Question about Raptors

M

Mojo

[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm going to be picking up some new parts for my computer in the next few months (LCD, video card, etc). Anyways I was thinking about picking up a WD 36gb Raptor also. I only have 80gb of space right now, and I'm starting to run out a bit.

My main question is. The Raptor is $150, a normal 160GB SATA drive with 8mb cache is $140. Will I get any NOTICEABLY faster load times on (Windows XP, various games, large programs [Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc]), by purchasing a single 36gb Raptor? Or will it be a waste of money since I could get quadruple the space for less money and load times will be about the same?

My sense of HD speed might be pretty bad, my 80gb drive is an old WD ATA100 drive with an 8mb cache. So will either the Raptor or 160gb SATA be much faster?

Another side note, how loud are Raptors? Like compared to a regular drive.
 
Loading times and file transfers show noticeable differences compared to a "normal" hard drive.

However I'd get the 74 Gb Raptor. It has improvements over the 36 Gb version so it does have better performance.

You can get the 74Gb version here for $181 - $25 MIR if you order before the 16th (although they'll probably just issue another MIR after this one if you don't order).

I have a Raptor and I do notice it is a bit louder than a 7200 RPM drive with the sides of my case off, but with them on, I don't notice a difference.
 
i would reccommend going for more space in your situation especially since a newer 160gb or similar will probably be faster than your old 80gb
 
Im on a bit of a budget, no money to waste for the sake of owning a brand name, but when I purchased my 74GB, I was so glad I had. Windows XP loads before it has time to complete 3/4 of a way across the loading bar. 10-14 sec boot times. Rocks.
 
The thing is, I'm not a space hog. I know I could survive with only the 80 + 36gb. It would not be difficult for me, and if the Raptor is much faster, I'd definitely go with it.

That being said, is it much faster than a regular SATA drive?


PS: I forgot to say, my quoted prices are in Canadian Dollars, since I live in Canada and will be buying from NCIX.com, as they have a good deal on the BENQ LCD I want.
 
dont get a 36gb raptor, get the 74gb raptor.

If you dont like that choice, just get a 7200.8 or similar. The raptor is faster for seek times, but not blazingly faster.

I like mine for my OS drive however.
 
Jamie don't get the 36GB raptor, it's not worth it's price tag. Get the 74GB one, it has improvements, and believe me the 36GB IS NOT ENOUGH FOR OS, APPS, GAMES and other stuff such as temp. downloads.

For you; you don't do enough to appreciate the speed of the raptor, as your not a power user as most of us are, ie. your still contemplating about a new video card which is driving me insane cause you keep talking about on MSN. Like I said before "You have to indulge yourself once in while, and if you can't do something like that you'll always be the ones that say they want things but never do get them, and those are the people that just horde cash and spend it on nothing, and their never really happy cause they don't give in to some of their wants to enjoy some of the things in life."

Knowing you, your best off with the bigger SATA HD such as a 160GB WD SATA drive or bigger like the new WD320GB SATA drive which I want a pair of. Your not the type that'll love it on a everyday basis. For me Everytime on my computer, I say to myself GOD I LOVE MY RAPTORS (actually, it's more like GOD I LOVE MY COMPUTER!) and I'm sure with a lot of end users who owns a Raptor will say the same thing or at least appreciate them enough to share the same feelings.

I run dual 36GB Raptors in RAID 0 which is like having 1x 74gb raptor and I'm constantly around 5-6GB Free as I keep a reserve of 10GB of space for temporary downloads or temp. things such as coding a movie over my raptors for speed then tranfering them to my storage drive when done. And I don't think I have enough space cuz I would like to have all my games installed over my raptors, and the only games I currently have installed are, WoW, DOOM3, HL2, CS/CS:CZ/CSS, war3/TFT, and NHL2K5.

I know you don't use space as much, but your one of those best bang for the buck types, and you always talk about wanting to get things but you never do, and when you do you don't go big, you just get the best bang for the buck. So knowing you this long, like I said before get the bigger HD for your sake. You might not use the space now, but later down the road you'll have all that space and you'll be wanting more believe me.

It's up to you really. If you TRULY DON'T NEED ALL THAT SPACE, pick up the 74GB raptor and use your 80GB IDE WD for storage. If your still thinking about getting a new video card (which I don't think you'll ever get :rolleyes: ) then get the BIGGER SATA storage drive ie. the 160GB SATA drive and not the Raptor :p

Heh, then again for me a single raptor is fast, but to really appreciate them, you should have 2 in RAID 0, but that's just me.
 
The 74GB Raptor only has marginal improvements that benefit it the most in RAID mode, not single use. The seek times are very slightly faster, you won't notice them if it's your single primary drive.

I have a 36GB Raptor, purchased on ebay for only $120 CDN.
I have it mounted in the top of my case and I don't hear it over the ambient case noise.
10000RPM.jpg


That said, I bought a Seagate 200GB drive + enclosure for $170 from NCIX back in September. It's silent compared to the Raptor but it's in an external enclosure. I love rebooting my computer now, when I used to fear it. It's just so damn fast. In so far as application loading, I really can't say that I feel a difference, but it's probably there. I guess I'm just too used to it by now.

About RAID, I read a lot of Raptor reviews and they said RAID performance really wasn't that much better, but that may be because of the current state of SATA technology. Also, remember that SATA really isn't revolutionary or anything compared to IDE. Most IDE drives are comparable to SATA drives also as the 150MB/s is just a theoretical limit.

A good 7200RPM IDE drive with 8MB buffer will perform almost like a SATA drive for much less. A Raptor though, it can't compete :)

36GB is more than enough for me. It holds Windows, Office, programs, applications, ~15 large commercial games. That's it, and I have...like 2GB free haha! I put all my music/videos, etc, on the 200GB. Owning a Raptor does make you feel special...but a large harddrive is also something truely amazing to have. At first you don't know how you'll possibly fill it up, but one day, you'll look back and say: "damn...I've used upt 400GB already!"
 
Another thought would be to get a 250gb Maxtor Diamond Max 10. It has a 16mb buffer and Native Command Queuing. Even if your motherboard doesn't support NCQ, the 16mb buffer will help increase overall speed, and if/when you get a board that supports NCQ you'll see a small increase also. I don't know Canadian reseller prices, but going with USA reseller prices, the cost of a 250gb Maxtor Diamond Max 10 is about the same as the 74gb Raptor, I think they are within five dollars difference in USD.
 
I agree with Arvig on the 16 MB cache versions if you need the additional space.

There are a ton of reviews about load times of the raptors vs other drives. Just do a google search. I don't have time at work to find them for you. Sorry.

I like my Raptor drives but I don't need a lot of space.
 
Level load times in HL2 was alot better. Doom 3 was better. Basically the newer larger games load alot faster.

I use two 74GB Raptors in a RAID configuration. They rock. Since all that machine does is play games, it's lack of overall space is just fine. I'd rather put all my files on another box anyway.
 
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