter tech. 334x2 =! 750gb.

raptors are still fast. they are more responsive compared to other single drives. Newer drives are faster at transfer rates but the snappiness of one raptor compared to one 7200rpm is still better.

Ah, right, I forgot the 750GB F1s were not based on the new platters. Still relatively speedy though.

But I have to ask, what part of a single user workload do you believe benefits from 8ms of improved seek? People always seem to say the Raptor is more responsive, but I don't see how in a single user situation where it would be noticeable.

[OliverBGD]

It's true that a lot of new 7K rpm drives beat Raptors in single user, HOWEVER most people don't notice that those benchmarks were done with older revisions, if you find benchmarks with new Raptor revision ADFD you'll see that Raptor is kick ass against the new 7K rpm 32MB cache drives.

Also some people say that if you partition first 10% of the new 7K drives you can speed up teh seek time, HOWEVER don't forget you can do that to the Raptor's also :)

[Deliximus]

i can't say exactly what i do to feel the 'fast' in the raptors. But owning 3 computers and building new ones here and there that don't use it, i can tell how fast programs open/ open a 2nd program, etc. But right now, it's not enough for most ppl to abandon the cost/gigabyte.

[hmz]

quiet as in like it takes time to break in or something?

Vista is indexing files or smth, it goes away after days of use.

[ALL4AMD]

i love the sound of the raptor drives. lets me know they are working :D

[thebeephaha]

i love the sound of the raptor drives. lets me know they are working :D

Rock on man. :D

[WarLust]

i love the sound of the raptor drives. lets me know they are working :D

Rock on man. :D

QFT. Well said. To me, it resembles the deep rumble of a V8....something I love to hear :D

[Old Hippie]

i love the sound of the raptor drives. lets me know they are working :D

I know exactly what ya mean. Kinda soothing.......:D

[MajorDomo]

I have 4x 150's running in side by side comps. They are the clear tops which make them more interesting to watch, but serve to be louder as well.....but the speed is worth the noise. If I were mom or pop, I would really hate the noise, but that is why we computer hobbyists after all :cool:

[NKDietrich]

I have 4x 150's running in side by side comps. They are the clear tops which make them more interesting to watch, but serve to be louder as well.....but the speed is worth the noise. If I were mom or pop, I would really hate the noise, but that is why we computer hobbyists after all :cool:

Plus if you can hear your Raptors over your fans your system probably isn't OC'd enough ;)

[Mugen1516]

weird, but yeah the raptor is pretty quiet now. i guess it's only loud for that indexing stuff and while actually writing stuff (like installing software). and because of that....i ordered a 2nd hahah to do raid 0. i felt like i downgraded going from the 2 seagates in raid taht installed vista ultimate 64 in like 15 minutes (like really 15 minutes). the single raptor took probably 30 minutes or so.

[Deliximus]

i've had all the raptors, they are not that loud. I think all the current drives are fine. Compared to the days when you can actually hear a whine a mile away.

[Mugen1516]

yeah i was just saying it was loud in relation to the seagates. the seagates were completely inaudible. cant wait to see how the two raptor's in raid 0 perform

[chrispycrunch]

My seagate 7200.11 is a bit clicky but quieter than any of the maxtors. My WD 500GB SE16 is completely inaudible that it is scary.

[finny76]

I hope WD just come out with a 250GB version.

[JaYp146]

My seagate 7200.11 is a bit clicky but quieter than any of the maxtors. My WD 500GB SE16 is completely inaudible that it is scary.

I'm guessing you have one of the AAKS models; if so, yes, they are very quiet, very similar to my Samsung 500gigger.

SilentPCReview has reviewed both models to be excellent quiet drives.

[finny76]

They are no longer the fastest drives except in high multi-user workloads with a lot of concurrent I/O requests. WD hasn't refreshed the Raptor in a long time now, and the latest 7200RPMs absolutely crush it and the slightly older 7200rpms are not noticeably slower.

The faster seek time just isn't important in single user desktops, sequential transfer rate is going to be far more noticeable. For example when copying files around or loading levels and so forth.



Most of you are saying that the Newer 7200RPM drives are just as Fast if not Faster than the Raptor X.

Can you give examples of such drives? (WD preffered!)

[chrispycrunch]

I'm guessing you have one of the AAKS models; if so, yes, they are very quiet, very similar to my Samsung 500gigger.

SilentPCReview has reviewed both models to be excellent quiet drives.

That's right. it's the 500AAKS model.

[colinstu]

I'm use to how noisy raptors are, lol especially two of them seeking away at the same time ;)

It's strange when I'm working on a computer with a 7200RPM drive... I don't hear anything XD

[Grentz]

You guys dont know loud if you think the Raptors are loud. Go back a decade or so and then you can know what a loud HDD sounds like.

The Raptors are pretty darn quiet except for when they start intensely crunching data. Sitting next to me right now my Raptor X is very quiet when I am just browsing the web and checking email and such.

