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Faster Harddive : Raptor or SATA or SATAII?

A

austin316

Diamond Member
I know really nothing about HD. I currently have a 120gb seagate and its running like crap, so I need a new one.

Whats the faster HD, a raptor, sata or sataII? Also, I have a DFI lanparty 250gb Nforce 3 mobo. Can this accept SATA and SATAII?


Thanks.

Also, since my seagate drive is only a year old, can I get it fixed, even though it still technically works?
 
Supports four SATA interfaces with speed up to 1.5Gbps
- Two Serial ATA ports supported by nForce3 250Gb chip
- Two Serial ATA ports supported by Marvell SATA PHY
Click to expand...

Yes you support SATA, no SATAII.

A raptor is a special high RPM Serial ATA hard drive, unless you have some SERIOUS POWER behind your pc you don't need it, just get a 250-300GB SATA drive
 
Most of my buddies maintain new / fast PC rigs. Some have Raptors with SATA, some have those new Seagates with SATA II, and some are like me with just a generic cheap 160 GB SATA drive with 8 MB of cache.

You know what? As long as the drives are all defragmented, they all perform about the same overall. The Raptor based system feels the fastest I suppose, but the differences aren't really noticable unless you have two machines running side-by-side. I think faster CPUs, more RAM, faster graphics, newer drivers, and frequent defragmenting has made most of the performance differences I've seen between our rigs.

If you have the money, go ahead and get a faster beefier drive, but don't expect wonders. It's still just one lone drive. The best performance boosts I've seen without spending a lot of money and useful for old hardware re-use is to put your OS on one drive, you applications on another drive, and your data files on a third drive. Make sure each drive is on it's own channel and you're good to go.

I suppose you could always get an external hardware RAID running off a dozen drives and interfaced to your PC via 2gbit Fibrechannel! 🙂 That's what many of the video and effects pros use.
 
Originally posted by: austin316
Whats the faster HD, a raptor, sata or sataII? Also, I have a DFI lanparty 250gb Nforce 3 mobo. Can this accept SATA and SATAII?
Click to expand...

All the 74 GB SATA Raptor's support TCQ, and SATA II.

SATA II is backwards compatible with SATA I, so you could use either type of HDD with that MB.
 
if it's only a year old sounds like you might need to defrag it. (apologies if you already have).
I've got a single raptor and it's fast, but it doesn't feel that much faster than my old Caviar SEs (WD w/ 8MB cache) that I had in it before. Plus, 74GB isn't a whole lot in a modern system. I've got two 200GB Seagates as storage.

I'd say any Seagate, WD or Maxtor drive should do you for your new drive. as of last fall, the sweet spot for $/GB (if memory serves) was the 160GB range, but that has probably changed since.
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
Originally posted by: austin316
Whats the faster HD, a raptor, sata or sataII? Also, I have a DFI lanparty 250gb Nforce 3 mobo. Can this accept SATA and SATAII?
Click to expand...

All the 74 GB SATA Raptor's support NCQ, and SATA II.
Click to expand...

36gb Raptors as well?
 
Think you will find that the Raptor is still only 150MB/s (max) and not fully SATA II. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=40

The only SATA II drives I have seen that are 300MB/s are from Hitachi such as the Deskstar T7K250.

Also I have not seen any third party controllers that can support the 300MB/s transfer rate. The NVidia NForce 4 motherboard does and is one of the first I believe.

Anyone know of any other products recently available I would be interested to hear about them as I am also looking to update my RAID sub system and want SATA II + NCQ
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
Originally posted by: austin316
Whats the faster HD, a raptor, sata or sataII? Also, I have a DFI lanparty 250gb Nforce 3 mobo. Can this accept SATA and SATAII?
Click to expand...

All the 74 GB SATA Raptor's support NCQ, and SATA II.

SATA II is backwards compatible with SATA I, so you could use either type of HDD with that MB.
Click to expand...

Raptors do not support NCQ. THey support TCG (Tagged Command Queuing) but not Native.

Additionally yes they are backwards compatible with SATAII but do not support it. They are an IDE drive with a SATA I bridge.

