Original Raptor vs Seagate Barracuda 7200.10

I own both drives and have a mobo that supports SATA 3.0 GB/s. Should I make my main drive the 35GB Raptor (SATA I, 10krpm, 8mb cache) or the Barracuda (SATA 3.0 GB/s, 7200rpm, 16mb cache)?

I have a video editing machine that only supports SATA 1.5 GB/s so the Raptor could be used for that as well.

But my main rig is my gaming machine so I'd want the better performer there.

Thanks in advance...

I use the Raptor for the OS/app drive to benefit from the better seek times and the Seagate on the video editing machine to take advantage for the better sequential R/W performance.

Like tuskenraider said. Raptor for OS / apps, and Barracuda for video, data, scratch disk etc.

BTW. I see that you mention "only 1.5 GB/s" - there's really no difference for you, hard disks can't utilize that much bandwidth yet, so you won't get any difference between SATA I and SATA II performance. Seagate Barracuda SATA II would have same performance on SATA I controler as on SATA II controller.

I have a RAID 0 setup with the Seagate and also a Raptor for system files. The Raptor is much better IMO though Im not so sure about the first gen ones. Unless you want the extra space then the Raptor is a better choice.

Ok thanks guys. Thanks for the info umbolo...

So what does SATA II give you over SATA I? It is just a theorhetical speed increase that can't be realized because of hardware limitations? What can take advantage of SATA II?

Anyway, this is good too because my Video editing machine already has the Seagate and my workstation already has the Raptor, although I'm re-doing it with a new mobo.

Incidentally, my media server has one of the Seagates as the main drive and I was wondering if I'd see an increase in going to a SATA II compatible board... I guess not. That machine has 1x Seagate 320, 2x Maxtor 300s, and 2x Maxtor 160s.

Originally Posted by nomar

Ok thanks guys. Thanks for the info umbolo...

So what does SATA II give you over SATA I? It is just a theorhetical speed increase that can't be realized because of hardware limitations? What can take advantage of SATA II?

Nothing really considering the fastest SATA drive can't push out more than 80MB/s. Consider it developement so SATA doesn't have a Y2K bug moment?

Interesting... so I've been trying to determine if I should go with a gigabit file server for backup vs a USB or firewire solution.

Since any HD I have won't surpass 80MB/s, which is 480 megabits, it seems like they all are bottlenecked by the HD. A gigabit solution would be the cheapest for me anyway, so thats what I'm going to do.