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?
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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?
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
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. :)Quote:
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).
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!!!
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.Quote:
Originally posted by Colossus
Double your data transfer???? ATA150 is just a theoritical number.. You will never actually be anywhere near it!
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 :)
Nice to see that your sticking around the boards colossus :) My comp parts are slowly coming in from vancouver :D
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!Quote:
Originally posted by Colossus
Thanks.. I decided not to be easily intimidated!
Quote:
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.
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.
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.:)
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).
Dunno what to tell you :)Quote:
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.
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 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 :)Quote:
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...
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
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!
Here is another review :)
http://www.abxzone.com/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=9
https://www.sharkyforums.com/
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.Quote:
Originally posted by Colossus
Here is another review :)
http://www.abxzone.com/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=9
http://www.asusboards.com/images/rev...or/rap128k.jpg
Eric
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. 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?Quote:
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
Eric
There are several problems with SCSI on a home computer. If not for these problems I might have went that way eventually.Quote:
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. :)
- 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
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
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?
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.