is SATA worth it?

[hmv]

im getting a new pc (asus p4c800/3.0c) and was wondering if sata is worth it, i dont want my hd to be the bottleneck so..can anyone suggest a good Hard drive?

[OS-Wiz]

The Western Digital "Raptor" has a 5.2ms avg. seek time! And supposedly can run at 150mb/s on a cache hit (doubt it, but sure sounds nice). The only concern is its the first model SATA HD for them, but has a 5 yr warranty. See www.storagereview.com for a review.
www.newegg.com

Western Digital Raptor 36GB SATA WD360GD 10,000 RPM 8MB Hard Drive OEM
Specifications:
Size: 36.7 Gigabytes
Interface: Serial ATA
Seek time: 5.2ms
RPM:10,000
Data Transfer: 150MB/sec Max
Cache:8MB
OEM(Drive alone) 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty: Model#: WD360GD
Special Free FedEx Saver Shipping
$142.00

[pudad]

no.

go one way or another, scsi or ide. they actually make a great combination (couple scsi drives for boot and media you are currently read/writing, and couple massive ide drives to hold all those divxes and mp3s).

[OS-Wiz]

Originally posted by pudad
no.

go one way or another, scsi or ide. they actually make a great combination (couple scsi drives for boot and media you are currently read/writing, and couple massive ide drives to hold all those divxes and mp3s). Points to ponder. . . I can put in a WD Raptor and nearly half my average seek time and double my data transfer rate for much cheaper than going SCSI. :)

[Colossus]

Double your data transfer????

ATA150 is just a theoritical number.. You will never actually be anywhere near it!

The Raptor is a nice drive, but if it had larger volumes such as a Raptor 200GB then it would be worth to buy :eek:

I can fill 36GB with what 1/4th of all my mp3??? or maybe an OS and 10-15 games????

Its not that large... I dont like to split my partitions between OS and games.. I just backup my saved games onto DLT and reinstall the game and restore the save games :D

But IMO Raptors are the ONLY SATA drives worth buying... The normal SATA drives are about $60 more then the PATA version and they are slower!!!! Now how sick is that!!!

[OS-Wiz]

Originally posted by Colossus
Double your data transfer???? ATA150 is just a theoritical number.. You will never actually be anywhere near it!Well, I took the numbers from www.storagereview.com . The Raptor does about 63mb/s and my Maxtor does about 37mb/s sequential read from disk. I'm not trying to make a case for or against the Raptor -- just throwing out food for thought. For $142 shipped from newegg.com , I can nearly half my avg. seek time and nearly double my data transfer rate, not bad.

[Colossus]

OHHHH... :)

I was assuming you were using some older ATA66 drives :D :D :D

My mistake... But yes the Raptors are nice, but I only seen them that high in a RAID 0 config

EDIT:
It might hit 63MB/s at the beginning of the platter.. But its no where near average :)

[Alientank]

Nice to see that your sticking around the boards colossus :) My comp parts are slowly coming in from vancouver :D

[Colossus]

Thanks.. I decided not to be easily intimidated!

[Alientank]

Originally posted by Colossus
Thanks.. I decided not to be easily intimidated!

Good! Because we need your knowledge! And I know that I will need it when I try to overclock for the first time!

[drs1771]

Originally posted by Colossus
My mistake... But yes the Raptors are nice, but I only seen them that high in a RAID 0 config




I can hit that buffered read/write speed with my P-ata drives in raid 0. My average access time is 6.7 ms via Sandy 2k3. Not to stonewall, but I expected better from s-ata. I wish I could find the link comparing the Seagate Barracuda and the WD LE 8meg cache. It was on Amandtech and they claim it will be a couple of years before s-ata is at like 200+ speeds. Anyhow, the LE held its ground.

[pudad]

Some more points to ponder:

This raptor is prety impresive, seems like a 10K scsi drive optimised for desktop apps w/ a sata interface It holds its own against 10K and even 15K scsi in quiet a few benches. Yet it is not as good for server as the SCSI drives which are optimised for it. Both seem fine, and as long as you stick w/ silicon image for your controller, you should be able to get it working in linux too. I paid a little more and went scsi because it is a more robust interface, and I just wanted to learn more about it. But a raptor drive seems like a perfect inexpensive (relative to many scsi drives) alternative.

