View Poll Results: WD Raptor - worth the money?

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  • Hell yeah!

    10 25.64%
  • Nope.

    29 74.36%
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Thread: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

  1. #1
    Senior Member da.Guvna's Avatar
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    Question WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Hey guys! Been aaaaages since I last posted here, but the time has come for me to build a new system, and I just have a quick question:

    Are WD Raptors worth the extra money?
    Are they noticeably quicker on their own, or do they only really shine when you put them in a RAID array?

    Basicaly, my intention is to have a 150gb raptor as my system disk (OS, Apps, games, etc.), and then a 500gb seagate for bulk storage (documents, music, etc.)
    Would that be better than buying 2x 320gb disks and putting them into RAID-0?

    I'd prefer not to go the RAID route, as I don't want the hassle of doing regular backups to a third disk just in case one of my RAID drives goes down.
    I'd rather have my system disk seperate, so that if one dies, I still have the other one functioning.

    Cheers for reading!

  2. #2
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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    I've voted 'Hell yeah!' cos I own one (not in RAID) and it's very fast... however, it's also very expensive and very noisy so if you're willing to pay the premium, I'd recommend picking up one of these to accompany it:

    - Scythe "Quiet Drive" ~ £22.90

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Personally I think not for a home system, but no doubt others will disagree - particularly if shaving a few milliseconds off the boot up time is critical!
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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    my best mate has the 72GB in RAID0.. and mother! it's fast..
    a good 2x faster at booting up than my computer and he has a slower CPU and everything else..
    does cost a lot though!

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Fast but expensive and loud.

    Personally i dont think the are worth the cash and i love spending

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    Nothing runs like a Deere cotswoldcs's Avatar
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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    I have one and love it and have no regrets whatsoever. I do have it housed in a Scythe QuietDrive which makes a huge difference. Don't buy one without IMHO.

    However, I wouldn't recommend you bother with the Raptor now. I bought it when it first came out and it blew the competition away. Today 500Gb drives are very quick and with faster solid state drives on the horizon I would stick with a 500Gb and put the extra money saved towards a Solid State Drive when they have improved. I personally can't wait until SSDs make HDDs (for OS & Programs) obsolete. However, I plan on keeping my Raptor until there is something superior in every way (read/write times & capacity).

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Yep, i really like mine. (voted hellll yeahh btw)

    its not boot time that does it for me, things just feel that little bit snappier (not even sure thats a real word). might be something to do with the low seek time (i honestly dont know)

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Wow guys, thanks for the quick responses!

    I like what I'm hearing about the Raptors so far. Thanks to you guys for the tip-off about the Scythe. I was intending to get some form of heat sink for it, but one that makes it quieter as well is always a bonus. I'm not too bothered about the noise personally (I'm old school - I find it reasurring to be able to hear the HDD working!), but obviously I don't want anything overly intrusive.

    Cotswoldcs, I think you'll be waiting a lot longer than you're expecting for SSDs to become viable alternatives to current HDDs.
    I read an article the other day that investigated the performance differences between the two types, and the crux of it came down to the way current operating systems make use of the hardware.
    At the moment, they are designed to write data in lots of short, rapid bursts. Works great for HDDs, but SSDs are much more efficient when writing in large, single chunks of data. They suck at multiple small writes.
    Hopefully Vista was coded with this in mind, but I wouldn't be surprised if MS didn't bother

    Everyone else, please keep voting! I want as many opinions as poss please

    Cheers.

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Follow the Deere. New drives have gotten faster, with denser platters, and the Raptor hasn't been updated for some time. Really they are just not worth the money, and solid state is probably not that far away from becoming a real option (2 years is my guess to have an affordable 128Gb).

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Don't understand the hype about the Raptors. Simply make your OS partition on the outside of the platter and - et voila - your system is always very fast. If you're performance crazy then export your page file to an extra partition and a second HDD (same, on the rim of the platter).