LOUD HDDs IMO are the nasty ones that whine like banshees all the time, the raptors do not do this at all, they have more of a deep vocal cord to them and only when being pushed. They are louder than some of the other drives out there though, and that is fair. Pick the parts for your uses and what you want.

i love the sound of the raptor drives. lets me know they are working :D

Well said.


Also, dont be cool and pull benchmarks out of your ass and from other sites and call the Raptors worthless. They are damn fast and seek time does make a difference. If you dont think it does, dont buy them, but dont bash them for it. I have never used a consumer HDD that is as fast as the Raptors, the only things faster that I have seen are SCSI 15k drives. Some other drives may slightly beat the raptor in one area, but if you compare all dynamics, the Raptors still come out ahead. I notice a huge difference in how fast things react as well.

Many times people make unfair comparisons as well. "Well if you put 2x 7200 drives in RAID0 they come close to beating a raptor!" "Did you know that if you partition the outer disk on the 7200rpm drive it can beat a raptor?" Try doing the same thing on the raptor and compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges.



Sorry for the rant, but Raptors have come under fire lately wrongfully IMO and from the hands of "Expert Review Sites" doing unfair biased tests trying to make news by saying the king is dead (in reference to the raptor).

[Deliximus]

i must agree. Raptors are damn fast and i've used every single model/revision. One on One, raptors, IMO, are still the most 'snappy' drives a consumer can use. Now imagine WD putting in 250gb platters.

[junglicious]

It seems like the Raptors' dBA is personal preference. If you want a quiet PC, then yes the Raptors are not for you. It could be that people who come from quiet PCs are not used to the noise. I've had the 8mb cache 74gb Raptors when they were available. I must be used to them because I do not notice them enough to be annoyed. I usually listen to music while on the PC awhile and when I'm not the sound doesn't catch my attention. I rarely have the computer on while I am asleep and the few times I've had it on I didn't notice it. Even when it was doing a task it wasn't loud enough to wake me up. My tower is table top level, 3ft away from me, and I have 3 Raptors to give you an idea. In a weird way it is kind of soothing.

[NKDietrich]

Sorry for the rant, but Raptors have come under fire lately wrongfully IMO and from the hands of "Expert Review Sites" doing unfair biased tests trying to make news by saying the king is dead (in reference to the raptor).

I don't really think its that unfair. You said that seek time makes a difference and you feel a difference, and that benchmarks are biased and wrong. I'd like you to point out to me precisely where in a single-user desktop environment that a few milliseconds of seek is more important than 10-20% increased sustained read and write speeds. (The advantage the new 320 and 330GB platters have over the Raptor X.)

Every time someone comes into one of these threads and claims the Raptor opens folders faster, or some other bunk, they can never back it up with facts. The so-called "biased and unfair" benchmarks at least give us some numbers from a reputable benchmark application.I think you do a real disservice to the various credible hardware review sites out there by generalizing and saying they are all biased and unfair. Now, let me address a few points, you can choose to respond if you'd like.

Seek times and "snappiness". First of all, there is a great deal of overhead when it comes to accessing files and directories on a hard drive in any modern operating system. There is a lot more going on than the hard drive simply seeking to a file. Especially in Windows. The "snappiness" people are feeling when opening folders has nothing to do with seek time. Windows does a lot of stuff when you open a folder. Reading attributes from files, caching things, creating thumbnails where there are images, and all kinds of other things. Even copying files and folders can vary wildly in speed based simply on the operating system you are using. Any advantage gained by a few milliseconds of seek time is going to be unrecognizable after you consider all the other things that your OS is doing with the file system.

Now, we all know that when it comes to hardware, people will always be feeling differences where none exists. How could any human being tell if a hard drive was shaving 3/1000ths of a second off of a 1.5 second hard disk operation? They can't. Its in nearly every thread. People claim to feel a difference with no scientific backing for that claim. You may argue that that is fine, and I'm being a prick for telling people they are liars. I'm not saying they are lying, just that they are mistaken. Everyone who spends good money on something they believe to be fast, will feel it, regardless of whether or not its true.

There is this huge backlash these days against any kind of benchmark. People who waste money on underperforming products, or whose previously top-of-the-line gear is no longer performing as well in the current market, get so defensive. There is this sub-group in our community that believes that all that matters is how much money you spend and how it makes you feel. This kind of shit belongs over in the audiophile forums, in the land of the $2000 cable. Audio is subjective. Computer performance is NOT.

Yeah we know 3DMark is crap and unrepresentative, but that doesn't mean you discount all the real world benchmarks too. I get so frustrated when I see people talking about how something feels faster and that the benchmarks are simply lying. I'm sorry but there is no magical force in computer hardware that causes something to be faster yet fall behind in every synthetic and real world benchmark.

We have all these "apologists" who run around making excuses for underperforming products and padding their claims with unfounded "feelings," I apologize if I am being too blunt for some of you, but isn't it wiser to simply do some research before you buy instead of buying the wrong peice of hardware and having to make up some BS about ethereal feelings to defend it?