[vertices]

I think the Raptors rock for desktop systems.

For me, I don't store ANYTHING on my main rig. I just install programs and games. All storage is done on my File Server so I don't need tons of space on my main rig. 36 gigs is plenty for it.

So you get a really fast drive for only $142 and don't have to buy a SCSI controller or pay the larger premium for a SCSI drive.

It definitely depends on the situation if the Raptor is for you or not but for me it was the perfect solution.:)

[pudad]

yeah I would have had to get a new controller either way because it appear Promise is being an asss and not release specs even so open sourcers can write some freaking, plus my setup will be a halfass server once I go on campus and they give me my gimpyass domain (like freaking r45h142.resnet.blah blah blah.edu or some crap like that, untill I ask for a change).

[Colossus]

Originally posted by drs1771



I can hit that buffered read/write speed with my ata drives in raid 0. My average access time is 6.7 ms via Sandy 2k3. Not to stonewall, but I expected better from s-ata. I wish I could find the link comparing the Seagate Barracuda and the WD LE 8meg cache. It was on Amandtech and they claim it will be a couple of years before s-ata is at like 200+ speeds. Anyhow, the LE held its ground.

Dunno what to tell you :)

I posted in General Hardware about someone who RAID 0 a set of Raptors on a ICH5R motherboard... I think it was 73MB/s

Not that amazing... I need to search for the thread...

[ewitte]

Originally posted by Colossus


Dunno what to tell you :)

I posted in General Hardware about someone who RAID 0 a set of Raptors on a ICH5R motherboard... I think it was 73MB/s

Not that amazing... I need to search for the thread...

This (http://warpcore.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rid=57214) article has some very impressive RAID0 benchmarks with the drive. Its the only raid article I cound find on the drive. I actually just orderd a drive from newegg for $139. I'm going to use it for the OS and put the 80GB drive in there for data. My 80GB SE drive has long had performance problems with the system partition. Performance dropped after my second XP install to 1/5th what it was in terms of uncached performance! I've never been able to resolve the problem (except for 10 minutes after a low level format). Changing the position of the partitions has never helped. Anyway I finally gave in and just ordered the raptor. It looks like it will solve my problem :)

BTW I almost got the drive locally today. CompUSA has some screwed up prices. Online it is about $150, $209 online if you pick it up at a local store and $249 if you just walk into the store! I would have paid the $150 if it was an instore price. Since I have to order online I went to Newegg.

Eric

[Colossus]

I am going to take a look at that article.. But let us know how the drive works out in Sandra :)

EDIT:
I like the low noise comment on the Raptor... That was just funny!!! The drive is not that quiet!

[Colossus]

Here is another review :)
http://www.abxzone.com/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=9

http://www.asusboards.com/images/reviews/WD_Raptor/rap128k.jpg

[ewitte]

Originally posted by Colossus
Here is another review :)
http://www.abxzone.com/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=9

http://www.asusboards.com/images/reviews/WD_Raptor/rap128k.jpg

The amazing thing is a single drive gets faster scores than two 7200 RPM drives in RAID :) I believe it was 1000 or so above the ATA 2xRaid0 mark. Plus you have much better access times. The drive looks really solid as well.

Eric

[Colossus]

Now now... That is just not true :)

I have 2 IBM 120GXP 80GB on one of my setups here.. And it blows away a single Raptor... :)

EDIT:
But the access time on a Raptor is sweet! But that is only due to the 10k rpm spindle.. So I wished they made some PATA at 10k rpm :D :D

[ewitte]

Originally posted by Colossus
Now now... That is just not true :)

I have 2 IBM 120GXP 80GB on one of my setups here.. And it blows away a single Raptor... :)

EDIT:
But the access time on a Raptor is sweet! But that is only due to the 10k rpm spindle.. So I wished they made some PATA at 10k rpm :D :D

I'm actually referring to the first sandra benchmark here (http://www.3dvelocity.com/reviews/raptor/wd360gd_5.htm). For my purposes the access time matters the most. The 80GB drive is there for storage. I think it is an older version of Sandra. The newer one gives a single raptor about 48,000. What kind of score are you getting?

