Raptors

Markatomic

Markatomic

Markatomic

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How much difference does using a raptor actually make?
Traditionally I have always run my os off one sata and my games off another.
All my music ets is stored on a server so thats not an issue.
Im wondering if I was tohave one raptor how much difference would it make, esp as I would run the OS and the games off of it.
Mark
 
Raptor's not really worth it, a normal 7200rpm drive would be better for most things.

To notice a difference you would have to get two in RAID.
 
I went from a 250gb 7200.10 to a Raptor 74gb. Would never go back to a 'normal' hd again. Boot up is quicker, windows feels a lot more snappy and generally I am very happy with it. Windows XP also installs in 9 mins now.

People say there not worth the money but if you want a small speed increase and don't like hanging about, which is me. Their worth it.

Will shortly be getting another for raid 0.
 
Atom said:
I went from a 250gb 7200.10 to a Raptor 74gb. Would never go back to a 'normal' hd again. Boot up is quicker, windows feels a lot more snappy and generally I am very happy with it. Windows XP also installs in 9 mins now.

People say there not worth the money but if you want a small speed increase and don't like hanging about, which is me. Their worth it.

Will shortly be getting another for raid 0.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
True but they're vastly more expensive for a very slight difference, especially when you can have two 7200s in RAID 0 and they're as fast if not faster for most things.

Fair enough though, you pays your money etc...
 
Ok only talking new Raptor 16MB's here not ones from years ago. :cool:

They make a big diff, a normal single Sata HDD be it 150 or 300 will get between 50MB/Sec and 65MB/Sec max today in HD Tach, most are about 60MB/Sec, the Raptors are rated at 84MB/Sec and on a older PCI bus limited to 133MB/Sec and shared with other devices I got 78.4MB/Sec for Single Drive and in Raid0 (stripe 16) I got 108MB/Sec, I am about to swap them to a new mobo with a PCI-E bus so hope for approx 120MB/Sec or so. ;)

You really need to use one drive to feel the speed over a normal 7200rpm HDD, they are not for everyone though. :)
 
My old 36GB 8mb cache raptor made a difference for me. I use it as the OS drive and this works out great due to the better access times for reading all the small files for windows. However, as it doesn't have such a good average read rate i use my 500GB western digital for programs and games as they have generally larger files.

The newer raptors though, as said above, have a higher average read than all current 7200rpm drives and would be excellent for putting an OS and programs on. If it's just for storage then it's not worth it but under the right circumstances it makes quite a difference.
 
Hmm.. I guess it's what you're used to. I'm used to my 2x 74Gb 16mb cache Raptors in RAID0. Windows boots in like 15-20 secs. Shutdown in 5-10 sec.
 
So the the 16mb for my os and gaming might be best, even for a small increase it may be worth it.
That being said £70 for a 36 gig is steep.
is the price equal to the performance increase?
mark
 
Thing about Raptors is that the seek time is awesome, but they get beaten black and blue by the top 7,200RPM drives in terms of transfer rate.

So if you do a lot of things that require good seek time (playing games, loading windows etc.) then you'll see a good boost from a Raptor.

Personally I love mine, no way i'd go back. :)
 
I use a 37gb raptor for the OS, Gave me a huge jump in performance. It halved the time it took XP to boot up.

I'd like to get another one to raid up, but haven't been able to justify it yet.

Taff
 
I had a 74gb Raptor before ( 8Mb ) and i used it for boot up and games. I now have a 320Gb WD SE16 ( 16Mb ) drive.

The Raptor did 'feel' quicker but im happier with the 320Gb replacement as i feel it was much better value than the Raptor - plus the raptor is very small in comparisson :)
 
Let me first say I don't own a raptor nor will I ever. Yes, they once had a place in top of the line enthusiast systems as they blitzed the competition at the time. Now however, I don't think they are remotely worth getting. The combination of noise, higher temps and a huge price premium are definitely not offset by the extra performance they give.

To my mind, if you're after good performance, the best thing you could do would be to put two 250gb drives in a raid0 array. If you went for caviar se16's (great for low noise) that would cost you £91.62, which is on a par with the cost of a single 74gb raptor (92.81). The performance will blow any single raptor drive out of the water however.

Have a read through this article from the boot times page onwards, you'll see the raptors don't do much to distinguish themselves apart from in situations you will never find yourself in as a normal user.
 
Tute said:
Thing about Raptors is that the seek time is awesome, but they get beaten black and blue by the top 7,200RPM drives in terms of transfer rate.

So if you do a lot of things that require good seek time (playing games, loading windows etc.) then you'll see a good boost from a Raptor.

Personally I love mine, no way i'd go back. :)
Click to expand...

Thats not true for the newer 16Mb Raptors, no 7200pm drive can do 84MB/Sec, the new fastest Sata300 drives can beat the older 8MB Raptor.
 
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Man this thread is nowhere neaer helping me decide whether to raptor or not.
Id love to see quicker loading windows and I play a lot of games.
so...
mark
 
You have been told already

1) Yes far quicker boot ups, esp in Raid0

2) Games will load faster on single Raptor more than a normal HDD and in Raid0 it may help also but as its been shown in recent reviews, games are better coded now for loading times so Raid0 wont help as much as it did years ago (now this is only going by reviews, I happen to find it very fast overall).
 
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Clearly my post meant that I was no nearer making a decision as due to the equal amouts of responses for either argument, each with their good points it is difficult to choose.
I respect each and everyones input what I dont think is necessary is a snide reply.
mark
 
I cant see how anyone can say a Raptor (new 16MB type) aint faster than any other 7200rpm drive period, some newer big SATA300 drives are getting near them for transfers but not for seek times.
 
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All the information there is about the differences between the drives has already been given.

As said, the newer 16mb cache ones are faster at both random access and average transfer rates, meaning that they will be good as an OS and games drive. So yes, it does make quite a big difference to your system, afterall the hard drive is the slowest component in a pc and so it helps a lot to get a faster one.

Obviously we can't make the decision for you, it's up to you to decide whether the performance increase warrants the price premium. I managed to get my raptor second hand, maybe you could do the same. It won't hurt your wallet so much :p
 
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