Western Digital Raptor - Fastest Hard Drive I've Owned

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by MagicAlex, May 30, 2004.

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  1. MagicAlex

    MagicAlex Gort Emeritus Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    I just wanted to recommend this drive to anyone who has SATA controllers in their computer system and is in the market for a performance boost. I got a pair of Western Digital Raptor 74 GB 10,000 RPM drives to add to my new system that I'm building and I've NEVER had better performance...and that includes SCSI!

    Originally I just bought one drive to use as a boot drive for my OS and I was very impressed. But since Western Digital is offering a $50 rebate on the purchase of two drives I went ahead and splurged for a second drive. I've set them up in RAID 0 and I am floored. I was able to install Win XP in less than 10 minutes!

    Here's a link to NewEgg which seems to be the best price around.

    Western Digital Raptor

    Anyone else using this drive?
     
  2. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    Hi Kevin! Glad to hear it worked. Didn't know if anyone here had tried a Raptor yet.

    If these were made in the 160-200GB range, I'd pick one up. ;) With all the audio (and soon, video) projects I have going, I'd fill 'em up in no time. Having one as a boot/OS/software drive though...sounds nice. :agree: Might be worth a try if I could ghost my 80GB OS drive to a Raptor and finagle the BIOS to make it boot up.
     
  3. average Joe

    average Joe New Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    Thanks for the review.

    How's the noise with the Raptors compared to other drives you've used?

    I'm currently using Western Digital's 7200 RPM with the 8MB buffer and I think they're fairly quiet. I'll be SATA capable with my next build but noise is always a concern with me.
     
  4. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    The Raptors are noiser, and run hotter, than any other modern IDE/SATA drive...by a large margin. In this regard, they are much more similar to SCSI drives.

    Kwad
     
  5. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I was thinking of RAID, but I decided to stick with ATA for now. Otherwise, I am all prepared to go that route with my mobo.
     
  6. MagicAlex

    MagicAlex Gort Emeritus Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    They probably do run a bit hotter considering the huge speed increase over the 7200 RPM drives that are most popular. Nothing a dedicated fan can't handle. I just installed one right next to my drive bays to pull out any heat generated.

    As far as noise is concerned they are very quiet actually. I have them installed with rubber grommets and my new case is very quiet as well. I am still running a 160 MB 7200 RPM EIDE drive as a storage unit and these drives are less noisey than it is.
     
  7. MagicAlex

    MagicAlex Gort Emeritus Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    Don't forget Rudy that when the two 74 MB drives are used in RAID that they are recognized as one large 140 MB partition.
     
  8. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    I keep waiting for Seagate to put out some 15,000 RPM SATA drives, since they already make those in SCSI configuration. They've already switched to a fluid bearing to decrease noise, since the older 15,000 RPM drives sounded like a jet engine taking off. ;)
     
  9. MagicAlex

    MagicAlex Gort Emeritus Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    Heres an article from the latest Maximum PC mag on speed comparisions between the Raptor and current Maxtor SCSI drives:

    Is Serial ATA faster Than SCSI?

    The test: Over the past year, ATA hard drives have acquired features that were. previously found only in the SCSI realm, such as 10K spindle speeds, FDB spindle motors, hot-swapping ability, and even vibration controls for rack-mounted drives. Has ATA finally caught up-or surpassed-the long-time defenders of the hard drive performance crown?

    To see how ATA stacks up against SCSI we gathered together the best of the best: a 74GB 10,000rpm SATA Raptor from Western Digital to defend the ATA title, and Maxtor's record-breaking Atlas 10K Ultra 320 SCSI drive to represent its ilk. And for kicks, we threw in a Maxtor Atlas 15K Ultra 320 SCSI drive as well, because 15K drives are fun to test and represent the pinnacle of hard drive performance. It should be noted that while the two 10K drives sport capacities of 74GB and 73GB, respectively, the 15K SCSI drive has a capacity of just 18GB, given its intended use in a server environment (smaller drives are preferred because there's less data to replace if a failure occurs).

    Testing consisted of Simplisoft's HD Tach 2.61, which tests sequential read speed, write speed, random access time, and burst speed. The SCSI drives were connected to an Adaptec 29320A-R Ultra 320 controller, and the Western Digital SATA drive was connected to our test system's onboard SATA controller, care of the ICH5 south bridge chipset on an Intel 865GBF motherboard.

    The results: Going into this test, we thought Western Digital's 10K Raptor would hold its own; instead it actually dominated. In short, the 10K Raptor handed the 10K Atlas its SCSI *** on a platter. For some strange reason, the Atlas laid down benchmark scores equivalent to those of a high-end 7,200rpm SATA drive. Although the Atlas' seek times were a smidge better than the Raptor's, the latter's average read speed of 62MB/s completely outpaced the Atlas' meager 46MB/see average. Point, set, and match to the Serial ATA camp

    Perhaps the most surprising result, however, was that the 10K Raptor scored higher average sequential read speeds across its platters than even the 15K Maxtor drive. The fact is, these high-velocity SCSI drives aren't made for sequential transfers, as their high rotational velocities are meant to provide enormous benefits in multi-user environments with heavy random access workloads. In random access testing, the 15K SCSI drive handily outperformed the 10K drives. If you subtract the standard 2ms of latency-the time it takes the drive to pinpoint a specific sector on the platter-from the 15K's access time of 5.5ms, you end up with a random access time of 3.5ms. That is fast access, for sure.
     
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