Eric

[ewitte]

Originally posted by OS-Wiz
Points to ponder. . . I can put in a WD Raptor and nearly half my average seek time and double my data transfer rate for much cheaper than going SCSI. :)

There are several problems with SCSI on a home computer. If not for these problems I might have went that way eventually.

- Even though I would swing for a 36GB 10,000 RPM SCSI drive I need a controller

- Even an Ultra160 controller is at least $185 (adaptec). Its about $239 for a U320 card.

- I have talked my self into SCSI in the past (back when it was at 40MB/s)... but today to get the benefits of U160 and especially U320 with multiple (possibly even single) drives a regular PCI slot will not do. Things might change if they make PCI Express varient someday :) Yes I do plan on doing the Raptor in RAID 0 in the next 3 months. Seeing cache hits over 200MB/s and sustained (outer) near 100MB/s I'm glad my SATA controller is on the Motherboard. It is CHEAPER to get a new MB with onboard SATA than it is to just get a SCSI controller.

- Really the cheaper drives, in single setup, may actually not be as fast as IDE drives. At least that was the case with the 7200 RPM SCSI drive that came in my Dell server. With the 10,000 RPM drives they are probably all faster. Most of the ones I see now are Cheetah's or faster Atlas drives, so really I can not tell :)

All that for SCSI when the raptor only cost me $139.

Eric

[freakboy]

I don't know if this fits into the argument or not. I read a review and they did a cpu utilization test during heavy drive access, and the SATA was ahead of scsi and both were way ahead of IDE. Does this even really matter?

I think it was on tom's hardware.

fb

[pudad]

You don't need the most expensive SCSI controller if you are using regular pci and have only 1 or 2 drives... A controller that is good enough will range from 50 - 150 bucks. SCSI drives are getting a lot cheaper too it seems. The way I see it, if you are going to pay the permium for sata drives (especially the raptor) why not pay a little more and get the real-deal?

[coolqf]

Food for thought:

When considering the Raptor HD but the space if a worry, you always have cheap alternatives to solve that. Just get a 2nd WD SE HD to serve as primarily storage (such as MP3 as Colossus pointed out).
If RAID is a requirement when going raid for some then the HD can be plased in the secondary or even consider a firewire or USB 2.0 HD.

Raptor for $139. Very good buy.

[pudad]

Originally posted by coolqf
Food for thought:

When considering the Raptor HD but the space if a worry, you always have cheap alternatives to solve that. Just get a 2nd WD SE HD to serve as primarily storage (such as MP3 as Colossus pointed out).
If RAID is a requirement when going raid for some then the HD can be plased in the secondary or even consider a firewire or USB 2.0 HD.

Raptor for $139. Very good buy.

that's what I do, 37GB scsi for speed, 120GB and 80GB ide for storage.

[ewitte]

Originally posted by pudad
You don't need the most expensive SCSI controller if you are using regular pci and have only 1 or 2 drives... A controller that is good enough will range from 50 - 150 bucks. SCSI drives are getting a lot cheaper too it seems. The way I see it, if you are going to pay the permium for sata drives (especially the raptor) why not pay a little more and get the real-deal?

Those were the cheapest I could find. Unless I went with something like a 2940 that was 40MB/s :) I even checked ebay. Either way it came out to $300+ with the drive... and a controller that is not fully supported on my system versus a $139 raptor that was already supported by my system.

Eric

[pudad]

yeah mine was 42 buck @ newegg (but it didn't come with anything so make that another 30 or so w/ a cable and other stuff the manufacturer would package. It is a good drive if you are operating on a desktop system (no 64bit or pci-x slots), and it is Ultra160. It does the job if you are only connecting 1 or 2 drives on a regular pci slot. I mainly got into this because I don't think it is much more expensive than a raptor, SCSI is a more mature standard, best storage system for a server, and I just wanted to learn how to set it up (just from what I learned [not to mention the greater overall performance] I consider it to be worth the extra 100-200 bucks). But if I mainly used my system for gamming, I wouldn't even buy a raptor, a fast pata drive would be where I'd turn.

