Raptor vs ordinary drive.

[daza]

Right short story got a chance to get meself a raptor HDD, now only problem is its the 36gb model and the only drive it could replace is the OS as my games are way over 40gb at the mo.

So would I see any difference in speed or any differece what so ever as the OS is currently sat on a 160gb Hitachi HDD.

[staffsMike]

There would probably be a noticeable difference between those two drives but something like a 500gb would be better.

[Fraz]

Not worth the bother. Even the 150 GB raptor is only just a little bit faster than 1 TB 7200 RPM disks. I'd have thought the 36 GB one is probably not a match for a 500 GB 7200 RPM drive.

[daza]

Didnt think you could get a 500gb drive for £40

[staffsMike]

More like £60 for a good'un. Worth it though.

Raptors are noisey and 36gb is pretty meaningless when games like crysis and cod4 are 8 - 12gb etc..

[Fraz]

Didnt think you could get a 500gb drive for £40

I don't think you can - you didn't mention anything about money.

Paying £40 for a small, not particularly fast, noisy drive is a waste of £40. Better to spend £60 and get a 500 Gig Samsung spinpoint or Western Digital Caviar SE16, IMO. Probably faster, very quiet, and oodles of space.

[Ap0llo]

You could always try out two 250gb WD SE16's and wack them in RAID-0. Alot better than a raptor IMO and your getting more HD space for your money. Only problem is that your screwed if one buggers up...

[this_is_gav]

RAID0 will have very little benefit for the average user though. It's really only sustained transfers where it really has an advantage, so using it for an OS with just the usual programs and games installed on it will show very little benefit. Having 2 drives with an access time of 12ms won't improve at all if they're working together. If anything, it'll increase on the average RAID controller, and can't possibly decrease even on the best ones, and access times are what's most important on a OS drive.

Better to get a single larger drive.

[[GSV]Trig]

I've got my OS installed on a Raptor, then all my docs/games on a different drive, then my swapfile on another, noticably faster than having everything on one drive.