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Fastest non-SSD / Single Drive

T

TimG

Gawd
Joined
Jan 30, 2006
Messages
919
What's the fastest single drive / non-ssd setup? I need a new hard drive for my gaming pc and I don't have the budget for a SSD right now.
 
Probably one of the 10K rpm Velociraptors, but they come with a price premium that matches a ssd. I have heard of people using the Seagate hybrid Momentus drives in raid or just single to get a nice performance boost. They use 4Gb of nand flash to pre-load/pre-fetch.
 
For a gaming rig, you probably won't see much difference between a Velociraptor and just a good 7200 RPM drive - it'll be there, but probably not worth the price premium. At this point it is really either SSD or normal hard drive (the niche for high-speed spinning hard drive is kind of gone).
 
A 1TB WD Black drive will be almost the equivalent to the 600GB Velociraptors at a fraction of the price.

Anything better will need to be RAID 0 or a SSD.
 
Well, right now I've got an old 36gb raptor that's starting to show its age. Looking to replace it with. A slightly larger and faster drive. Those Velociraptors are almost as much as some of the cheaper ssds.
 
samsung F1 spoinpoints, and WD black drives are all some of the fastest 7200rpm drives.

velociraptors [and other SAS 10/15k rpm drives] are a bit faster for the seek speed but usually don't have the platter densities that boost sequential read/write like the latest 7200rpm.
 
Correct, the velociraptors are very expensive especially with SSD's coming down. But your question just said what was the fastest spindle drives. Hence, the obligatory velociraptor answer.

However, I would still recommend trying out either a single Seagate Momentus or two of them in raid. There are benchmarks out there that are pretty dang impressive for what these are doing. Also they are typically considered "affordable".
 
Smallest WD Velociraptor - 150Gb is $120. 1Tb Black is pretty fast too, but not as fast
If all you care is speed you could get MUCH faster 50-60Gb SSD for a same price
 
ferrisnox said:
Correct, the velociraptors are very expensive especially with SSD's coming down. But your question just said what was the fastest spindle drives. Hence, the obligatory velociraptor answer.

However, I would still recommend trying out either a single Seagate Momentus or two of them in raid. There are benchmarks out there that are pretty dang impressive for what these are doing. Also they are typically considered "affordable".
Click to expand...

I really don't have the room for a raid setup in my p180 unless I move one drive to a USB enclosure.

Of course I could condense my two app drives to one 2tb drive...
 
TimG said:
What's the fastest single drive / non-ssd setup? I need a new hard drive for my gaming pc and I don't have the budget for a SSD right now.
Click to expand...

I'd guess it'd be something like this. 'course, it's more expensive than, and slower than, a solid state drive.
 
BoredSysAdm said:
Smallest WD Velociraptor - 150Gb is $120. 1Tb Black is pretty fast too, but not as fast
If all you care is speed you could get MUCH faster 50-60Gb SSD for a same price
Click to expand...

No, a WD 1TB Black drive is a lot faster than the 150GB Velociraptor.
The 300GB Velociraptors are comparable in speed and the 600GB models are faster, but not by much.
 
Child of Wonder said:
Samsung 1TB HD103UJ is very speedy and cheap. It gets my vote.
Click to expand...

The -SJ model is the update and performs nearly identically in real world tests I've performed (i.e. W7 boot times, various app load times, sustained transfers) to the WD 1TB Black. The Samsung is currently $50 on Newegg, whereas the 1TB Black is $90. The Black has a five year warranty vs. the Samsung's three years, but the Samsung is more frequently the much better value.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
The -SJ model is the update and performs nearly identically in real world tests I've performed (i.e. W7 boot times, various app load times, sustained transfers) to the WD 1TB Black. The Samsung is currently $50 on Newegg, whereas the 1TB Black is $90. The Black has a five year warranty vs. the Samsung's three years, but the Samsung is more frequently the much better value.
Click to expand...


The F3R variant has a 5yr warranty and is $75, which would be the same price as buying the standard F3 with the optional extended plan at NE.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
The -SJ model is the update and performs nearly identically in real world tests I've performed (i.e. W7 boot times, various app load times, sustained transfers) to the WD 1TB Black. The Samsung is currently $50 on Newegg, whereas the 1TB Black is $90. The Black has a five year warranty vs. the Samsung's three years, but the Samsung is more frequently the much better value.
Click to expand...

Just picked one up for 49 bucks. Can't really beat that...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
 
Hitachi 7K3000 will be faster than all 7200 RPM drives you listed, thanks to it's high density. You can get it in 1.5TB for a low price; 2TB is more common though. Hell, 5K3000 nips at the heels of many older 7200 RPM drives (I'm talking F3 and on, not 5 years ago).
 
Just a thought, but there are some OEM 80gb velociraptors on ebay for $40 shipped. The model is WD800HLFS. I recently picked up two of them for a RAID 0 OS disk, and there noticeably faster my other 7200.12, F4 320, and WD black drives. Of coruse Raid 0 is helping that.

The ones I got were from like TX Supply, they were brand new OEM replacements for $39 shipped
 
Hitachi just shipped their 1TB per platter HDD's, and I'm anxiously awaiting reviews.
 