[Colossus]

Originally posted by ewitte


I'm actually referring to the first sandra benchmark here (http://www.3dvelocity.com/reviews/raptor/wd360gd_5.htm). For my purposes the access time matters the most. The 80GB drive is there for storage. I think it is an older version of Sandra. The newer one gives a single raptor about 48,000. What kind of score are you getting?

Eric

Most of the reviews I have seen showed a single Raptor drive being around 42MB/s - 44MB/s average from Sandra 2003...

But my RAID 0 array of IBM 120GXP 80GB drives (2 drives) scores 52MB/sec average from Sandra 2003.. I had just ran it to make sure :)

I can show you a 4 drive array for Sanrda :D :D

[pudad]

Originally posted by Colossus


Most of the reviews I have seen showed a single Raptor drive being around 42MB/s - 44MB/s average from Sandra 2003...

But my RAID 0 array of IBM 120GXP 80GB drives (2 drives) scores 52MB/sec average from Sandra 2003.. I had just ran it to make sure :)

I can show you a 4 drive array for Sanrda :D :D

wow, that is abnormally good for a ide raid0. acording to the bench you are scoring at the level of a 15k rpm drive on with ultra 320. shows ide raid0 w/ 8megs of cache @ around 40ish along with where the raptor is and u160 15k drives. not bad

[pudad]

hehe, 15k scsi raid0 with ultra320 is ungodly fast...

something to work towards :cool: == another 500 bucks or so

heh

[Colossus]

Originally posted by pudad


wow, that is abnormally good for a ide raid0. acording to the bench you are scoring at the level of a 15k rpm drive on with ultra 320. shows ide raid0 w/ 8megs of cache @ around 40ish along with where the raptor is and u160 15k drives. not bad

True, But we both know that 8mb of cache doesnt make a difference... Since my IBM drives are faster then my Western Digital SE drives which have 8mb of cache :D :D

But It all depends on how you optimize the array :)

That was an array with a Promise 2000TX instead of onboard raid...

[ewitte]

Originally posted by pudad
yeah mine was 42 buck @ newegg (but it didn't come with anything so make that another 30 or so w/ a cable and other stuff the manufacturer would package. It is a good drive if you are operating on a desktop system (no 64bit or pci-x slots), and it is Ultra160. It does the job if you are only connecting 1 or 2 drives on a regular pci slot. I mainly got into this because I don't think it is much more expensive than a raptor, SCSI is a more mature standard, best storage system for a server, and I just wanted to learn how to set it up (just from what I learned [not to mention the greater overall performance] I consider it to be worth the extra 100-200 bucks). But if I mainly used my system for gamming, I wouldn't even buy a raptor, a fast pata drive would be where I'd turn.

The cheapest thing at newegg at the moment is $150 from some brand I've never heard of. I did find a LSI on pricewatch for $40. However the cheapest one from a place with a good rating was about $65. Why did I not find this when I was looking :) Anyway all I needed fast access time, cheap and a good sturdy drive. The raptor was all of those. No current PATA drive meets those requirements (except for cheap). It also tends to beat SCSI on "desktop performance" for some reason. The server/SQL scores are low compared to SCSI but that is not what I'm using it for. Technically I would have worried about running U160 on PCI. I'm not paying all that money for something that my system does not support. All you need is 2 drives to saturate the bus. Two raptors would be almost identical or even faster in many cases without full native support. To be honest if I had the bandwidth I would love to run a few drives on a SCSI controller with 128MB cache :) I see the $$ right now!

Eric

[ewitte]

Originally posted by Colossus


True, But we both know that 8mb of cache doesnt make a difference... Since my IBM drives are faster then my Western Digital SE drives which have 8mb of cache :D :D

But It all depends on how you optimize the array :)

That was an array with a Promise 2000TX instead of onboard raid...

