New WD740 Raptor drive worth it?

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Devlyyn

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Jun 22, 2003
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So its been a couple months since I've done anything to my computer and I'm beginning to feel the squeeze for storage space. I'm currently running : 2.8c @3.2ghz, 512mb pc3200, 9700pro with an 80gb WD SE hard drive. Anyway, i've been looking a little bit at these new 74gb Raptor drives from Western Digital and I have a couple of questions...

1) I've never used a SATA device before but my motherboard (Abit IS7) should support it without any additional cards correct?

2) I need to buy another drive anyway but $214 is still alot of money...will I see a significant performance boost in load times of games etc?

3) I know zero about RAID configurations or any of that, is that something I need to look into or do I just set the Raptor as a Master and my other WD SE as slave?

Thanks!
 
Originally posted by Devlyyn
1) I've never used a SATA device before but my motherboard (Abit IS7) should support it without any additional cards correct?

2) I need to buy another drive anyway but $214 is still alot of money...will I see a significant performance boost in load times of games etc?

3) I know zero about RAID configurations or any of that, is that something I need to look into or do I just set the Raptor as a Master and my other WD SE as slave?
Click to expand...
1) I'm almost positive that board is new enough to support SATA, but I can't say for certain since it's only a vauge reference I'm remembering.

2) I can't say based on first hand knowledge, but I think half the people here would say yes, and the other half would say yes, if you have the money to spend.

3) Again, I don't know the particular specs for that mobo, but since it was released about the same time as mine, I'd venture it supports at least SATA RAID 0, which is striping. That means the two drives would be considered one drive to the computer, but since it's not one, it's two, with a head for each drive, you will read and write data about twice as fast. RAIDs should only be done with identical drives though, because a controller will only read or write to the drives at the speed of the slowest of the pair, and your total capacity would only be double the smallest drive (which for 76gb and 80gb isn't very substantial). So, get another drive like your first, or get two 76gb Raptors, or forget the RAID.
 
First, read this thread and look at the benchmarks as well. Raptors and RAID

As with your questions;

1) Yes, your board has onboard SATA/RAID. It should have come with a SATA cable too right? Look here.
ABIT IS7

2) Yes, you WILL see a SIGNIFICANT performance boost in load times with everything. Games, the OS, applications, everything. If you don't want to spend $213 then just get the 36 gig Raptor for half price. It's still plenty space for a boot and work area drive.

3) Lord Chambers did a good job of explaining this as well. As with the Master/Slave issue. Your current drive can stay exactly where it is, because the Raptor is going to go on the SATA cable. You want to keep your ATA Drives as Master if you can. Then just install the OS to the Raptor, change it to drive C, and set the bios to boot off it, if it isn't already set.
 
Thanks guys. I really wanted to hear first hand how well this drive performs. I think I'm going to order one tomorrow along with another 512mb of RAM. I'm hoping this will help out with Far Cry some. Its just weird thinking about having a GIG of RAM. My first hard drive was only like 700mb!
 
Overall windows "feel" will be faster with a 74GB raptor but if load times in Far Cry is what is bothering you then 2 36GB raptors in RAID0 will make a much bigger performance increase. RAID0 will boost load times for games and boot up times for the OS and the time it takes to transfer and load large files by around 20-30% or more.
 
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