36GB Raptor

[pioneercrazed]

I know raptor questions are probably getting old, but here it goes...

I'm thinking of grabbing a 36gb 8mb cache raptor for 2 purposes.

1.) Windows XP
2.) BF2
3.) Maybe another game or two

My setup now uses a WD2500JD, 250gb 7200 w/8mb cache SATA HD.

Space isn't really an issue, I've still got 173gb free on the WD and that's with OS and games on it...

I've read a ton about the raptors, but it gets confusing with the difference between access time, transfer writes, yada, yada...

I ran HDtach and my drive is faster on the graphs..? PIC OF GRAPH Didn't expect that... but the system on the HDtach with the raptor is only running an XP 3200+, Asus mobo w/ VIA chipsets. Would that affect the avg. speed of the raptor?

My specs:
A64 3200+
512 Corsair VS (Soon to be 1gb Mushkin 4000)
Biostar Tforce-939 mobo
WD 250 Sata HD

Any help appreciated...

 

[dBTelos]

Raptors don't provide a significant difference in gaming, especially the 36GB version. The 36GB version is usually beat out in speed by most perpendicular recording drives.

 

[F1shF4t]

Now days at the start of the drive they dont perform any different to standard 7200rpm ones, for example a 80 gig seafate 7200.9 at start of drive has the same transfer speed as my 74 gig raptor. But at the end of the drive the raptor is still at 50meg/sec, while the other drive is only around 35meg/sec, and the seek times the raptor smashes all other drives.

Raptors are VERY nice boot drives, fast seek times mean they are more responsive and windows boots a hell of a lot faster, otherwise instaling games on it does nothing u would be better off getting a larger cheaper drive for games instalation and/or storage.

 

[BOLt]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Now days at the start of the drive they dont perform any different to standard 7200rpm ones, for example a 80 gig seafate 7200.9 at start of drive has the same transfer speed as my 74 gig raptor. But at the end of the drive the raptor is still at 50meg/sec, while the other drive is only around 35meg/sec, and the seek times the raptor smashes all other drives.

Raptors are VERY nice boot drives, fast seek times mean they are more responsive and windows boots a hell of a lot faster, otherwise instaling games on it does nothing u would be better off getting a larger cheaper drive for games instalation and/or storage.

Yes.

An alternative is a RAID setup of some kind.

Note that when comparing drive speeds at the "beginning" and "end" of the drive, one must compare single platter to single platter drives (or dual platter to dual platter). Last time I checked, 160 GB HDDs were the largest single platter options (might've been 120 -- I can't remember). Reading/writing to multiple platters is relatively slower than just one. However, I am not sure how NCQ, frequent and complete defragmentation, or perpendicular recording affect this point.

 

[Skeeedunt]

Originally posted by: dBTelos
Raptors don't provide a significant difference in gaming, especially the 36GB version. The 36GB version is usually beat out in speed by most perpendicular recording drives.

 

[F1shF4t]

Well what i did was get a prog to read the drive from start to finish (used MHDD). Using everest gives similar results.
Thats what i got. (these numbers are using everest, i didn't record the other ones, and it would take about 5 hourst to retest it all)
All drives are sata.

Raptor 74gig - 69mg/sec start - 50mg/sec end - average access 7.38ms (raptors are the 8mg cache versions)
Raptor 36gig - 62mg/sec start - 43mg/sec end - average access 7.69ms
WD 200 gig - 61mg/sec start - 35mg/sec end - average access 13.01ms
WD 200 gig- 59mg/sec start - 34mg/sec end - average access 12.52ms
Seagate 80 gig (7200.9) - 70mg/sec start - 33mg/sec end - average access 14.09ms
Seagate 120 gig (7200.7)- 57mg/sec start - 28mg/sec end - average access 12.44ms


Thats the seagate is slightly faster at the start while the raptor smashes it in access time and reading at the end. I think that segate 80 gigi is a single plater drive, not sure though. In the end the raptor is overall a lot quicker to use.

The 36gig one outperforms the 200 gig wd drives.

If anyone could run the same thing on a 320 gig drive that would be good, just to compare.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Now days at the start of the drive they dont perform any different to standard 7200rpm ones, for example a 80 gig seafate 7200.9 at start of drive has the same transfer speed as my 74 gig raptor. But at the end of the drive the raptor is still at 50meg/sec, while the other drive is only around 35meg/sec, and the seek times the raptor smashes all other drives.

Raptors are VERY nice boot drives, fast seek times mean they are more responsive and windows boots a hell of a lot faster, otherwise instaling games on it does nothing u would be better off getting a larger cheaper drive for games instalation and/or storage.

Huh? No... It's the END of the drive where the speed difference is small. Data is written from the outside in...

 

[Never Knows Best]

Raptors are not worth it unless you are going to be running a massive file server where i/o latencies are important.

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: goku

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Now days at the start of the drive they dont perform any different to standard 7200rpm ones, for example a 80 gig seafate 7200.9 at start of drive has the same transfer speed as my 74 gig raptor. But at the end of the drive the raptor is still at 50meg/sec, while the other drive is only around 35meg/sec, and the seek times the raptor smashes all other drives.

Raptors are VERY nice boot drives, fast seek times mean they are more responsive and windows boots a hell of a lot faster, otherwise instaling games on it does nothing u would be better off getting a larger cheaper drive for games instalation and/or storage.

Huh? No... It's the END of the drive where the speed difference is small. Data is written from the outside in...

Nope, at the start the drives are equal cause the bigger drives have much more denser platters so their read speed is higher, the raptors make up with their faster spindle speed. At the end of the drive the 7200rpm drives no longer have the dense platter to help em read as fast.

