Ok, I know the Raptor's have fast access speeds being 10,000RPM but does the fact that they are only SATA I (ATA-150) not make them overall slower or equal to standard HDD when it comes down to file transfer because of this decreased rate against SATA II ?
The Raptor's transfer speed is not bottlenecked by the interface. No single hard drive (exclude RAID, i-RAM etc.) is really bottlenecked by SATA I (7200RPM drives have only fairly recently started to breach the 100MB/sec barrier on the outer edge). In terms of sequential transfer (which includes copying files between two drives, but mostly irrelevant for game loading), the Raptor loses against some of the latest, largest 7200RPM drives because they pack a denser platter and the outer edge of larger drives is provides the best sequential transfer performance (that's also why a 500GB drive of the same family as a 250GB drive will be faster overall).
Raptors should still be quickest.
So basically what your saying is that SATA is pointless as HDD's have barely touched the speed transfer rate even set by IDE. Therefore the Rapitor's only real asset is the initial access time.
Seems hardly worth the extra money for a few milliseconds.
Thats how computers work mate...and cars... and just about anything. Those who have the money are willing to pay stupid prices for a few % difference (says me with a 36gb raptor as OS boot drive)
You forgot to mention the 150GB Raptor as wellOriginally Posted by ackrite26
So basically what your saying is that IDE which comes in transfer rates of
ATA-5 (ATA-33) 33.3 Mb/ps
ATA-5 44.4 Mb/ps
ATA-5 (ATA-66) 66.6 Mb/ps
ATA-6 (ATA-100) 100.0Mb/ps
ATA-7 (ATA-133) 133.0Mb/ps
and sata drives which come in transfer rates of
Serial ATA (SATA) 150.0Mb/ps
Serial ATA II (SATA II) 300.0Mb/ps
are the wise choice?
I would sooner pay the extra and get the faster drive.
Manufacturers produced IDE ranging from 33 to 133. The development then changed to SATA 1 at 150 and SATA 2 at 300. If these speeds were not really achievable from hard drives why develop them?
From a single drive perspective, the last instalment of IDE *is* adequate for pretty much every drive out there, save the Cheetah 15K.5. The Samsung F1 1TB is also coming close-ish on the outer edge, but still shy by about 20MB/sec.
Why SATA then? I can think of a few reasons:
1. No more messing with Master/Slave. And that also lead to
2. If you connect two devices on IDE on the same cable, the devices will operate at the 'slowest standard'.
3. Not only that, but the bandwidth is shared and only perform one operation at a time (until TCQ). So if you are trying to copy a file from one HD to another off the same cable, the drives will definitely be bottlenecked by the interface.
4. SATA support NCQ (not always beneficial, but can be, and is optional).
5. Not a performance issue, but SATA cables are easier to work with and devices are hot-swappable.
So basically from a single drive basis, the same drive with different interface (IDE/SATA) would most likely perform the same. In fact, for years after SATA was released, manufacturers actually used IDE to SATA bridges built onto their SATA drive (basically, the SATA drives were natively IDE). Drives that are natively designed around the SATA interface are comparatively new. SATA 300, quite frankly, doesn't bring much. Yes drives will show a faster burst speed. But when was the last time burst speed brought real world performance benefits? The mechanics that deals with the read/write within the HD (the real bottleneck) won't suddenly work twice as fast because of a change in interface.
I think 500gb Samsungs are as fast a Raptors for general use due to the amount of data that can be stored per inch of drive.
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Lolz i have just sold that one kinda based on my comment, ill let someone else spend over the odds for a bit of a performance increase, need to update 'My System' as it has changed alot!You forgot to mention the 150GB Raptor as well
It's half the milliseconds.Seems hardly worth the extra money for a few milliseconds.
They're not much (if any) faster for transfers, but for an OS you certainly notice moving from a recent Raptor set up to a recent 'standard' drive set up. The old Raptors have obviously been left behind, but the recent 150gbs are quite impressive. Not impressive enough to warrant one for standard use if you're paying though. They really start to pay you back when you string together more than in a RAID0 array for something like video editing though.
I was simply toiling with the idea of changing the 160GB Samsung which houses my OS for a 150Gb Enterprise Raptor. So despite being quicker for the OS they are not really that more exceptional to warrant the large outlay unless you have a raid set up. Crickey..It's half the milliseconds.
They're not much (if any) faster for transfers, but for an OS you certainly notice moving from a recent Raptor set up to a recent 'standard' drive set up. The old Raptors have obviously been left behind, but the recent 150gbs are quite impressive. Not impressive enough to warrant one for standard use if you're paying though. They really start to pay you back when you string together more than in a RAID0 array for something like video editing though.Raid 0 that would mean buying 2...that ain't gonna happen
I never suggested RAIDing 2. I pointed out a very big strength of them.
They make some sense if you're buying a hard drive for the OS, though not an awful lot. They make very little sense if you've already got a drive for the OS.
As I understand it, SATA2 includes many of the things you mention above as being benefits of SATA. For example, I think things like Hot Swapping are meant to be properly supported under SATA2 rather than hit and miss in SATA1.
I read a few years ago about Western Digital using the same IDE to SATA bridge chip on its early Raptors as some controller cards used to convert the signal back into IDE for their controller chips to process.
I can't stand messing around with IDE cables and jumpers when I have to help other people with their systems...
I have just bought myself 2 x 500GB Samsung Spinpoints (seriuosly cheap on Scan) and by the benchmarks i have been seeing, with the 16mb cache, they are bloody quick.
I will probably RAID 0 them aswell.
A waste i know, but i want to see them fly.
When flash storage becomes more widespread we might start seeing the interface being used more to its capabilities.
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