Is this [H]ot? WD VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB $99 Shipped

baleedit said:
I wish it were the Raptor X. In this old pc I use on the internet this drive has been flawless and I love how it looks. Do they even make this drive anymore? If this drive fails and 4 1/2 yrs, do you only have 6 months left on the warranty? I'm gonna miss the raptors, but I won't switch to SSD's until they are more reasonable. My programs load super fast, so find me a raptorX deal like this and I'll be on it like a fat kid on cake!
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The Raptor X was one of the first generation Raptors and the Velociraptors (like this one) are much faster, quieter, and are actually a 2.5" (laptop) sized drive that comes with a 3.5" adaptor (IcePack enclosure).

If you liked the Raptor you'll love the Velociraptor! ;)
 
I think this is a good deal for the younger guys without the means to purchase a SSD drive. You have to understand some of these guys can't make the mental connection between extreme performance and shelling out $200 for an Intel X-25 G2 80gig SSD or $289 for a Corsair Force 120 SSD drive.

They will, all day long justify the purchase of a slower mechanical drive. And this appears to be a good deal for those types.

Ask almost anyone what was the best purchase they've made on the PC front in the 12 months and I can promise it wasn't the 460, 470 or 5870 ..... it was the SSD they put in their system.

Mind blowing performance.
 
If this was $59 I'd say yes it's a [H]ot Deal. As it is, it's mildly lukewarm considering the drive, its age, and there are faster drives (overall, not just random access time alone) available that are considerably larger and are around that $59 price point.
 
I know everyone is suggesting a tiny SSD but really this Raptor is probably slower than the WD 1TB Black (can be had for the same price) in every conceivable factor besides seek time.
 
YamahaAlex37 said:
Sorry I have a noob quetion, my 7200rpm lowers my windows rating to 5.5 so i want to upgrade. What would improve my game load times in crysis, bfbc2, 3d modeling etc, to have a 32gb SSD with just the operating system and the same 7200rpm for all my other aps and programs, or this 150gb raptor with os and games and aps put on it?
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Having your OS and applications on different drives will significantly hurt your overall read/write performance, even if both of them are on fast drives. It can also create stability issues, so I'd strongly recommend a single drive for your OS and applications if it's a SSD or a platter drive.

If you're a benchmark racer you can upgrade but if you have a current generation drive it's unlikely to have an effect on load times or game play. Even a mainstream performance platter drive like a Caviar Black will have sequential read speeds of 90-110MB/sec, and that's more than fast enough to keep it from being the choke point in loading a level in a game.

Here's some proof, from a Tech Report review of the new VelociRaptor 200, which includes the test results of the 150GB model we're talking about:

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time-load-crysis.gif


If you care about benchmarks, then lay out $500 for a good performance SSD big enough to hold your OS and your games. But if you're looking for real world performance, you're going to spend a lot more to get a slight performance increase over something like a Caviar Black.


Staples said:
I know everyone is suggesting a tiny SSD but really this Raptor is probably slower than the WD 1TB Black (can be had for the same price) in every conceivable factor besides seek time.
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The 150GB VelociRaptor isn't slower, but its performance is almost identical to the new Caviar Blacks with 500GB platters thanks to the new black's having close to twice the areal density.

This gets lost every time the Raptor drives come up in a place like this, but the enthusiast market was never WD's main target for these drives. They were always aiming at enterprise buyers. The whole point of the Raptor was Seagate Cheetah performance at less than a third of the price when you include SCSI controllers. It's why the Raptor still focuses on lower seek times and higher burst speeds even though the sequential read/write is no better than their mainstream desktop drives.
 
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One last comment: I know a lot of people are having their e-manhood threatened because someone might not buy a SSD, but seriously people - check yourselves. A SSD isn't Extenze with a SATA connector. Under the best circumstances it will shave a few seconds off your boot time and maybe a second or two when you're loading a level in a game. Comparing a SSD with a new platter drive isn't like comparing the latency between fiber and dialup, or frame rates between on board graphics and a bank of 480's in SLI. If you want to claim that it is - bring some data.

No single type of drive is perfect for all uses, but all of them have one area where they offer clear advantages. SSD's have huge advantages in laptops and mobile devices because they're smaller, lighter, use less power and they aren't as vulnerable to shock damage. Raptor drives are a godsend if you're building a file or database server. Put a half-dozen Raptors together on a RAID5 array for a database server and you will make an office of users very, very happy for not a lot of money. And current desktop drives are really good at running desktop applications at less than a dime per GB. The cost advantage doesn't matter if you want to lay out the $$$ for SSD's, but just because you're paying a lot more doesn't mean you're getting substantially better performance.
 
Yeah, I call bullshit to those tests:

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Way to pick your own reviews. And that isn't a few seconds shaved off.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3636/...ciraptor-vr200m-10k-rpm-at-450gb-and-600gb/10

The problem is once you take into account solid state storage. The new VelociRaptor boasts a 4KB random write speed of 1.9MB/s. Intel's X25-M G2 is amost 20x faster. The new VelociRaptor averages 178 IOPS in our typical Bench workload, Intel's X25-M can push nearly 800 IOPS in the same test."
 
YamahaAlex37 said:
Thanks Bald

I don't get what you were trying to prove? That benchmark doesn't even have the black.
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Yeah, and I'd like to see the test rig specs for Crysis where the hard drive could make a six fps difference. Last I checked that was a game that lived and died on GPU performance.

