Raptors

[buzz_lips]

I figure that my Maxtor Sata is just about the slowest component in my rig atm.

Are these Raptor drives really that much faster? I'm talking realworld difference as I don't care much for benchmarks.

Cheers

Buzz

[Insomniac]

Not in my opinion, and certainly not enough to justify the small capacity and huge price.

If prices come down and capacity goes up in the future, then they might be an option especially with Serial II almost with us.

Serial Raid is probably about the best you can hope for at the moment without spending a fortune.

Raptors, like most drives seem to perform at their best when configured in a RAID setup.

However, the bottleneck in the average system is not so much making the drive itself faster, but the motherboard accessing that data fast enough, hence the advent of Serial II.

[StormPC]

Raptors are very good and that's why they are priced so high. Whether or not it's worth it is a value judgement you are required to make. How much is your time worth? Mine's worth a lot so for me they are worth it.

[Insomniac]

Just because they are priced high doesn't mean they are good!

If your time is so valuable, then a couple of Seagate, Hitachi or Samsung drives in a RAID 0 configuration would be cheaper, faster, and larger than a single Raptor.

We won't mention the noise factor. Raptors are not exactly the quietest drives on the market.

[nvening]

Just because they are priced high doesn't mean they are good! on the market.

Well no, but they are good, he was saying they cost alot because they are good.

[StormPC]

Just because they are priced high doesn't mean they are good!

If your time is so valuable, then a couple of Seagate, Hitachi or Samsung drives in a RAID 0 configuration would be cheaper, faster, and larger than a single Raptor.

We won't mention the noise factor. Raptors are not exactly the quietest drives on the market.

Yes a high price is not a not a sure thing, but in this case that's exactly what it means. Raptors didn't just come out yesterday. If they were not the best they would not be able to sell them for more money continually.

If you want quiet buy a laptop!

The early 36GB Raptors were a little noisy but not bad. The new ones (especially the 74GB) are pretty quiet. But Raptors are not for quiet. They are for performance. They are also cooler and quieter than any SCSI drive.

[arthurleung]

RAID0 will help sequencial transfer rate but it will not reduce Access time which the raptor is better at (10000rpm vs 7200rpm).

If you work on large files all the time then 7200RPM disks in RAID0 will be faster.
If your work on small files (e.g. <100MB) or just programs only then a Raptor will be better for the job.

Raptors are not exectly loud (Compared to a DM+9) and definitely not as hot as Maxtor drives.

[Insomniac]

If you want quiet buy a laptop!

So a noisy desktop is the norm and acceptable, otherwise you have to settle for a laptop?

The original Raptors were aimed at low-cost server markets, competing with SCSI hard drives.

Their firmware was written for server-style access patterns. This has been greatly improved with each subsequent release, as has capacity.

However, for the average desktop market, this is new technology commanding a very high price with little in the way of competition!

I never adopt new technology until it has matured and is cost effective.

There have been plenty of complaints regarding noise, and latter models are quieter, but still nowhere near as quiet as a Hitachi or Samsung.

If anyone thinks it's worth the cost or limited capacity, it's your money.

For me, it's better spent elsewhere.

[StormPC]

If people didn't think it was worth it they wouldn't buy them and the prices would go down. Somebody's not feeling you.

[RDL]

Don't get out of proportion with noise anyway, it is near silent compared with a hefty case fan. Raptor's in my opinion are worth the money, they load levels in gaming faster (obviously they bench better, which is right up my street) and if you want the best, they are the ones for you. No point in having a half assed HDD upgrade, hell, why not buy 3 and stick em in RAID 5.

[arthurleung]

RAID5 will be slower for gaming unless you going to shell out for a hardware raid controller. Raid0+1 will be better if you really want to go that route.

[BlueMagician]

...However, the bottleneck in the average system is not so much making the drive itself faster, but the motherboard accessing that data fast enough, hence the advent of Serial II...

My Pair of Raptor74's in RAID-0 come out at ~108MB/s throughput, which is nowhere near the maximum of even SATA-1, or ATA133 for that matter.

It is not the controller technology that needs to be improved, but the physical mechanisms used in the drives themselves to speed up data transfer/latency etc..


S.

[Firelord]

I love my RAID'd raptors as when it comes to encode video and stuff thats disk intensive BUT it only stores my OS and progs. I have a Maxtor Maxline III 16MB cache for everything else and that is quicker than a standard SATA drive

[buzz_lips]

Well some interesting answers!!! I'm primarily into gaming, but will be working with photos later this year.

I'm not so keen on Raiding my HD's but to be honest thats more to do with my lack of knowledge on the subject.

Are any other manufacturers thinking of making such HD's. Some people here have said that price means that you are getting a good product which isn't always the case. It's seems to be that they have been able to keep prices relatively high as there isn't the competition like there is with other drives.

So from the replys so far i'm guessing they aren't really worth the money.

[Taz]

I also love my RAID-0'd 74GB Raptors. For working with DVD's (ISO images) they are fabulous. Once i'm done working with big files I just burn them onto a DVD to free up space - even though i've only actually used around 30GB so far with around 115GB remaining.

[Dooms]

I wouldnt really be able to tell the difference between raptor and non raptor since i upgraded my whole PC so cant tell how much of the extra speed is from it. Go for one tho!