raptors still the fastest?

G

God_Of_Death

Gawd
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Mar 1, 2004
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Are the raptors still the fastest mechanical consumer sata drives i can get?i have 2x 150gig raptors in raid but i need more space and i was looking at buying 2x 300gig or even 2x 600gig raptors drives but i wanted to make sure that i was not wasting my money by overlooking the newer 7.2krpm 64meg cache drives.

thanks.
 
They are faster in general than other SATA drives, but the cost per gigabyte is hard to ignore. Honestly, I've owned every Raptor since the 74GB up to the 300GB Velociraptor. I've felt the burn of multiple Raptors in RAID arrays in terms of cost. Right now I've got a 1TB SATA 6G, 64MB cache Western Digital Caviar Black in my machine now running alone. I run all my Steam games off of it. I use an SSD for my OS and after going with an SSD, I don't think I'll ever buy another Raptor again. Honestly, I can't tell the difference between my 1TB Caviar Black and my 300GB Velociraptors in RAID0 outside of benchmarks.
 
Same with me.

I've owned Raptors since they came out, and once I went WD Black and SSD no reason to waste the $ on the Raptors again.

For a desktop system I would try to go solely SSD if you can afford the cost, and then use WD Blacks for storage. Gotta love the 5yr warranty :D
 
I look at Raptors as a poor man's SAS drive. Unless you need something approaching Enterprise class storage on a shoestring budget, then the Raptor might make sense. I've never actually done any calculations on that kind of cost. Even then, I'd probably take the Caviar Blacks, or Caviar RAID edition drives and use those with a decent SAS / SATA controller.
 
Caviar Black drives - from the current generation - offer virtually the same performance in most metrics at a fraction of the cost-per-GB. The only place Raptors still have a lead is seek time / access time, but if that is your goal then a SSD is the only way to go.
 
I've owned every Raptor since the 74GB up to the 300GB Velociraptor.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure I've owned at least one model from every generation including that 70GB screamer offspring that Dell offered.

Personally I've used the small OS drive with everything else in storage philosophy ever since the 36GB Raptor debuted......and I've never looked back.

These drives would be great, but expensive, for storage.

It just depends on how you are using the computer and the depth of your wallet.

VRs will always have great access times but as WilliamMGeorge explains, VR access times aren't even in the same ballpark as SSDs.
 
Old Hippie said:
I'm pretty sure I've owned at least one model from every generation including that 70GB screamer offspring that Dell offered.

Personally I've used the small OS drive with everything else in storage philosophy ever since the 36GB Raptor debuted......and I've never looked back.

These drives would be great, but expensive, for storage.

It just depends on how you are using the computer and the depth of your wallet.

VRs will always have great access times but as WilliamMGeorge explains, VR access times aren't even in the same ballpark as SSDs.
Click to expand...

And that's why I haven't purchased a Raptor since getting an SSD for my OS.
 
There's no substitute for eliminating moving parts on your storage device :D
 
Dan_D said:
I look at Raptors as a poor man's SAS drive. Unless you need something approaching Enterprise class storage on a shoestring budget, then the Raptor might make sense. I've never actually done any calculations on that kind of cost. Even then, I'd probably take the Caviar Blacks, or Caviar RAID edition drives and use those with a decent SAS / SATA controller.
Click to expand...

The Raptors are technically enterprise-grade HDDs, they are just at the bottom tier, low-end-server-class, below nearline. Also, the RE4 drives are nearline-class, though they may not be as fast as the Raptors, they have more features, setting them above the Raptors in the enterprise-grade.

Raptors are very robust drives, but I have to agree with you, using a SSD for OS and a 1TB+ WD Black (or equivalent) for storage, makes far more sense.
 
Red Falcon said:
The Raptors are technically enterprise-grade HDDs, they are just at the bottom tier, low-end-server-class, below nearline. Also, the RE4 drives are nearline-class, though they may not be as fast as the Raptors, they have more features, setting them above the Raptors in the enterprise-grade.

Raptors are very robust drives, but I have to agree with you, using a SSD for OS and a 1TB+ WD Black (or equivalent) for storage, makes far more sense.
Click to expand...



This^

RE4 for spinning disks are quite the drives. Start stacking them in RAID and you'll see some real scaling. I have RE3 and RE4 and not a hitch for over 2 years (on the RE3) and 6 months (on the RE4).
 
using a SSD for OS and a 1TB+ WD Black (or equivalent) for storage, makes far more sense.
Click to expand...
Pretty much a no-brainer even when all HDs were mechanical.

I figured it always made sense to have a small OS drive because the back-up images would take less space to store/less time to restore for an OS screw-up (virus, cootie, but most likely a PEBKAC).

It's not magic but just logic. :)

Seems many here don't even have a back-up, so logic wouldn't even enter the equation. :)
 
Wirth'sLaw said:
This^

RE4 for spinning disks are quite the drives. Start stacking them in RAID and you'll see some real scaling. I have RE3 and RE4 and not a hitch for over 2 years (on the RE3) and 6 months (on the RE4).
Click to expand...

just avoid RE2's... horrible... horrible failure rate
 
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