He's also confusing IOPS with having a lot of relevance for gaming. (IOPS are used to measure seek and random read/write. It's important for file/database servers, but then, so is the cost per GB.)
 
I like my Vraptors.... But, hey, economy is in the doldrums so GO and BUY those SSD drives.
 
The 150GB VelociRaptor isn't slower, but its performance is almost identical to the new Caviar Blacks with 500GB platters thanks to the new black's having close to twice the areal density.

Quote ^^

If this is true, then it changes everything for me. I'm not ready to pay for an SSD because for what I do an SSD really doesn't effect me much. I need more storage and the speed would be a nominal plus. Time to perform an act of Googleage!
 
baleedit said:
The 150GB VelociRaptor isn't slower, but its performance is almost identical to the new Caviar Blacks with 500GB platters thanks to the new black's having close to twice the areal density.

Quote ^^

If this is true, then it changes everything for me. I'm not ready to pay for an SSD because for what I do an SSD really doesn't effect me much. I need more storage and the speed would be a nominal plus. Time to perform an act of Googleage!
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Same same for me! Is this the best performing drive? I read alot of people recommending the Spinpoint F3 over it?
 
YamahaAlex37 said:
Same same for me! Is this the best performing drive? I read alot of people recommending the Spinpoint F3 over it?
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Well, there are a few complaints against the F3's on this forum of random drops in read speeds. It's fairly isolated, but I would probably stick to the black editions for my main drives. I'll run some benches for you real quick on my SSD vs. my RAID 0 with two black edition Western Digitals.

I wish my second SSD would've worked, then I'd have RAID 0 SSDs!! :eek:

But alas, the new one is faulty. Until I get it replaced, I'm stuck to 80GB with no RAID 0. Sad panda ... :(
 
SirKronan said:
Well, there are a few complaints against the F3's on this forum of random drops in read speeds. It's fairly isolated, but I would probably stick to the black editions for my main drives. I'll run some benches for you real quick on my SSD vs. my RAID 0 with two black edition Western Digitals.

I wish my second SSD would've worked, then I'd have RAID 0 SSDs!! :eek:

But alas, the new one is faulty. Until I get it replaced, I'm stuck to 80GB with no RAID 0. Sad panda ... :(
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Thankyou sir kronan! benches would be awesome! Someone was telling me 2x250 platters is a problem with the 500gb wd black. is that the case with this drive?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...?EdpNo=4914330&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs
 
SirKronan said:
Well, there are a few complaints against the F3's on this forum of random drops in read speeds. It's fairly isolated, but I would probably stick to the black editions for my main drives. I'll run some benches for you real quick on my SSD vs. my RAID 0 with two black edition Western Digitals.

I wish my second SSD would've worked, then I'd have RAID 0 SSDs!! :eek:

But alas, the new one is faulty. Until I get it replaced, I'm stuck to 80GB with no RAID 0. Sad panda ... :(
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link to problems with F3s?
 
EnderW said:
link to problems with F3s?
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Knew you were gonna say that ... I was actually holding my breath. :rolleyes:

Here's one thread with a recent update:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1521070

FYMBlyce also reported some substantial dips with the F3s:

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1036084156&postcount=47

I haven't had any trouble with mine, but I use them for server storage only. Haven't used them as program or OS drives, but I haven't seen drops like that in testing either. Nevertheless, I tend to stick with WD blacks for my OS drives (on non-SSD systems) and OS RAID arrays. They have 5 years warranty instead of 3 anyways, and if you watch the sales you can snag some really good buys on them.

Here are some performance numbers. I used CrystalMark. I know it's not everyone's favorite, but I ran each test three times and averaged the results comparing my SSD to the RAID 0 WD 640GB black editions.

SSD Averages:

Read Write
seq 266.33 85.00
512k 212.67 45.67
4k 22.00 16.33
4k Qd32 159.00 34.33

RAID 0 WD Black Averages:

Read Write
seq 223.33 215.00
512k 50.28 95.90
4k 0.67 2.70
4k Qd32 2.98 3.27

In sequential reads and random 4k reads/writes the SSD kills even two fast HD's in RAID 0. In seek time the SSD will also beat the fast HD's. But those sequential reads and writes especially, are not bad on the RAID 0 WD black hard drives. I see them all the time for $60 on sale, sometimes less, if I remember right. And for your $120 you get great performance PLUS 1.2GB of storage in RAID 0 instead of 150GB of performance on this hard drive.
 
YamahaAlex37 said:
Thankyou sir kronan! benches would be awesome! Someone was telling me 2x250 platters is a problem with the 500gb wd black. is that the case with this drive?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...?EdpNo=4914330&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs
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Got ya some benches above.

Now this drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...319&cm_re=caviar_black-_-22-136-319-_-Product

Definitely is a two platter drive, and it's a fast one. I believe earlier 500GB drives were also two platter, but it's possible the newest ones are using WD's new 500GB platters that are performing quite well. I couldn't find anything concrete, though.

I just think that there are better, more sensible options than this drive that are either out right now, or are right around the corner. Depends on what you need it for ultimately, I guess. All I can do is say my own opinion, and what I would do if I were in someone else's shoes. Doesn't mean I really understand, or that I really am in their situation, just that I'm trying to help.
 
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