Personally a Raptor is not worth the money. If you want speed get a SCSI drive. Otherwise the new Seagate Barracuda 7200.8's with SATA II and NCQ are excellent.

-Kevin
 
Seems Newegg corrected that typo. Well at any rate they still use NCQ which will give you better results than the Raptor in some cases.

-Kevin
 
Does it really matter at this point whether they support 150 or 300MB/sec? I don't know of ANY drive that can put out even close to 150MB/sec. The raptors are pushing maybe 80 at most from what I've seen.

Now what I'm wondering is whether or not the 150MB/sec is per controller or per channel. Say you have 4 Raptors RAID'd. Theoretically that would be well over 150MB/sec. Would the controller be limiting it to 150 or is that just 150 per channel?
 
None of these drives will ever get to 300MB/S anyways and NCQ really only helps in a multi user environment that I have seen...
I run a 74GB Raptor and a 7200.7 200GB Seagate. The Raptor is noticibly faster at writing than the Seagate. I belive last time I checked my Raptor consistantly could write about 65MB/sec while the Seagate was around 55MB/sec. Don't get me wrong the other 7200 RPM drives are fast and I'm sure the newer 7200.8 or Maxline III drives catch up to the Raptor a little bit in through put but the seek times are still quite a bit slower and to me it IS noticable.

The real question is how much space you need. If you already have a large size drive then def go with the Raptor. If you don't then go with a drive that is going to give you some capacity. NCQ isn't goign to really help you much and neither is SATA II so I wouldn't really factor them into the equation.
 
I agree that at this point in time having a 150MB/s or 300MB/s SATA II drive is academic. However, the drive you buy will still be good for years to come (I still have my original IBM AT with a 30 MB HDD) and the PC still works perfectly well. So I would advise buying the 300 MB/s as who knows what the systems in 18 months will be capable of.

I also agree that 80 ish MB/s is about the best you will see today but that is for a single drive with a single controller, for those wishing to spend some more cash then you can increase that throughput rate as much as your wallet can support and your system can handle, squeezing performance out of PC's is all about 'bottleneck' management after all.

Also NCQ is only supported on newish MoBo's and controllers but I'm sure no one would advise buying a drive today that doesnt support it.
 
Too loud? I don't hear my Raptor at all unless its really crunching, and even then its not very loud at all. I think the chipset fan on my A8N is much more of a problem.
 
Originally posted by: kextyn
Too loud? I don't hear my Raptor at all unless its really crunching, and even then its not very loud at all. I think the chipset fan on my A8N is much more of a problem.
Click to expand...

I agree. I don't know why people say it's so loud. The only time it's noticeably louder than a 7,200 RPM HDD is when it's seeking.

I suppose noise level is subjective to the listener though. Placement of the case, and type/size of case, among other things, will have an effect on perceived noise also.
 
Originally posted by: WW2Planes1
if it's only a year old sounds like you might need to defrag it. (apologies if you already have).
I've got a single raptor and it's fast, but it doesn't feel that much faster than my old Caviar SEs (WD w/ 8MB cache) that I had in it before. Plus, 74GB isn't a whole lot in a modern system. I've got two 200GB Seagates as storage.

I'd say any Seagate, WD or Maxtor drive should do you for your new drive. as of last fall, the sweet spot for $/GB (if memory serves) was the 160GB range, but that has probably changed since.
Click to expand...

Defrag it? I have never tried this. How do I do it and will I lose all of my data?
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
Originally posted by: kextyn
Too loud? I don't hear my Raptor at all unless its really crunching, and even then its not very loud at all. I think the chipset fan on my A8N is much more of a problem.
Click to expand...

I agree. I don't know why people say it's so loud. The only time it's noticeably louder than a 7,200 RPM HDD is when it's seeking.

I suppose noise level is subjective to the listener though. Placement of the case, and type/size of case, among other things, will have an effect on perceived noise also.
Click to expand...


Yeah, actually, I have 2 raptors(36g) in raid 0. They were hella loud when doing anything really. however, i switched it to a friends comp once(different type of case and what not), and I couldnt hear it so much anymore. However, in some cases, it is realllly loud. Sometimes I wonder if some people just got bad batches or anything. If i had known that some people's weren't loud at all, I would've RMA'd mine, but it's too late now.
 
