Raptor or spinpoint?

[nvening]

I does not matter that it is sata1, they chose to do this as sata2 is not mature enough for the server market. The only thing which would effect the performance going from 1 to 2 would be NCQ which the raptor has anyway.

[Pie_uk]

yes very true, well spotted. yer sata 2 is just a new standard within the hdd companys if you will.

[nvening]

Personally i would go for the raptor, but noot the one with the window

[MantisCSS]

why not the one witht he window!?!?!? whats the cheapest u can get a 150 raptor for?

[NightshadowUK]

Spinpoint (check my system).

[MantisCSS]

so you have noth and would say spin point is the better of the 2?

[FatalSaviour]

why not the one witht he window!?!?!? whats the cheapest u can get a 150 raptor for?

It's more expensive, and has a lower MTBF.

[NightshadowUK]

so you have both and would say spin point is the better of the 2?

When I take everything into consideration then yes. The Raptor is obviously faster, but not fast enough to cover the premium I paid for it... plus it's rather noisy. A few seconds head start in BF2 isn't worth £50+ to me.

P.S. However, I'm considering buying another 74GB Raptor (when these new 16MB cache models come out and I can pick up the 'old' 8MB ones for cheap) and setting up RAID0 so who knows what I'll think by then.

[nvening]

Also the ones with the windows cost more, unless you have a windowed pc and a visable hdd section and care its a waste of money.

[MantisCSS]

im so tempted by a raptor but the cost is sooo much, whats the cheapest u can pick up a 74GB one for?

[latrosicarius]

i wouldnt bother with a 36gb raptor, the raptor 150gb still uses sata 1 iirc

That doesnt matter b/c no drive on the market today exceeds the thruput of SATA-1. Even the SATA II and 3 drives are below the max thruput of SATA-1, so its not a benefit.

[ifyouknowme]

raptors are LOUD but fast
spinpoints are quiet and not so loud and have more space for the price
i think if i was buying hdds again i wouldnt get the raptor

[vicar]

Does anyone know when Scan is going to have the WD740ADFD in stock i am looking to ,load my OS on it.

Has anyone got one yet? I would like to know how quiet it is in real life compared to the Samsung Spinpoint.

Many Thanks

[ifyouknowme]

i have one thats the same as i use mine for
imagine having a washing machine in your pc and thats about accruate its much louder than my maxtors and my wd sata's

[8bit]

I have one of each, a 74Gb Raptor (last generation w/8MB cache IIRC, new ones have 16) and a 250Gb Spinpoint P120.

The Raptor is *definitely* faster at loading XP and games, apps etc. I haven't got any synthetic benchmarking figures but I was hoping to replace both my raptor and my old IDE drive with the Samsung and found after about a week I was missing the Raptor's extra performance.

The Raptor is a noisy drive, apparently the new ones are *slightly* quieter but this one can definitely be heard rattling away when it's busy. Would be the last thing I'd recommend for an HTPC for example. Personally it doesn't bug me that much (keeping it defragged helps!) but by contrast the Samsung cannot be heard at all.

If performance is what you're after then the Raptor is the drive for you, no question IMHO. Since no hard drive is yet close to being limited by even the SATA/150 interface the 10krpm spindle speed of the Raptor is going to make the difference every time. The newer ones with NCQ and 16Mb cache are a good bit quicker again than the likes of mine. I waaaaannnnt....

[8bit]

Also, sorry for spamming the thread but I'm gonna have a "geek-out" here cos this bugs me - There is NO SUCH THING as SATA-II! Read this page - http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp

Sorry, rant off. Yes, I'm a stressed out data storage engineer

PS. The guys at CustomPC mag should know better for a start