    The Samsung Spinpoints reach more than 100 MB/s, are less noisy (well, quite quiet) and require less energy. I think the Seagates reach similar data transfer rates.

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    I would suggest getting a 500GB or, preferably a 640GB Western Digital AAKS, or a 500GB Samsung T166 (I want to say 640GB F1, but I am a little cautious given certain issues raised regarding the 1TB version) over the Seagate. 640GB drives are good to get as you get 320GB/Platter, which gives an edge over 500GB (3x166/2x250GB) at least in transfer rate.

    As to the Raptor, it depends what you mean worth the money. The short version is that if I was to build a PC today, and didn't already have one, I would forgo the Raptor in favour of one of the aforementioned 640GB drives (or the 500GB if it can't be found). From a performance/capacity per pound point of view, the Raptor is not good value compared to those 500GB drivers.

    However, if I had a way of growing money, I would still get one as a system/application drive (at least until I quieten my PC a tad more): a single Raptor still does very well at loading games in my experience. If you are looking for the best transfer speed though, your best bet would be to RAID0 two modern 7200 RPM drives. Some of them can edge the Raptor in that aspect even as a single drive. But while transfer speed is very important in some applications, access time is more important in others - so by going single Raptor and single and a modern 7200 RPM, you are covering all bases. But if cost is a concern, then just stick with 7200 drives: you gain so much more value.

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Cistron, how do you force a partition to be located on the outer edge of the disk? I thought that was reserved for the swapfile?

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    The first partition you create tend to be allocated on the outer edge of the disk. This is discussed in some depth here.

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Actually just got 2 Raptor 150gbs last week, and they're so much quieter than my previous 74gbs and 36gbs. MUCH quieter. Probably slightly faster too, but I'm not so much that I'd notice. They're not silent and you can still hear them rotating, but that horrible access noise has gone completely in mine.

    Worth the money? Nah, not for the space you get, unless you get a specific benefit out of them (2 in a RAID0 array as a scratch disk would be quite tasty I'd imagine).

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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    I voted nope, and I have 2 Raptors in a striped RAID set on my current system.

    Yes, it's very quick to boot but this is not where to look for performance gains when looking for system speed - sequential disk reads may be very fast indeed, but once the data is loaded by an app (for example) then it's down to how fast the CPU & RAM can cope and the disk can be out of the picture.
    If your system has so much disk I/O that moving to RAID makes a noticeable difference, either you don't have enough free RAM or the app(s) running are disk intensive themselves - but games, for example, don't tend to be.

    That's why my new system (due to arrive tomorrow) will ditch the RAID concept entirely and go for 2 separate disks and get the disk throughput by arrangement of the data across them.
    Both are Seagate Barracuda 250GB SATA2 disks, the first will have a 100GB partition for Windows Vista, followed by a 150GB partition for static "data" (i.e. no exectuables).
    The second disk I am going to carve off partitions as needed and use volume mount points instead of traditional partitions with drive letters - such as described here.

    The first partition will be 25GB set aside for World of Warcraft, mounted as "C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft" most likely.

    Other apps as installed will be new mount points carved off this second disk, keeping the disk I/O separated between the OS and games as they will be on separate SATA channels.
    I don't tend to fill disks with apps and games that I never use (any more), so I can reassign previously used mount points as needed when I get new games.

    That's the theory, anyway
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    Re: WD Raptor.....worth the layout?

    Although my system is running 4 36g Raptors in raid 0 I voted Nope simply because they are over priced.
    Like has all ready been said there are lots of newer drives that are just as fast quieter and less money
    I would never have bought them if it were not for ebay £35 each



    If you notice the 512 Random read that is what you will get out of one Raptor on its own and the same goes for any other HDD



    As for partitioning the outer platters that works in raid too

    1st Partition D: = 40g windows XP 64
    2nd Partition C: = 60g windows vista 64
    3rd Partition E: = Storage

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