In my experience the raptors are really fast. Not at everything though, but when moving large files around and what not, it makes a difference. Like some others mentioned though, there isn't a HUGE difference. I think in the end it depends on your own preference. You know, size over speed. If you need the storage, purchase a larger drive. you won't be missing out too much on performance(if at all depending on what you do with your comp). however, if you want the speed, you could always purchase a 74gb raptor and keep the 120gb for storage of whatever. Either one of those choices i think will be your best options.
 
Well I guess I should mention that I have a Cooler Master Stacker case which is all steel except the exterior panels. Its also not screwed to the chassis, its screwed in an enclosure that is attached to the case with rubber pads which is then held in place by plastic strips. I've heard a more solid case is quieter for that stuff.
 
Originally posted by: austin316
Originally posted by: WW2Planes1
if it's only a year old sounds like you might need to defrag it. (apologies if you already have).
I've got a single raptor and it's fast, but it doesn't feel that much faster than my old Caviar SEs (WD w/ 8MB cache) that I had in it before. Plus, 74GB isn't a whole lot in a modern system. I've got two 200GB Seagates as storage.

I'd say any Seagate, WD or Maxtor drive should do you for your new drive. as of last fall, the sweet spot for $/GB (if memory serves) was the 160GB range, but that has probably changed since.
Click to expand...

Defrag it? I have never tried this. How do I do it and will I lose all of my data?
Click to expand...

:Q !!!! You've never defragged?!!?!?!? wow .... Ok well no you don't lose any data it simply rearanges how data is laid out on the disk making it more efficient.

All you need to do is go to my computer > right click the hard drive > proporites > Tools > Defragment Now > click on the disk and hit defragment.
 
Yeah... you've never defragged and you've had the drive for a year? That right there could be your problem.

Do what JBT said and come back and tell us how things feel. You'll also get a graphical representation which will show you how fragmented your drive is (and it's probably hella fragmented).
 
Originally posted by: JBT
Originally posted by: austin316
Originally posted by: WW2Planes1
if it's only a year old sounds like you might need to defrag it. (apologies if you already have).
I've got a single raptor and it's fast, but it doesn't feel that much faster than my old Caviar SEs (WD w/ 8MB cache) that I had in it before. Plus, 74GB isn't a whole lot in a modern system. I've got two 200GB Seagates as storage.

I'd say any Seagate, WD or Maxtor drive should do you for your new drive. as of last fall, the sweet spot for $/GB (if memory serves) was the 160GB range, but that has probably changed since.
Click to expand...

Defrag it? I have never tried this. How do I do it and will I lose all of my data?
Click to expand...

:Q !!!! You've never defragged?!!?!?!? wow .... Ok well no you don't lose any data it simply rearanges how data is laid out on the disk making it more efficient.

All you need to do is go to my computer > right click the hard drive > proporites > Tools > Defragment Now > click on the disk and hit defragment.
Click to expand...

<------ Is an idiot.

No wonder all my harddrives crap out. I have never, ever defragged a harddrive. In the last two years, I had two 40gb IBM drives crap out and now my seagate.

I'll repeat back with my findings. BTW, can a defrag the HD in my modded xbox?
 
You may want to defrag a couple of times since more than likely it is pretty fragmented. I have no idea about the xbox. It might have that feature but I really don't know.
 
http://www.datadocktorn.nu/us_frag1.php

From the Xbox-Scene forum.
Search on this, like previous post says; theres a HUGE topic about this already...

Also, you asked if Windows could defrag the drive via usb cable...the answer is no, the Xbox uses FATX as its File System while Windows either uses FAT/NTFS as its file system and it'll be unable to handle the Xbox Hdd's File System.

Only solution that I can provide you with right now is just to copy EVERYTHING from your hard drive to another harddrive via FTP...then reformat the xbox's hard drive and copy everything over to it again.

Also, the best way to prevent fragmentation is to keep everything you put on the hdd until there is no more room, then delete a game or whatever....then copy the new game

Hope that clears somethings up.

BlueCELL
Click to expand...
 
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