10,000 rpm hard drives...

[KevinUK]

What real difference do they provide over a 7000rpm?

I think a 10,000 150GB costs £150 where as you can get a 1TB 7000rpm for £85...

If there is a real benefit then I could use a 150gb for the OS and core apps and use my existing 2 x 300gb 7000rpm for music/vids/docs.

 

[Embattle]

Get a Samsung F1 drive instead, they are about as fast and you get a lot more space for your money....also less noise.

 

[Ch3tan]

Or save for solid state if you want really fast load times.

I have a raptor, and have just ordered a velicoraptor. I like them, and I do not find them loud.

 

[ST^]

I have a Raptor. The Spinpoint F1 is probably a better choice due to the price.

The Velociraptor, however, destroys the F1 and the old Raptor in performance. I imagine my next PC will have one inside

 

[Embattle]

Sorry it is faster but in no way does it destroy the F1, example can be found here - Western Digital VelociRaptor | Hard disks / storage | Reviews | Custom PC

As for SSD this is a young market compared to the very mature market of traditional HDs thus the performance isn't quite as stella as it should be although in some cases this is a recognised proble - BetaNews | SanDisk won't specify Vista SSD problems, but is 'working with Microsoft'

 

[KevinUK]

I think I'll get 2 x maxtors 32mb cache 7000rpm 500gb then. Same price and spec as 1tb samsung but I can raid them.

 

[Embattle]

Which Maxtors, the thing that makes the F1s faster isn't only 32mb of cache but is mainly down to the areal density being higher than other drives.

 

[KevinUK]

Samsung
Maxtor

The Samsung seek time and latency is only just slower but it has more features. This is too much hard work!

 

[Yaka]

you are niot gona notice it unless you use some serious number crunching apps or somat. go for the sammy its cheaper and has no bad rep like the deathstar

 

[KevinUK]

Even if I put the 2 maxtors in raid 0? It works out the same price so its just down to which option gives the best performance.

I thought raid 0 would make games load levels faster or something.

 

[Embattle]

Still stick with the F1 if possible, even if you go for the 750GB version since it'll still be faster due to the areal density....basically more data is stuff into the same space.

 

[TdC]

I currently have 4 750GB F1's in RAID 5. It's pants-creamingly fast. Not that you'd notice, running Vista as I do, but it is, because HDtach says so

 

[Fweddy]

Teedles if you can't tell for yourself if your PC is good and want an app that will analyse it for you then just copy this code into notepad:

This PC is rated as 'shit hot fast'

save it as a .txt file and then run it.

 

[TdC]

I get 5.9's on everything in Vista performance center!














(that means "your PC is barely capable of supporting this high-performance OS" in MS language)

 

[Embattle]

I'll be getting my next little project under way this weekend, I've ordered myself an F1 750GB drive which will replace my two 320gb drives (RAID 0) in my computer and these in turn will be placed in Synology DS207 which is due at the same time. It'll be used to store my photos, music, etc centrally so the other members of my family can grab them when they want to without bugging me, I will use it in RAID 1 mode so I don't loose all my data

 

[ST^]

Sorry it is faster but in no way does it destroy the F1, example can be found here - Western Digital VelociRaptor | Hard disks / storage | Reviews | Custom PC

How about a real benchmark?

More than 10% faster average just on throughput. Then you have the seek time... it's safe to say the VRaptor is indeed far quicker than the F1.

 

[Yaka]

they do say tis the fastest,

 

[Embattle]

How about a real benchmark?

*Snip*

More than 10% faster average just on throughput. Then you have the seek time... it's safe to say the VRaptor is indeed far quicker than the F1.

Well lets get one thing off the bat first, I never said it wasn't faster but sorry it still isn't Far quicker even when using the basic benchmarks and in the real world that difference is even less. It could come down to what someone considers far faster and personally I dislike comparing bananas and apples and thus at the end of this post you'll see an important fact when considering price/performance.

I mean how about some more links, with some more benchmarks:

WD's New Raptor Drive Is a Bird of Prey! : The VelociRaptor Bites! - Tom's Hardware
VelociRaptor Redux: Now with final firmware - The Tech Report - Page 1

The techreport one is probably the most interesting since it uses a mixture of more relevant tests where again the VR is generally the fastest drive, although like most sites it also uses some benchmarks which just won't matter to the home user since the patterns of use are totally different.

So the conclusion is simple, it is faster but costs a lot more and is a lot smaller in capacity terms. If we take this a step further and actually look at the cost side of it I can get two Samsung F1s (2x 1TB) and stick them in RAID 0 for the same price as a single VR 300GB, however ideally I would want to get an addin raid controller since most onboard ones aren't that good. You may well counter this arguement with the simple fact that you can use the VRs in a RAID 0 but again you could then carry on the arguement that for that price you can get 4 F1s and so on, although at this stage you would defo need to shell out for the addin card....plus now you are getting into stupid money for data storage.

 

[Kryten]

What's the difference in pricing though? At that level and if I really wanted to play around with uber drive performance the Raptors would certainly be top of the list, and I'm probably going to guess that you could buy 3 F1's for the price of 2 Raptors.




Just had a quick look.
300gb Velocirator, circa £160.
1tb F1 Spinpoint, circa £80.

Lot more storage, half the price. RAID time

 

[Ch3tan]

Well I have just installed 2 gig more ram, to take it to 4gig. Put in my new VRaptor and installed XP on it. It is very quick and very quiet. I can't hear it over the fans, whereas I can hear the old raptor.

I agree that it is not a massive boost in performance, and it is expensive for it's size, but I have a 500gb external for backup and storage.

 

[Kryten]

Fair play - end of the day there's different markets to consider.

AND of course, something I should have said in my last post - a VRaptor will be stonkingly quick, quiet and reliable without any extra gizmos, and to get the best performance and reliability/scalability out of RAID, you need to be purchasing a decent controller card rather than the onboard software based stuff