WD Raptor Question

[whoatethepies]

The problem with RAID is that it slows seek times slightly. Seeks will always take as long as the slowest disk. The biggest benefit is when your doing a big file transfer or something that needs sheer throughput. For Joe Public, thats not very often...

On a side note, does anyone know of an internal enclosure that'll quiet a Raptor's seeks? Only the SmartDrive 2002C seems to be good enough, but they're impossible to get hold of (anyone selling one...? ).

[aidanjt]

Seak latency is only significant with software/BIOS RAID.

And as for enclosures, pretty much any enclosure that wont obstruct your SATA connectors, Raptors are a fairly cool customer.. though I honestly don't notice them at all except under heavy load.. even then my 5.1 headphones pretty much cancel out all background noise so I don't care either way

[Jonny]

The problem with RAID is that it slows seek times slightly. Seeks will always take as long as the slowest disk. The biggest benefit is when your doing a big file transfer or something that needs sheer throughput. For Joe Public, thats not very often...

On a side note, does anyone know of an internal enclosure that'll quiet a Raptor's seeks? Only the SmartDrive 2002C seems to be good enough, but they're impossible to get hold of (anyone selling one...? ).

Niiiiiice thread revival!

Try just getting some rubber washers to go between the drive and the fixings, or some attachable foam.

[whoatethepies]

Niiiiiice thread revival!

Try just getting some rubber washers to go between the drive and the fixings, or some attachable foam.

Cheers

I've heard from some people that rubber grommets or foam can help, but isn't quite enough to quiet the Raptor. Not sure what to think, and its an expensive doorstop if its too loud to be usable (I hate seek noise! ). Maybe just surround it with sound dampening material?

[dave87]

Maybe just surround it with sound dampening material?

And watch the temperatures soar?

As people have said the best idea is either to mount it on rubber grommets, which eliminate most of the noise, and then use sound insulation on your case - it will remove most of the highpitched noise leaving a lower hum.

[whoatethepies]

And watch the temperatures soar?

As people have said the best idea is either to mount it on rubber grommets, which eliminate most of the noise, and then use sound insulation on your case - it will remove most of the highpitched noise leaving a lower hum.

Sorry, didn't explain myself.. I meat (as you suggest) surround the sides of the case where the Raptor is. Probably also softmount the drive if I can't get an enclosure, best way apparently. Or softmount an enclosure...

[Cannyone]

I have 3 Raptor Drives now. The latest one is a 74GB drive that replaced a 160GB WD SE (IDE) as my OS drive. The other 2 are 36GB drives in a RAID0 array that is in my gaming rig, just used for OS and basic apps.

When I installed the 74GB, I noticed a definate increase in performance... Windows load times, games loading, disk defrags, you name it. And since that is the drive with my swap file, any program that uses the swap file (and some will regardless of how much RAM you have...) will benefit from the faster response times and throughput of the Raptor. The reason why I felt compelled to at least do this much was the way the 36GB Raptors perform. Going from my primary gaming system to this one was painful! Just seat of my pants tells me that a single raptor is just about as fast as 2 WD 320GB SATA drives in a RAID0 Array. I would seriously own nothing but Raptor drives, if they were just a bit larger in size. Even the 2 320GB drives in this system aren't enough space. With 2 External HDDs (Another 320GB) I'm at just over 1TB of space and it's almost full.

Now, regarding the noise issue, it's hard for me to comment. My environment has so much background noise I can barely hear my computers. And they aren't especially quiet, just not really loud. But my system is right next to me, and it's a Lian Li V-series case, so if that Raptor was making allot of noise I believe I'd notice. Anyway that's my 2¢ worth.

Edit: Ok I did a "test". Basically I pulled the side panel off the computer next to me and turned down all the fans. Then I performed a disk defrag on that 74GB Raptor. I could hear the drive from about 18" away. By comparison I could barely hear the pair of 320GB Western Digital drives under the same conditions. I had to actually lower my head, toward the computer to hear them. My best guess is that if you are in a quiet environment, and use a quiet water cooled system, you WILL hear a Raptor whenever they are transfering data. However, none of my 3 drives seems to produce significant vibration. The 2 36GB drives are mounted in what might be described as a heatsink for a HDD, which in turn mounts in a 5.25" bay. I can feel the front of these "heatsinks" and there is not apparent vibration.