Raptor

[clocker]

I want to hear about how well the Rapter works.
Sometime early next week I shall be installing a 36GB Raptor in place of my 160GB WD HDD (7200rpm, 8Mb cache).

If anyone is curious about the performance differences ( as I am), please suggest some benchmarks or tests that you feel would be a fair way to compare the two.

[bigdawgfoxx]

Sisoft Sandra Storage Benchmarks.

Are you gona run the raptor as C drive for windows and the 160GB as D for storage?

[scottwile]

i can't notice the difference from 5400RPM to 7200RPM so 7200 to 10000 probably won't make much difference? if the only difference from a normal drive and a raptor RMP'S?

[clocker]

Sisoft Sandra Storage Benchmarks.

Are you gona run the raptor as C drive for windows and the 160GB as D for storage?
OK.
Yes.


can't notice the difference from 5400RPM to 7200RPM so 7200 to 10000 probably won't make much difference? if the only difference from a normal drive and a raptor RMP'S?
The seek time is significantly lower and I believe that the SATA connection is faster also.

[muchspl2]

just one, just buy 4 74gig ones in raid 5 :lol: that should only cost about 1100 bucks

[angel_of_death57]

S-ATA also are usally better buys are cheaper than IDE i think.

S-ATA is faster and also less cables.

[Snee]

With regular sata the speed increase is hardly noticeable (something like 4Mb/s faster out of sixty I think), and last I checked they were noticeably more expensive too.

The 10000rpm raptor tho', that's where the party starts, but I wonder about it compared to say a 15000 rpm SCSI drive, is it any better(apart from the cabling I mean)? :unsure:

[angel_of_death57]

Clocker could you give us some temps of theh ard drive when no cooling is applied.

10,000 will generate heat more thna a 7,500 i would think.

[lynx]

Originally posted by SnnY@31 July 2004 - 11:36
With regular sata the speed increase is hardly noticeable (something like 4Mb/s faster out of sixty I think), and last I checked they were noticeably more expensive too.

The 10000rpm raptor tho', that's where the party starts, but I wonder about it compared to say a 15000 rpm SCSI drive, is it any better(apart from the cabling I mean)? :unsure:
Maximum media transfer rate for Cheetah 15k drives is 86MB/s
Sustained media transfer rate for Raptor 10k drives is 72MB/s

External transfer rate for Cheetah drives is 320MB/s
External transfer rate for Raptor Sata deives is 150MB/s

If you assume that what WDC calls sustained is the same as Seagate's Maximum, then the Cheetah's are about 20% faster internally, and about twice as fast externally.

However, the Sata drive has it's own individual interface, but the Cheetah would typically be sharing the interface with other drives, which effectively reduces it's external performance.

Sata drives in general are only slightly more expensive than their PATA equivalents, and that is probably simply because they haven't got as big a market share yet. But the Raptor's equivalent is a SCSI drive, and is consequently much more expensive than similar sized IDE drives.

[Snee]

Thanks Lynxie, that's interesting.

[clocker]

Originally posted by lynx@31 July 2004 - 05:25


Sata drives in general are only slightly more expensive than their PATA equivalents, and that is probably simply because they haven't got as big a market share yet. But the Raptor's equivalent is a SCSI drive, and is consequently much more expensive than similar sized IDE drives.
True.

When building the server for my brother both SATA and SCSI were considered.
SATA won out simply because of the cost...with the onboard SATA RAID capability of the NF7-S we didn't need a separate controller card ( not to mention Raptors were on sale at Newegg this month...).

@Angel,
The Raptors don't support SMART monitoring of the temps ( at least the 74GB version doesn't, the 36GB might...we'll see).
Mounted as they were in the server, heat wasn't an issue at all.

@all....
I don't think that artificial benchmarks are a very informative method of comparing the drives.
A quick Google search will reveal all the statistics you could hope for.

What I'm interested in a few simple tests to measure how useful the Raptor might be to the regular home user.
Stuff like "Does it boot noticably faster?" or something.

In other words, is it worth the extra bucks for the Raptor or is this just a case of bragging rights?

