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Is the WD Raptor really worth it?

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Originally posted by: homercles337
No, i think youre being delusional. RAID 0 equates to faster load times in gaming. I have witnessed this first hand. Plus, windows boots faster and apps launch faster. Im not saying that apps "run" faster, they sure as hell launch faster though.
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Are you retarded?
 
I find that defragging on a regular basis greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to load a map in any game, for example UT2k4 or Q3. I don't have the fastest system out there, but I'm generally the first person to enter a map and waiting for others to join. People ask if I have a screaming system - not (AMD 2500+ Barton and your typical ATA133 IDE drive). My computer goes into defrag mode everytime the screensaver starts.
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
Originally posted by: homercles337
No, i think youre being delusional. RAID 0 equates to faster load times in gaming. I have witnessed this first hand. Plus, windows boots faster and apps launch faster. Im not saying that apps "run" faster, they sure as hell launch faster though.
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Are you retarded?
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Are you an a$$hole in real life, or just on the net? Either put up or shut up.

BTW, joined: 01/02/2005 with 962 posts? Get a life man. :disgust:
 
Originally posted by: Blain
Originally posted by: homercles337
Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Originally posted by: MrControversial
I opted out of the Raptor for two 160GB SATA NCQ drives in RAID0.
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RAID 0 is like the Raptors, offers virtually no real world performance increase.

As i said in many threads, RAID is not meant for the average enthusiast looking for a quick performance gain.

-Kevin
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You have no clue what youre talking about. EVERYTHING that is disk read/seek/write oriented is faster in RAID 0. Is everything 2x as fast, nope. But every single disk read/write bench i run puts me at 250MB/s for 150MB/s SATAs. Quit trying to knock RAID unless you link to actual HD benches.
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Please link me up to any benchmarks that indicate "seek" times are any faster under RAID 0 vs. single drives.
Thank you. :laugh:
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Exactly. You guys claim 3x the speed, and huge improvements all that, were is the evidence of this. I posted pure evidence to back up my claim done by AT. Instead of flaming me why dont you put your money where your mouth is.

The 74 GB Raptor will absolutely feel faster then any 7200 RPM HDD, including the 16 MB cache Maxtor. 4.5 ms seek on the 10,000 RPM Raptor ll vs 9.3ms seek time on the 7200 RPM 16 MB cache Maxline lll . No contest.
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While the seek times are much better on the raptor, this does not translate into real world performance. If you would take the time and instead of flaming me, look at the links i posted then you would know this.

throughput man....i benched the old drive at about one third of what the raptor was putting out...i dont remember what the exact numbers were now...but i remember the drive index was almost tripled by the raptor
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Well lets just say we have a super super slow drive that only sustains 33mb/s. You claim 3x the throughput. So you claim that a Raptor has 100mb/s. Try again genious. I doubt the raptor or any other ATA drive would make it to 100mb/s burst transfer. That is entering SCSI's realm.

-Kevin
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
Originally posted by: homercles337
Originally posted by: Amaroque
Originally posted by: homercles337
Are you trying to suggest that HD benches that measure throughput of HD performance do not equate to load/write/seek times? 😕
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Correct. STR is great for contiguous large file transfers, it does nothing for random read/write operations. Your HD benches mean next to nothing for an average windows user. They are testing large file STR.

Like I said already, windows is largely dependant on seek times, not STR.
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From the OP:

" 90% of my computer use will be for gaming heh."

Hardly an average windows user. I dont get why so many people want to knock RAID 0. I have seen HUGE improvements in load/boot times. (sorry about the seek claim 😱 I think read/write/seek just comes out of my mouth naturally when talking about HDs). Windows boots in a few seconds, apps launch MUCH faster, files write faster. How are these disadvantages? Do you really think im seeing performance improvements just because i imagine them?
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Correct. This means RAID will do nothing. For a gamer, it is a complete waste.

I'm not knocking RAID. Have you noticed my sig? 2x on all my drives. But I do video editing, and huge file transfers across drives. RAID has it's place. A gaming machine isn't one of them.

If you're seeing HUGE improvements in windows app's, yes I'm saying that you're imagining it, and quite delusional.
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Amorque you have just posted one of the best posts in this entire thread. You are 100% correct.

-Kevin
 
Whether you see a difference depends on the stripe size. Larger stripes for games won't see much of an improvement as larger stripes for video editing. I went with 64kb stripes and I do see a speed improvement on my Athlon XP system with a RAID0 partition.
 
Originally posted by: MrControversial
Whether you see a difference depends on the stripe size. Larger stripes for games won't see much of an improvement as larger stripes for video editing. I went with 64kb stripes and I do see a speed improvement on my Athlon XP system with a RAID0 partition.
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I'm saying that you're imagining it, and quite delusional.
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That about sums it up.