I(illa Bee said:
Just a thought, but there are some OEM 80gb velociraptors on ebay for $40 shipped. The model is WD800HLFS. I recently picked up two of them for a RAID 0 OS disk, and there noticeably faster my other 7200.12, F4 320, and WD black drives. Of coruse Raid 0 is helping that.

The ones I got were from like TX Supply, they were brand new OEM replacements for $39 shipped
Click to expand...

They are not velociraptors, they are just Raptors.
I own one, I replaced it in my server with a 500GB RE4 nearline drive, and am seeing a huge jump in performance.

They were fast for 2006, not so much now. Not to mention, 80GB isn't that much space. For the cost of two, you could get a SSD and get 8x the performance.

Raptors are obsolete every way you look at it.

Hell, even my 500GB Seagate 2.5" portable-class drive is faster than my 80GB Raptor, in every aspect.
 
Just a thought, but there are some OEM 80gb velociraptors on ebay for $40 shipped.
Click to expand...

These drives are many years old. Even current 5400 RPM drives beat those raptors. And they can even beat the raptors in seeks if you short stroke A 2TB down to 80GB..
 
drescherjm said:
These drives are many years old. Even current 5400 RPM drives beat those raptors. And they can even beat the raptors in seeks if you short stroke them down to 80GB..
Click to expand...

Yes, the 80GB OEM models were from 2006.
The tech has improved a great deal since then.

The drives themselves are not bad, in fact they are very robust.
Their only problem is that they are dated, and everything they did well in the era is now done far better by SSDs.
 
I have some Seagate 3TB drives that hit 160 to 175MB/s read and write speeds(from memory, somewhere in there). The 4TB drives are just around the corner though but that will drop the price of the 3TB drives.
 
drescherjm said:
These drives are many years old. Even current 5400 RPM drives beat those raptors. And they can even beat the raptors in seeks if you short stroke A 2TB down to 80GB..
Click to expand...
That's a bit of an exaggeration (or maybe just inaccuracy).

I didn't have a 2TB 5xx0rpm drive powered up, so I used a HD103SJ (1TB, 7200rpm), which is clearly a faster seeker than any mean-Greenie, and I restricted the test to the outer 40GB (just to compensate for the1TB vs 2TB). I measure 8.1ms. The 80GB VelociRaptor is reported (here on [H]) as 6.2ms [http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032946275&postcount=46]. Now, both of those are access times (seek+latency); if we actually reduce them down to seek only, they are 3.93 (8.1-4.17) vs 3.2 (6.2-3). Of course, the seek alone doesn't get you to your data, but I wanted to cover both bases.

This 80G (V)R apparently beats out its larger (VR) siblings, at least in access. One situation where this bargain might be worthy is (as OS drive) for someone stuck on WinXP, where the drivers are SSD-hostile, making the SSD the waste of money.

Just trying to keep things in (true) perspective ...

-- UhClem "Welcome to the Future Fair; a fair for everyone, and no fair to anybody."
 
drescherjm said:
These drives are many years old. Even current 5400 RPM drives beat those raptors. And they can even beat the raptors in seeks if you short stroke A 2TB down to 80GB..
Click to expand...

Red Falcon said:
Yes, the 80GB OEM models were from 2006.
The tech has improved a great deal since then.

The drives themselves are not bad, in fact they are very robust.
Their only problem is that they are dated, and everything they did well in the era is now done far better by SSDs.
Click to expand...

Red Falcon said:
They are not velociraptors, they are just Raptors.
I own one, I replaced it in my server with a 500GB RE4 nearline drive, and am seeing a huge jump in performance.

They were fast for 2006, not so much now. Not to mention, 80GB isn't that much space. For the cost of two, you could get a SSD and get 8x the performance.

Raptors are obsolete every way you look at it.

Hell, even my 500GB Seagate 2.5" portable-class drive is faster than my 80GB Raptor, in every aspect.
Click to expand...


Actually no... they are indeed VR drives. Google WD800HLFS. In fact it is the fastest VR.. buy a meaningless small %, but still fastest.

2,5" drive in sled. again, I have a few of them.
 
Another note...you can short stroke the larger drives and get some pretty amazing performance. Take a good 7200RPM 1TB drive and short it to ~200GB...very snappy.
 
As of January THIS drive was the fastest 7200 drive on the market. It beat the raptors in almost every category. It's come down in price a good bit too.
 
I(illa Bee said:
Actually no... they are indeed VR drives. Google WD800HLFS. In fact it is the fastest VR.. buy a meaningless small %, but still fastest.

2,5" drive in sled. again, I have a few of them.
Click to expand...

Ah, good call, I was thinking about the WD800ADFD model which is indeed from 2006 and a Raptor.

Your model is from 2008, makes sense.
 
Red Falcon said:
Ah, good call, I was thinking about the WD800ADFD model which is indeed from 2006 and a Raptor.