Hey i could be wrong, but like i said i used everest disk benchmark and also MHDD which scaned the drive from start to finish and reported the speed droping as it went along towards the end of the drive.

 

[pioneercrazed]

Thanks everyone, you guys rule!

I'll try to run that everest benchmark on mine tomorrow.

 

[BOLt]

I should try Everest out. I downloaded it awhile ago, but never got around to installing or using with it.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Seagate 7200.10 320GB 16MB > Raptor 36GB.

Nearly 10x more space and faster overall. Perhaps even cheaper?

 

[pioneercrazed]

In the used market, I'm looking at about 60 shipped..

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Seagate 7200.10 320GB 16MB > Raptor 36GB.

Nearly 10x more space and faster overall. Perhaps even cheaper?

The access times make a big difference when it comes to booting windows. By the way do u have that seagate 7200.10 drive, if you do could u run the everest disk benchmark on it, just the read test suite.

 

[dBTelos]

Originally posted by: pioneercrazed
In the used market, I'm looking at about 60 shipped..

Just depends on your prioritys I guess.

 

[Boyo]

Some people love and hate the Raptors. I love them, but I would recommend getting the new 74GB Raptor which now has 16MB of cache.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Originally posted by: Boyo
Some people love and hate the Raptors. I love them, but I would recommend getting the new 74GB Raptor which now has 16MB of cache.

Agreed.

 

[modestninja]

Originally posted by: Zaitsev

Originally posted by: Boyo
Some people love and hate the Raptors. I love them, but I would recommend getting the new 74GB Raptor which now has 16MB of cache.

Agreed.

I'm not a Raptor hater, but I would never get one. They provide very little real world performance gains in general use and gaming (my main uses) and they cost way more than other drives.

If the Op wants better performance in BF2 he'd be much better off spending his money on more ram, or a better video card.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Originally posted by: modestninja

Originally posted by: Zaitsev

Originally posted by: Boyo
Some people love and hate the Raptors. I love them, but I would recommend getting the new 74GB Raptor which now has 16MB of cache.

Agreed.

I'm not a Raptor hater, but I would never get one. They provide very little real world performance gains in general use and gaming (my main uses) and they cost way more than other drives.

If the Op wants better performance in BF2 he'd be much better off spending his money on more ram, or a better video card.

That's true, he would be better off with more ram or a faster vid card. But as far as hd performance goes, I think there are noticable gains for me. However, I only notice when I'm gaming. When I first got my raptor I daul booted xp on the 74Gb raptor and a 250Gb Hitachi deskstar. When loading maps on counterstrike/Bf2 with the deskstar, I'm in the middle of the pack, but with the Raptor I'm always one of the first. Since gaming is the only reason I want more performance, I kept the Raptor.

All that says is that the Raptor is faster than the Hitachi, but for me, there is a difference.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

WE NEEDZ PROOFS!

 

[pioneercrazed]

First of all Dark Cupcake, how'd you benchmark your HDs in Everest? When I click benchmark all it has is Memory testing... I'd like to test my WD 250...

As for BF2, my performance is great; I was referring to better load times of the HUGE maps that take a while to load.

Concering the Raptor, I bought a 74GB 8mb cache version with these 3 games (Far Cry, HL2 EP1, Rainbow6 LockDown & Brothers in Arms: Earned In Blood) for $110 shipped; not too bad a deal as I see it. It's still under warranty for a few more years also.

My setup changed a little today:

A64 3200+ @ 2.5
Mushkin Redline running 250 fsb @ 2,2,2,6
Biostar Tforce 6100-939
WD 250GB Sata
Evga 7800GT

I'll definitley be running benchmarks, lemme know how/what to run.

 

[the Chase]

If you want great load times for cheap in BF2- buy 4 80 gig SATA drives for $45-$50 a piece and RAID 0 them. Will beat any Raptor drive made by a mile for game loading. (And also beat 2 Raptors in RAID 0 but it would be a lot more close.)

 

[dBTelos]

Originally posted by: the Chase
If you want great load times for cheap in BF2- buy 4 80 gig SATA drives for $45-$50 a piece and RAID 0 them. Will beat any Raptor drive made by a mile for game loading. (And also beat 2 Raptors in RAID 0 but it would be a lot more close.)

RAID0 helps very little while gaming.

Now you ask yourself what about the loading times in 3D games that use huge maps? A few tests were made by Maximum PC using three different games such as Far Cry, Doom 3 and Battlefield 1942 while playing in single player mode. "Little performance benefits appeared from the RAID 0 array, In some cases there were some decreases in performance. These startling results prompted an extended version of tests. Today's games rely more on the CPU in terms of mission and level loading. That means that alot of time is spent decompressing and opening levels, textures and sounds that are being read from the hard disk. To determine just how important the CPU is in loading levels, two different CPUs were used on a test bed. A 3.2 GHZ Pentium 4 and a 2.0 GHZ processor. The 2.0 GHZ processor performed 14 seconds slower than the 3.2GHZ one."

http://faqs.ign.com/articles/606/606669p1.html

 

[ebeattie]

Ive been thinking about getting araptor for some time now, but I am usually one of the first loaders into BF2. Im running a 80GB SATA 8 mb cache Western Digital. I just got a 250 GB WD SATA 3.0 Gb/s HD. Im probably going to use THAT for my main HD, asnd save to get a pair of 160 GB SATA 3.0Gb/s 16mb cache WD drives for RAID 0 (Windows and games), then use my 250GB for main storage and my current 80GB SATA for media backup.

 

[pioneercrazed]

Well I ran the benchmark using Everest 3.0.1.652... I ran the "Read Test Suite"; Here is a pic of the results:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/pioneercrazed/WDHDTest.jpg

WD 250 Sata - 58.2mg/sec start - 33.6mg/sec end - average access 13.17ms