Definately faster than my SE drive. At least having the low system partition performance issue :(

Eric

[pudad]

Originally posted by ewitte


The cheapest thing at newegg at the moment is $150 from some brand I've never heard of. I did find a LSI on pricewatch for $40. However the cheapest one from a place with a good rating was about $65. Why did I not find this when I was looking :) Anyway all I needed fast access time, cheap and a good sturdy drive. The raptor was all of those. No current PATA drive meets those requirements (except for cheap). It also tends to beat SCSI on "desktop performance" for some reason. The server/SQL scores are low compared to SCSI but that is not what I'm using it for. Technically I would have worried about running U160 on PCI. I'm not paying all that money for something that my system does not support. All you need is 2 drives to saturate the bus. Two raptors would be almost identical or even faster in many cases without full native support. To be honest if I had the bandwidth I would love to run a few drives on a SCSI controller with 128MB cache :) I see the $$ right now!

Eric

one step at a time, look under addon cards @ newegg btw. yeah scsi is optimised for server use for the most part. I plan on tapping into that (as well as all the normal desktop uses), so it is a better choice for me. for the most part, a desktop load isn't worth having all of that throughput anyways. What scsi drive are you comparing the raptor to btw?

8mb cache makes a good bit of difference (not insainly huge, but it is quite a bit), comparing a 120gxp to a wdse drive is like comparing apples and oranges. They are totally different drives. But that is still funny, I would have though the wd would have been faster than then ibm. Anyways, I don't trust ata raid arrays anymore, but still a nice score.

[ewitte]

Originally posted by pudad


one step at a time, look under addon cards @ newegg btw. yeah scsi is optimised for server use for the most part. I plan on tapping into that (as well as all the normal desktop uses), so it is a better choice for me. for the most part, a desktop load isn't worth having all of that throughput anyways. What scsi drive are you comparing the raptor to btw?

8mb cache makes a good bit of difference (not insainly huge, but it is quite a bit), comparing a 120gxp to a wdse drive is like comparing apples and oranges. They are totally different drives. But that is still funny, I would have though the wd would have been faster than then ibm. Anyways, I don't trust ata raid arrays anymore, but still a nice score.

They do not list LSI there. I did just find it by looking up products by brand though. My SE just has specific problems. Only the system partition is slow reguardless of position on the drive. Configured any other way it is much faster. It was fine during the first XP install. About a month later I installed XP again I started having the problem. I'm sure it will do just fine as a second drive. Most tests compare the raptor to an Maxtor Atlas 10K.

Eric

[pudad]

http://www.newegg.com/app/manufactory.asp?catalog=73&DEPA=1

sorry, "LSI LOGIC" ;)

[pudad]

and it works fine in xp, newegg is wrong AGAIN. xp has freaking built in drivers (a plus since I don't have a floppy anymore).

[ewitte]

Originally posted by pudad
http://www.newegg.com/app/manufactory.asp?catalog=73&DEPA=1

sorry, "LSI LOGIC" ;)

I was looking under http://www.newegg.com/app/manufactory.asp?catalog=11&DEPA=1

I could have got a nice 15K RPM 36GB drive and that controller for *only* about $325 :) If your going SCSI why not pay extra for 15K? Its only about 40-50 more than the 10k solution.

Eric

[pudad]

Originally posted by ewitte


I was looking under http://www.newegg.com/app/manufactory.asp?catalog=11&DEPA=1

I could have got a nice 15K RPM 36GB drive and that controller for *only* about $325 :) If your going SCSI why not pay extra for 15K? Its only about 40-50 more than the 10k solution.

Eric

that is what I just said lol ;)

[Colossus]

Originally posted by pudad

8mb cache makes a good bit of difference (not insainly huge, but it is quite a bit), comparing a 120gxp to a wdse drive is like comparing apples and oranges. They are totally different drives. But that is still funny, I would have though the wd would have been faster than then ibm. Anyways, I don't trust ata raid arrays anymore, but still a nice score.

But that is just BS... It doesnt make a difference at all in real world performance.. It just looks good so people buy it :D :D

How is comparing a IBM 120GXP to a WDSE comparing apples to oranges???? They are both HD's just one with 2mb cache with the other at 8mb cache...

I would say that is comparing apples to apples...

[pudad]

I mean, why don't you compare a 2meg wd to an 8 meg. Or a 120gxp to a 180. Then why is it that 8meg cache drives just seem faster in general (maybe psycological lol) or that they score a good deal higher in benches. Hmm, actually, benches mean sh1t most of the time. yOU MIGHT BE RIGHT ON THIS ONE. Shoot! Their goes my caps, time to order a happy hacker keyboard! :p

not sure on this one, I mean if you compare a barracuda 7200.7 with 8mb cache to one with 2, the 8 performs a lot better (in benchmarks at least).

