raptor 150gig

sunderland · 19 Oct 2006 at 21:56

ive got a 37 gig 8mb cache and a 160 gig normal drive but was wondering would i see any improvement if i took these 2 drives out and got the 150 gig 16mb cache raptor one,its mainly for games as i dont put much on the drives like films and music,or is it just a waste of money cheers for any advice

smids · 19 Oct 2006 at 22:25

It will be noticeably faster. People who say that arent haven't owned/used a raptor and if they have, they haven't used it properly. Everything seems nippier due to the access times which are almost half that of a 7200rpm drive. They are excellent drives but whether the cost is justified - who knows.

britain · 19 Oct 2006 at 22:31

i've just purchased a raptor and new mobo/gpx card etc but can't see the difference of a raptor...i had 2 x 80 g hdd b4 which i thought was fine..(give one away family stuff)..how do i use a raptor "properly"?

smids · 19 Oct 2006 at 22:32

Setting it up with proper partitioning. There is a noticeable difference.

I've owned all these flavours of drives:
2x 36GB 8MB cache raptor
2 x 74GB 8MB cache raptor
150GB 16MB cache raptor
320GB Seagate 7200.10
4x80GB Hitachi T7K250 (SATA-II)
1x 500GB WD SATA-II
1x 250GB Maxtor DM10
1x 250GB WD SATA-II

All in various RAID arrays, or JBOD configs. I can safely say I noticed the difference. Even between a RAID0 80GB and a Raptor - there is a slight performance gain from the access of the raptor but this can be beaten by the sustained read/writes of a RAID0.

britain · 19 Oct 2006 at 22:34

k..i've reformatted and placed windows on full partition...i was worried i'd missed something

smids · 19 Oct 2006 at 22:37

britain said:
k..i've reformatted and placed windows on full partition...i was worried i'd missed something

I usually use only a small 20GB partition at the start of the disk - this is the fastest part and often will be a good 20-30MB/s faster than the end of the disk.

britain · 19 Oct 2006 at 22:39

sunderland...smids is the man!!......god bless forumms

smids · 19 Oct 2006 at 22:41

Don't boost me more than I am/do - most of my knowledge comes from these forums and I only give back what I have gained - the idea of the community.

sunderland · 19 Oct 2006 at 23:01

so smids if i go for the 150 it would be best to partition it,i.e 20gig for the windows and then split it up again say 50gig for games and another 50 for what ever something like that m8 and cheers for the help

smids · 19 Oct 2006 at 23:06

sunderland said:
so smids if i go for the 150 it would be best to partition it,i.e 20gig for the windows and then split it up again say 50gig for games and another 50 for what ever something like that m8 and cheers for the help

Well it's down to personal preference but that is how I do it. It also means you can reinstall windows and not affect the rest of the drive data.

Usually, you can get away with a small 10GB partition but 20GB should be fine for Windows and core programs like burning programs/Office etc. Games - well generally I don't partition these as often I like to put many on my drive and obviously they are very large. Usually it's just 2 partitions - windows and then games and programs. I normally use a 15GB partition as sometimes 10GB is a bit of a squeeze (esp with office, Pagefile and Nero etc).

In fairness, it doesn't matter too much - the raptor access times are so fast and the raptor is so fast in general, you don't need partitions but maybe this only applies to the smaller raptors rather than the 150GB version (didn't have it for too long (2 months, so never really got to customising it properly).

.Griff. · 20 Oct 2006 at 02:16

smids said:
It will be noticeably faster. People who say that arent haven't owned/used a raptor and if they have, they haven't used it properly. Everything seems nippier due to the access times which are almost half that of a 7200rpm drive. They are excellent drives but whether the cost is justified - who knows.

Have to agree. I was sceptical at first but I'd never go back to a 7200rpm drive after using my 150gb Raptor for a few weeks now.

sunderland · 20 Oct 2006 at 10:34

thanks again for the help will be getting myself one

Bane · 23 Oct 2006 at 21:45

WWS|Griff said:
Have to agree. I was sceptical at first but I'd never go back to a 7200rpm drive after using my 150gb Raptor for a few weeks now.

That using a single Raptor 150GB?

My current 160GB Samsung isn't full so I'm considering a single Raptor for next system. Just the additional comments of noise and heat that's also putting me off. And the massive price tag.

.Griff. · 23 Oct 2006 at 21:49

Bane said:
That using a single Raptor 150GB?

My current 160GB Samsung isn't full so I'm considering a single Raptor for next system. Just the additional comments of noise and heat that's also putting me off. And the massive price tag.

Yup single 150gb Raptor - WD1500ADFD

smids · 24 Oct 2006 at 01:34

Bane said:
That using a single Raptor 150GB?

My current 160GB Samsung isn't full so I'm considering a single Raptor for next system. Just the additional comments of noise and heat that's also putting me off. And the massive price tag.

Heat is a non issue - raptors actually run very cool. Noise is also a non-issue except in seeks. Seeks are loud and crunchy but when idle, the raptor is not really any louder than another 7200rpm drive (at least the new ones aren't).

Tute · 24 Oct 2006 at 01:47

When doing a random seek, my raptor does it's "bag of spanners" impression, however it doesn't really annoy me unless it does it constantly for a good 45-60 seconds, which is pretty much never

These drives are sickeningly fast, watching my girlfriend's computer trying to load games with her 7200RPM WD Caviar - it seems to take ages.

You can't go back to using a 7200RPM drive after having used a raptor.

smids · 24 Oct 2006 at 02:18

...unless you run a RAID0 array

.

ajf · 5 Nov 2006 at 15:17

So would 2 x 74Gb Raptors on RAID 0 be faster than a single 150Gb Raptor?

If so, is it appreciably faster?

Andrew

smids · 8 Nov 2006 at 09:36

Yes faster - appreciably... I don't know. I've had both, but I don't think you really notice the RAID0 as a single raptor has such good access times, you won't see any of that speed except in large file transfers.

stoofa · 10 Nov 2006 at 03:06

With the Raptor drives you have to ask yourself if saving a few seconds is worth it for their high price.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you they make no difference.
However I'm also not going to tell you that they are the "second coming" either - those people who tell you that they are just so amazingly quick compared to normal drives are going a little OTT with regards their "real-world" performance.
In a 20 second disk transfer you can see a saving or around 5 seconds.
So whereas you'd wait 20 seconds on "most" drives, the same transfer can be done in 15 seconds.
Your average game/application will load that bit quicker - but on the right machine they should be quick no matter what.

So what are you getting - something that does make more noise (I'm sorry guys but come on Raptor owners, don't lie here - the drives do make more noise when both idle and seeking).
You are getting a performance increase, a saving of up to a few seconds on those longer disk transfers.
However you also need to look at some simple maths:

Raptor 150GB - £160
Seagate 500GB - £130
WD 500GB - £150
Samsung 400GB - £100

Is that kind of performance gain really worth to you the loss in capcity you can get for similar cash?