-Kevin
 
Guys, guys, theres enough of me to go around 😛

Thanks for all the replies and a quite heated debate. But I do think gaming phreek is a bit biased in his championing of the Seagate Barracuta (Notice his HDD selection in the My Monster link) which is not a bad drive at all I'm just saying.

I won't be going RAID 0 with two Raptors Ill just be gettin one but the point is, as I said the rig will be used for gaming, and I don't eat up alot of space on a HDD so any improvment in HDD technology has to atleast yield some results however theoretical or relative they may be and the bottom line... I have money to blow damnit! 😛

So I'll just be getting one raptor. If for some odd reason I do fill it up, thats why im getting a dvd burner as well. Just back up to DVD and wipe away... Yay more space problem solved hehe.

Anywho, again thanks for all the help from you guys.
 
Well I move around Large amounts of data on a regular basis. Loaded with just over a terabyte of stuff I move around, to feed my OCD 🙂, I too feel as if stuff loads faster, but then again I sometimes feel like my newborn waits on purpose until I take off her diaper to crap. Who knows.

And yeah Raid 0 is faster fast enough to warrant the price? well that depends on the person I guess.
 
may be a question that has been covered but... I have plenty of storage currently; I just want a faster drive for loading apps/games/general windows use. Is it worth it to go with a raptor or another serial ata drive?

my current drive is a maxtor 250gb 7200 rpm only running ata100 (due to my mobo) so I want to get sata anyways.

btw, no plain of going RAID ever.
 
$179 for 73 gigs? Methinks not. In December that's what I paid for 400 gigs of quiet, reliable, 5 year warranted Seagate storage. That drive is SILET and plenty fast.

My OS, scratch, work , play, hot, and cold disks are all SCSI arrays of course. If you really *need* a fast storage system with much higher i/o capability than your standard desktop pc you need a workstation with workstation specs.
 
Originally posted by: sharkeeper
$179 for 73 gigs? Methinks not. In December that's what I paid for 400 gigs of quiet, reliable, 5 year warranted Seagate storage. That drive is SILET and plenty fast.
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Well,, that's what I mean. I don't need it for storage. Only speed. I have a 250GB as well as another pc that I use as a file server that has an 80GB drive.
But if a 7200rpm SATA hard drive would be so close I would never know the difference, then it would be best to get that.
 
You would notice a difference. I think there is nothing wrong with getting a Raptor 74. You can use it for a few upgrade cycles too. It's jusst expensive to the average poor man.
 
Shame on Ribbon for not listing his HBA for SCSI drives! 😛 😛 😛

That's like posting your ride specs on a car forum and leaving out your engine! :Q
 
Simply put: Assuming everything else is "high end" how good is a Raptor in terms of cutting down level load times for e.g. Doom3, HL2, and/or Far Cry? I'm averaging just under 1 minute with my 7200 rpm WD.
 
After getting a Raptor 1-1/2 years ago, I would never go back. The difference isn't huge but it is noticeable. I love it.
 
Originally posted by: homercles337
No, i think youre being delusional. RAID 0 equates to faster load times in gaming. I have witnessed this first hand. Plus, windows boots faster and apps launch faster. Im not saying that apps "run" faster, they sure as hell launch faster though.
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Not to get OT here, but this really needs to be address and ignorance needs to be put in its place. I'm both a gamer and a video editor. I've been using the Raptor drives since they came out and RAID 0 arrays for much longer than that. I can speak from experience, not hearsay, or personal opinions based on reviews (like what many posters seem to enjoy here on this thread). What I have to say by all means is reliable and valid, and above all unbiased and objective. Okay with that out of the way....

homercles337 is absolutely right. In defense of RAID 0, loading times for some games are drastically improved. Anybody, and I mean anybody who says otherwise most likely are just basing their opinions on word of mouth and probably has never run a RAID 0 array.

Getting back OT now, i've been buying/using hard drives for over 20 years and I think these raptor drives are the best thing since sliced bread. If you can afford it and want a 'snappy' system like many people said before me, then go for it - you won't be sorry. My next gaming system will have raptors in it again, and better yet in a RAID 0 array 😉

And to all those posters who bash RAID 0 in regard to gaming, enjoy spending your time reading reviews - those of us who 'know' will be actually enjoying our RAID arrays in games.
 
Originally posted by: ming2020
Simply put: Assuming everything else is "high end" how good is a Raptor in terms of cutting down level load times for e.g. Doom3, HL2, and/or Far Cry? I'm averaging just under 1 minute with my 7200 rpm WD.
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It is no better than a standard 7200RPM drive. In SOME games you might see a 2-3 second drop.

-Kevin
 
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