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

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

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

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

[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...