Barracuda or raptor?

[YankeesWin]

I want to run my OS/programs off of one drive, and the rest of my junk off of my 400gb drive. How much of a difference am I looking at in performace/efficiency between a raptor and say, a 7200rpm barracudda? Would it be worth it to get the raptor or would I be ok with a small (40-80gb) barracuda?

 

[jkresh]

depends on what you are running, the seek time of the raptor is nice but for raw bandwidth it doesn't have that much of an advantage over the newer large platter 7200rpm drives.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

I think this is one of those questions that nobody ever agrees on.
Benchmarks don't show much difference between Raptors and regular 7,200rpm HDDs (single-drive setup) but Raptor-owners claim their systems feel snappier, more responsive etc.

I would never buy a Raptor. A Raptor is what you get after you've got the best CPU, GPU, Motherboard, RAM, Sound Card etc. and still have cash burning a hole in your pocket. Of course, this is just my opinion.

 

[CloE]

I have 2 raptors in raid 0, but never used a SATAII drive. It's very fast loading seek time, (cuz i'm always the fastest guys when loading new maps in CS:S)

the point is, if you already have lots storage HDs. then get raptors and go raid for speed in games & apps. otherwise get a large 500GB SATAII drive for everything

 

[Genx87]

This is one of those things where you have to weigh the benefits vs the cost. On a per GB cost, Raptors are terrible compared to other drives. However they are the fastest desktop drive you will find.

Personally after owning a Raptor, i could never go back to a 7200 rpm drive for an OS drive. The Raptor is just noticeably faster.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
I think this is one of those questions that nobody ever agrees on.
Benchmarks don't show much difference between Raptors and regular 7,200rpm HDDs (single-drive setup) but Raptor-owners claim their systems feel snappier, more responsive etc.

I would never buy a Raptor. A Raptor is what you get after you've got the best CPU, GPU, Motherboard, RAM, Sound Card etc. and still have cash burning a hole in your pocket. Of course, this is just my opinion.

The cost of a Raptor drive isn't that significant and considering the HD is the slowest part in a system doesn't it make more sense to have the fastest drive available?

 

[drag]

Personally I like the large capacity 7200rpm drives for good performance.

They are nearly as fast as the raptor stuff, but are cheaper, are much much larger, and much quieter.. which is important for me and my desktop.

But some people prefer speed and the harddrive is actually the bottle neck on desktop PC performance so it makes sense to get the best model that fits best with your wants and needs.

For relative comparision of speed of drives under many different circumstances check out:
http://www.storagereview.com/comparison.html

This has a list of drives that are recommended based on their sound qualities:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article29-page1.html
(current to about mid of last year.)

 

[BD2003]

The raptor is noticibly faster, especially for gaming.

 

[Pirotech]

really you won't even notice the difference in speed, the only things that should be considered is the level of noise and may be guarantee(number of years).

 

[Tweakin]

Since I have an older 74GB Raptor (smaller cache), I wanted to do real-world test for my self as I needed to buy a new drive for my sons machine anyway. I loaded my clean ghost image and ran some tests (HD Tach, Everest and the such). Specs alone would lead you to buy the 320 GB Drive (this was the new WD unit). In real world applications, my system booted noticably faster with the raptor, HL2 and COD loaded much quicker but once the system was running...I couldn't tell the difference.

I have since installed RAID 0 with 2 WD 160G drives and my system feels just as snappy as with the Raptor...and just last week I installed 4 WD 160's because I could and other then the numbers again, I felt no additional thrill.

If I needed new drives, I would go for RAID 0 with two 320-400 GB unites...If I had the money, I'd do RAID 0 with two Raptor 150's.

Just my own personal experience.

 

[YankeesWin]

Thanks for the input guys. Based on the fact that I already have some monster apps running (Visual Studio for instance) and the fact that I am interested in gaming more (to keep from going out/partying all the time and slacking on my studies), I guess I'll go with two 36GB Raptors and go RAID for the OS; noise isn't really a big issue for me (a raptor can't be any louder than my roommate). Thanks again everyone, time for a little raid 0 research...

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: BD2003
The raptor is noticibly faster, especially for gaming.

Should be a bit faster.

In the benchmarks I linked to for Farcry performance:
Top Raptor performance: 943
The fastest 7200rpm drive (Deskstar 500G): 763
Mine (WD 400gig (very quiet drive, IMO)): 735
Barracuda (750gig): 676