I'll be building the second server for my brother in the next few weeks.
As he will be out of the country for a month I'm hoping to play with it a bit before he returns.
Maybe I can set up a RAID 0 array with XP on it and see if striped set is a noticable improvement over a single Raptor.

[bigdawgfoxx]

I have heard from other people that a raid0 with 2 raptors is increadible. Stuff loads so much faster and everything boots faster...I was very impressed, I hope you like it man.

Edit: Sata Drive (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-019&depa=0) I just saw some of these on newegg, SATA has went down some. 80 gigs for 65 bucks...nice.

Whole Page (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=0)

[Storm]

ive heard that to........ but we'll need actual figures........ it might just be going faster cause they think it will go faster ;)

and not all SATA drives are raptors........

the SATA you linked to is a 'normal' 7200rpm HDD, a raptor is a 10k rpm HDD........

[bigdawgfoxx]

Originally posted by Storm@31 July 2004 - 08:56
ive heard that to........ but we'll need actual figures........ it might just be going faster cause they think it will go faster ;)

and not all SATA drives are raptors........

the SATA you linked to is a 'normal' 7200rpm HDD, a raptor is a 10k rpm HDD........
yeah I know, I was just pointing out that we can get SATA for very cheap now lol

[Virtualbody1234]

Hey, clocker. Could you tell us how loud those drives are?

I don't know if you have tried the Barracuda 7200.7 Plus (http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,580,00.html) which are almost silent. I would like to know how they compare sound level wise.

Also, why did you choose the 74GB vs the 36GB?

[Peerzy]

Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@31 July 2004 - 17:06
Hey, clocker. Could you tell us how loud those drives are?

I don't know if you have tried the Barracuda 7200.7 Plus (http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,580,00.html) which are almost silent. I would like to know how they compare sound level wise.

Also, why did you choose the 74GB vs the 36mb?
36Mb Hard drive?

Woooooooooooooooooh im in the 80's :smilie4:

[clocker]

Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@31 July 2004 - 11:06
Hey, clocker. Could you tell us how loud those drives are?

I don't know if you have tried the Barracuda 7200.7 Plus (http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,580,00.html) which are almost silent. I would like to know how they compare sound level wise.

Also, why did you choose the 74GB vs the 36GB?
Sure...be happy to.
Indeed, I have installed a Seagate HDD on my sister's PC and it was extremely quiet.
I was impressed.

The Raptors in the server I built seemed quiet, but the fans were rather loud so I can't really say.
I'll know better when I install mine in Sprocket.

I chose the 36GB simply because that was the one available.
I bought it used ( 1 month old) from a member of the OC.com forum.
For $75 ( shipping included) it seemed like a good deal.

[Amarjit]

SATA HDDs being faster than their PATA counterparts is debatable, considering:


... it's not built around a truly native serial ATA interface. Simply put, the WD Raptor is based on parallel interface technology employing a simple serializer/deserializer (SERDES) chip to convert PATA into SATA. You can tell immediately from the Marvell chip at the back of the drive that it's based on that technique.

(http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view....d=10&id=731&pg= (http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=10&id=731&pg=))

[lynx]

Originally posted by Amarjit@3 August 2004 - 10:54
SATA HDDs being faster than their PATA counterparts is debatable, considering:


... it's not built around a truly native serial ATA interface. Simply put, the WD Raptor is based on parallel interface technology employing a simple serializer/deserializer (SERDES) chip to convert PATA into SATA. You can tell immediately from the Marvell chip at the back of the drive that it's based on that technique.

(http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view....d=10&id=731&pg= (http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=10&id=731&pg=))
That may be true about other SATA drives, but in the case of the Raptor that quote (from hardwarezone) is total bullshit.

The Raptor is based on a SCSI drive, which is why the capacities are 36 and 74 GB - standard SCSI sizes. The interface speed of the equivalent SCSI drive is 320 MB/s, 2.5 times faster than the best current PATA interface. It may have a simple serdes chip, but the underlying technology is not PATA.

Don't you just love it when these so-called hardware experts show themselves up?

[Amarjit]

My assumption was that the Western Digital Raptor is an Ultra160 SCSI HDD.