Western Digital Raptor

jlss

jlss

jlss

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I was told by someone there is a 500gig raptor drive. Is this right can't find any info on one at all.
 
There isn't

There's the 150gb model, and a drive that has very similar speeds (and beats it in some tests -not random file access though)

It's this 640Gb WD drive (it's 7200 rpm, not 10,000rpm like the raptors)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17857891

I'm selling my raptors to buy one of these, it has a similar speed, and is far quieter, and far bigger


Welcome to the hard drive section :)


-i've read on here that there might be a new raptor coming next year, but no concrete evidence yet.
 
By the time a new raptor gets here, their target market will be using SSDs (SSD's should halve in price year on year, putting them competitive price wise)
 
No it wont, there is new Raptors supposed to be out in 2008, SSD's is miles away from affordable for most for now and only the very high end are faster than any Mechanical HDD.
 
Have you got a reliable source for that 2008 release date?

Anyway, in the meantime there's no reason to wait for a new raptor if you've gotta have the speed - you can get SAS controllers cheaply from a popular online auction site, and buy 15k RPM SAS drives for less than you might think (74GB for ~£100 inc VAT)
 
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Zarf said:
Have you got a reliable source for that 2008 release date?

Anyway, in the meantime there's no reason to wait for a new raptor if you've gotta have the speed - you can get SAS controllers cheaply from a popular online auction site, and buy 15k RPM SAS drives for less than you might think (74GB for ~£100 inc VAT)
Click to expand...

which would be better as an OS drive?

The 74gb Raptor or the 74gb SAS Drive and SAS COntroller. Also if the answer is the SAS Drive + Controller is better, Is the performance difference worth the cost difference.
 
MilanoChris said:
Problem with SAS controllers is limitation of not having RAID unles you spend some serious money.
Click to expand...

A SAS Raid controller; will set you back less than 100 notes, from popular auction sites. a lot of Dell parts are available; with the downsides being the lack of a blacking plate, which im sure, arent too hard to source. and the requirement for £25 of cables, owing to the sata 4channel connectors used, and needing cables to run to sata single channel drives.

Unfortunately, availability isnt quite what it used to be on these. It is also obviously, a server raid card; so any speed improvement on the booting of windows, is offset by the time it takes for the card's bios to load etc.

All in all, not a hugely practical undertaking; unless your looking at 0+1 or similar, for a single disk, raptors are probably much better suited to the £/Perf bracket most folks here would be looking at.
 
Assuming you're referring to the Dell Perc/5i etc then the other thing to consider is that they are very picky about the motherboard they're in - most reports suggest that they don't like the newer Intel chipsets.
 
rpstewart said:
Assuming you're referring to the Dell Perc/5i etc then the other thing to consider is that they are very picky about the motherboard they're in - most reports suggest that they don't like the newer Intel chipsets.
Click to expand...

wasnt aware of this one, thanks for the heads up. Any references for further reading?
 
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The drives are pretty much identical so with one drive, no there won't be any difference but when you get to a lot of fast drives on the one controller then you'll start to see a difference. U320 SCSI has a limit of 320MB/s over the whole cable so that's potentially shared between 15 devices, SAS has an independent point to point 300MB/s link for each drive.
 
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