Your model is from 2008, makes sense.
Click to expand...


at 134$ Ill bet it does :) But for a OS disk 2tb is a waste, its best practice to keep your OS disk clean and not full of data. So why use a 2tb here? RAID0 VR costs only $80 for 160gb array, and smokes this drive. But yes, I have two of those on my desk at work for a user, they did seem very quick in my eSATA dock moving about 1.3tb of raster data to them.

Also, for $134 you can go SSD for your OS disk.


Trepidati0n said:
Another note...you can short stroke the larger drives and get some pretty amazing performance. Take a good 7200RPM 1TB drive and short it to ~200GB...very snappy.
Click to expand...

Just partition it, same difference. Just make sure the second larger partition is not getting used much. When I short stroke a larger disk with partitions, I like to use the slower larger partition to be a backup of the secondary data disk. That way during use the OS partition has the full attention of the hardware, the data is read off a second drive and it clones (or syncs) to the slower partition over night. (synctoycmd.exe)

There is extra space there un-used, if you can use if for some sort of a backup (hardware level only) why not?
 
Last edited:
So why use a 2tb here?
Click to expand...
Because you can short stroke it and have a high-performance drive for cheap without having to mess around with RAID0 which increases chances and points of failure and no redundancy for the added cost. Not to mentions a 2TB short stroked to 200GB would be extremely fast not to mention it would not have the heat output that those two velociraptors would have, and you would still have more storage real estate.

If a person needs that much speed though, just go with a SSD. Simple solution, low heat, low power, only a single point of failure, and would blow those to velociraptors out of the water.

imo, RAID 0 is very risky and unless a person has images, snapshots, or backups of their data, RAID 0 should not be used. Also, with the advent of SSDs, why even go there?
To save a couple bucks, you're putting a system at high risk of data failure.

Just spend the extra $50 and get a SSD, far more reliable.

This is the equivalent to a person who buys premium parts, then gets a $30 PSU. Just spend the extra money and have the added insurance that your system/data won't literally blow up. ;)
 
KarsusTG said:
As of January THIS drive was the fastest 7200 drive on the market. It beat the raptors in almost every category. It's come down in price a good bit too.
Click to expand...
The seek speed it what sets these drives apart and that's what many notice.

I've had every series of the Raptor/VR lines including a nice little 80GB Dell unit that still just screams and you can point to every stat in the world but these will perform better in many desktop situations simply because of the seek speed.

Of course they're outdated but "Stat Queens" should take notice that these drives will more than equal most/all mechanical in a fast desktop experience.

I'll take my personal experiences over your test readings every time. :)
 
Old Hippie said:
The seek speed it what sets these drives apart and that's what many notice.

I've had every series of the Raptor/VR lines including a nice little 80GB Dell unit that still just screams and you can point to every stat in the world but these will perform better in many desktop situations simply because of the seek speed.

Of course they're outdated but "Stat Queens" should take notice that these drives will more than equal most/all mechanical in a fast desktop experience.

I'll take my personal experiences over your test readings every time. :)
Click to expand...

It just means it was a bad test...which occurs alot.
 
Old Hippie said:
The seek speed it what sets these drives apart ...
Click to expand...
Very true, but, moreso, it's seek + latency. The 10Krpm drive shaves an additional 1.1ms off of every access, vs 7.2Krpm drive, just in waiting less time "for the brass ring".

Regarding (what others have espoused, elsewhere) using RAID-0 (for a "system drive") on spinning disks: be advised that you are increasing your latency time by about 30%, for a two-drive setup, vs that for a single drive. ["It ain't over until all the fat ladies sing."] In the old days, (and maybe still, on very high-end drives,) we could employ "rotational sync" to eliminate this factor.

-- UhClem
 
The 10Krpm drive shaves an additional 1.1ms off of every access, vs 7.2Krpm drive, just in waiting less time "for the brass ring".
Click to expand...
This seek time is what impresses ALL desktop users and even more so with SSDs.

It's definately not trivial in an overall pleasing desktop experience and it's definately a major part of the "Wow" factor for an SSD.

Just because other mechanical drives have a faster top speed means little to those that don't transfer large files from drive to drive.

And that also applies to SSDs.

These fast SSD transfer rates only apply to those that use that feature and how many times have you transferred a 6GB data file to another SSD? Can I presume you've never used that?

Well, neither have I but I know better than to base my SSD purchase on that parameter by itself.

Same with the Raptor line.

This was written for those "Stat Queens" that have little/no experience with these drives.

Rant over! :)
 
Old Hippie said:
This seek time is what impresses ALL desktop users and even more so with SSDs.

It's definately not trivial in an overall pleasing desktop experience and it's definately a major part of the "Wow" factor for an SSD.

Just because other mechanical drives have a faster top speed means little to those that don't transfer large files from drive to drive.

And that also applies to SSDs.

These fast SSD transfer rates only apply to those that use that feature and how many times have you transferred a 6GB data file to another SSD? Can I presume you've never used that?

Well, neither have I but I know better than to base my SSD purchase on that parameter by itself.

Same with the Raptor line.

This was written for those "Stat Queens" that have little/no experience with these drives.

Rant over! :)
Click to expand...

Oh you don't know what you're talking about old man.
The guy who has never even owned one OBVIOUSLY knows more than you do about them. :D
 
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