Raptor question..

[halcyon]

So I'm running a 120gb WD 7200rpm 8mb cache drive as my main.. on an Athlon XP @ 2200mhz. I'm thinking about switching to a 74gig raptor as my main drive, with a pair of 300gb seagates as backup. Am I going to notice a big speed difference going to a raptor as my main drive? Enough to justify the high cost/mb?

[UnknownSouljer]

So I'm running a 120gb WD 7200rpm 8mb cache drive as my main.. on an Athlon XP @ 2200mhz. I'm thinking about switching to a 74gig raptor as my main drive, with a pair of 300gb seagates as backup. Am I going to notice a big speed difference going to a raptor as my main drive? Enough to justify the high cost/mb?

You probably won't notice a lot of difference really if any at all unless you are doing something that requires a bunch of active seek time. If it's just for games, then your probably can't justify the cost unless you're they type that must have the best of the best (at least as far as SATA goes... SCSI on the otherhand...)
Otherwise if you're looking purely from a cost effective standpoint, continuing to use the 120gb HD as your main and buying the 2x 300gb seagates as backups is certainly not a bad option.

[DougLite]

If you say "cost" and "Raptor" in the same sentence, you've already decided - it's probably not worth it to you ;) Seriously, the Raptor is not for users that think about cost. I know that sounds somewhat elitist/snobish, but if you're worried about how much it costs, spend the money elsehwere. A better video card, upgrading to 1GB of RAM, etc will do more for your games anyway. Check out Hitachi's drives and the 16MB Maxtors if you want a speed boost while still getting plenty of bytes for the buck.

[halcyon]

Ya I really don't do too much gaming any more, primarily java development, however I do a lot of multitasking with tons of apps open at once. I'm just looking for a good speed bump.. if I won't notice much with a raptor I'd rather just run 2 - 300giggers in raid1 as my main drive.

[bug]

05.056.08

With the 36GB sata1 raptors now about $110, 10k rpm, and 8MB cache, 5 yr war.(1.2M hr mtbf,) looking promising for a system hard drive. (5ms read/write and 10ms full-stroke seek and 30dBA.)
Compared to the sata2 $120 wd-Caviar SE 200GB hd at only 7200rpm and 8MB (16MB avail) cache is about same loudness (31dBA) but closer to 9ms read/write and 21ms full-stroke.
I wonder if the slight data bandwidth improvement in caviar overshadows the faster seek & spin of the raptor, (300 vs 150MB/s tfer buffer to host, [strange the caviar has less buffer to disk {93 vs 102MB/s} tfer than the raptor.]) not to mention the extra 160GB storage !
The plan is to have the game client on the raptor system hd for fast seek and use a second larger slower hd for data storage.
And considering soon dvd will be near 200GB rw having racks of 300 and 500GB hd seems less important.

[DougLite]

The 36GB Raptor is not a very compelling offering. It runs louder, hotter, and slower than the 73GB, at a higher cost per GB. The 36GB, owing to some firmware weaknesses that were fixed in the 73GB version, along with slower seeks, is actually merely equal in performance to (T)7K250 and the 16MB Maxtors, while having all of the drawbacks of a 10,000 RPM drive.

If WD was to simply make the 36GB a one platter version of the 73GB, then most of those problems would go away - the heat and noise would actually be a little less, and they would perform about the same, as the only difference would be half the size. But WD doesn't do that, at least not to my knowledge. The 36GB has a different motor, different actuator, and much different firmware.

HOWEVER It has been some time since I've seen the 36GB Raptor on a review bench. In fact, all of the reviews I've seen have been before the 73GB came out. WD could have fixed those problems. As I look on the WD website, they still have the different seek times (4.5ms on the 73, 5.2ms on the 36) so it looks like this hasn't happened yet.

[DaLurker]

The 36GB Raptor is not a very compelling offering. It runs louder, hotter, and slower than the 73GB, at a higher cost per GB. The 36GB, owing to some firmware weaknesses that were fixed in the 73GB version, along with slower seeks, is actually merely equal in performance to (T)7K250 and the 16MB Maxtors, while having all of the drawbacks of a 10,000 RPM drive.

If WD was to simply make the 36GB a one platter version of the 73GB, then most of those problems would go away - the heat and noise would actually be a little less, and they would perform about the same, as the only difference would be half the size. But WD doesn't do that, at least not to my knowledge. The 36GB has a different motor, different actuator, and much different firmware.

HOWEVER It has been some time since I've seen the 36GB Raptor on a review bench. In fact, all of the reviews I've seen have been before the 73GB came out. WD could have fixed those problems. As I look on the WD website, they still have the different seek times (4.5ms on the 73, 5.2ms on the 36) so it looks like this hasn't happened yet.

I'm actually interested to know where this is going. I'm thinking of picking up a 36gb Raptor to complement my 160gb WD 8mb Cavier to get a boost in opening aps, loading windows, etc. If the 36gb is that much worse than the 73, I may just opt to go for a 73 instead (30-40% the price increase though).

If you find out any more information, let me know.