Now, the Raptor isn't a KillerNIC or PhysX card, by a long shot. It used to be the best, hands down, in the consumer SATA market and is far from a stupid gimmick like those other products. But trotting it out as superior to modern 7200rpm drives for the average enthusiast is just wrong and is encouraging people to sacrifice a lot of money and hard drive space for performance they may not see. I hate seeing people given bad advice, and the Raptor is the poster child for this these days.

The simple fact of the matter is that in single-user workloads, seek time doesn't matter for much. This is a fact, not an opinion. Look at the various real world benchmarks of hard drives. The performance lines up almost exactly with the drives sustained read and write speeds, whereas drives with fast seeks but slow sustained transfers fall behind significantly. (Raptors and other older low-density 10k and 15krpm drives.)

It is irresponsible to recommend a Raptor to anyone at this point in time. Until the Raptor line is refreshed with higher density, it is foolish to tell someone to ignore benchmarks and buy a drive because you believe it feels faster. It sets a very bad example and a very bad precedent.

Now I am the one who must apologize for ranting, but I am so sick of seeing thread after thread of pseudo-scientific "feelings" and politically correct pats on the back, and a backlash against any kind of methodical testing of hardware. Its like its become unacceptable to say anything negative about hardware.

I do not like this trend one bit.

[chrispycrunch]

Well, NKDietrich, Raptor or whatever drive anyone uses is no excuse for proper hard disk management:

Running ccleaner to get rid of those uninstalls and temp files (they get big after time - thanks windows)

Running disk defragging software - there are good 3rd party ones out there. I know XP's defrag is not good but I am sure Vista's is better.

[Old Hippie]

Now, we all know that when it comes to hardware, people will always be feeling differences where none exists. How could any human being tell if a hard drive was shaving 3/1000ths of a second off of a 1.5 second hard disk operation? They can't. Its in nearly every thread. People claim to feel a difference with no scientific backing for that claim.

Just a few observations......

I run Raptors and like them.
Seems that all of us Raptor owners are wrong when it comes to snappiness. :rolleyes:
Of my 3 computer "literate" buddies, all three have purchased Raptors after playing with my machine and commenting on the quickness.
All are perfectly happy with their Raptor upgrade.

Depending upon how deep your pockets are, seems to be the dividing line on whether they are "worth it or not".

[s_s256]

When I got my first Raptor 5 years ago it was loud but I quickly got used to it. I have added 3 more since and have been running them in Raid 0 for nearly 5 years now. However I think one of my drives is on its last legs and I will be replacing 2 of my 32gb models for the 150gb models in the near future.

The people to say that the Raptors are not worth it anymore have clearly never used them. Against the newer 7K models they are still faster and provide a better computing experience.

Here is an article written by Anandtech on February 22nd, 2008, against the newest 7K drives from WD and Samsung (I wish they would have included Seagate and Hitachi).

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3236&p=2

However the Raptor clearly beats the two 7K drives by a fair margin (up to 22% better) in almost every single test except for acoustics and thermals.

They are worth the money, and the little discomfort to the ears.

[Ockie]

I don't know where people come with this notion that it's "loud". Either people must have sonic hearing or cheap cases or simply bad drive mounting.... because I don't notice it unless if it's the ONLY thing running in a more empty case.

[thebeephaha]

I don't know where people come with this notion that it's "loud". Either people must have sonic hearing or cheap cases or simply bad drive mounting.... because I don't notice it unless if it's the ONLY thing running in a more empty case.

My drives are on rubber grommets and sit in my stacker case with over 10 fans. I also have acoustic pads everywhere. I can hear my Raptors over everything else 5ft away. It's no so much the Raptor is loud, its that I have all my other stuff running very quiet and that those rubber mounts for hard drives are somewhat useless to begin with.

[Mugen1516]

yeah, again i didn't mean they were unbearable loud or something. i have the antec p182 case (supposedly quiet) and it has those rubber HD mounts. when i had the seagates in, i didnt ever hear any hard drive "work" noise, clicking or whatever. with the raptors, especially when installing something, they are noticable louder in that i can hear the clicking where as i never heard it with the seagates.

i've since gotten used to it, so no biggie. i just noticed the raptors were louder than the seagates. oh well, my 2nd raptor x 150 comes in tomorrow and i get to throw them in raid 0. so whatever =)

[Nicksterr]

I have a 74gb 8mb cache raptor and I can only hear it when it's fully loaded. Even then it's not that loud. Using the lian li pc-k7b case which has the rubber grommets mounting system.

I plan to buy the 150gb 16mb cache raptor soon unless I see something faster for my os/game/app drive.

[Justintoxicated]

Plus if you can hear your Raptors over your fans your system probably isn't OC'd enough ;)

My waterpump was louder than my raptor, unles it was clunking away, but like others said that just means it's work to me.
I still can't decide wether or not to raid-o my raptor with another. I think it would kinda kill the seek times which is the primary advantage of the drive.