[pudad]

oh well, I only paid an extra 2 dollars for the 120gb seagate w/ 8mb cache, so it isn't like I paid a whole lot more lol.

[Colossus]

Originally posted by pudad
I mean, why don't you compare a 2meg wd to an 8 meg. Or a 120gxp to a 180. Then why is it that 8meg cache drives just seem faster in general (maybe psycological lol) or that they score a good deal higher in benches. Hmm, actually, benches mean sh1t most of the time. yOU MIGHT BE RIGHT ON THIS ONE. Shoot! Their goes my caps, time to order a happy hacker keyboard! :p

not sure on this one, I mean if you compare a barracuda 7200.7 with 8mb cache to one with 2, the 8 performs a lot better (in benchmarks at least).

Very benchmark I have seen where they had the same platter configuration but the cache was different, they scored the same...

It probably seems faster since you reloaded the OS which 10 out of 10 times a clean OS runs faster then a few month old OS :D :D

But yes, They do perform the same... And if anything the 8mb cache is maybe .25% faster :D

But the 120GXP had always been faster then any WD drive except the SCSI or Raptor :D So it was still faster then the SE drives.. I wonder how well the 180GXP performed since its a 120GXP with 8mb cache :D

[ewitte]

Originally posted by Colossus


Very benchmark I have seen where they had the same platter configuration but the cache was different, they scored the same...

It probably seems faster since you reloaded the OS which 10 out of 10 times a clean OS runs faster then a few month old OS :D :D

But yes, They do perform the same... And if anything the 8mb cache is maybe .25% faster :D

But the 120GXP had always been faster then any WD drive except the SCSI or Raptor :D So it was still faster then the SE drives.. I wonder how well the 180GXP performed since its a 120GXP with 8mb cache :D

You mean the "Deathstars" :)

[Colossus]

Originally posted by ewitte


You mean the "Deathstars" :)

Nope :)

Out of what 300-400 IBM 60/75GXP I had 1 failure... Not a deathstar to me :)

Plus the 120GXP have a higher reliability rating then WD :)

[ewitte]

Originally posted by Colossus


Nope :)

Out of what 300-400 IBM 60/75GXP I had 1 failure... Not a deathstar to me :)

Plus the 120GXP have a higher reliability rating then WD :)

I've just been unlucky with IBM. We had a batch where 8 out of 10 SCSI drives were bad. I've seen thier laptop drives die a lot. On top of that the model I had at home was the one that was famous for dying. I got an RMA for it and the new one died within 2 months. Generally I do not even use a drive very long anymore before upgrading.

Eric

[pudad]

Originally posted by ewitte


I've just been unlucky with IBM. We had a batch where 8 out of 10 SCSI drives were bad. I've seen thier laptop drives die a lot. On top of that the model I had at home was the one that was famous for dying. I got an RMA for it and the new one died within 2 months. Generally I do not even use a drive very long anymore before upgrading.

Eric

no, it is bad luck that you decided to buy those poses. it is bad engineering that made them fail on you, ibm is truly the last disk I would ever consider purchasing.

[ewitte]

Originally posted by pudad


no, it is bad luck that you decided to buy those poses. it is bad engineering that made them fail on you, ibm is truly the last disk I would ever consider purchasing.

You know it was considered a good drive when it came out. It had great reviews. Then about a year later everyone started complaining how unrealiable the were. Sure enough it died on me. I still have the RMA drive. It *may* work but I gave up on it when I got my WD SE drive.

Eric

[pudad]

I read somewhere that ibm has some exclusive stuff that make it perform nicely in benchmarks, but it's actual performance isn't as good as what benchmarks can tell. all I have to say is, any ibm I have owned (and I have been through 4 some 60 and 120 gxps) has seemed much slower in actual use than my barracuda 4. could be anything, but I juat lost my trust in ibm drive after my first 2 died on me. wd and Seagate are good in my book. never ran a maxtor, for the most part I am loyal to seagate, until their products start failing on me left and right (which I doubt).