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Is the WD Raptor really worth it?

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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.
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You are improving theoretical transfer speed. Unless you have no memory in your computer and on an old HDD all it did was use gigs of swap file then it isn't going to be any faster.

Look at ANY benchmarks on the web. RAID 0 is not for the average consumer, granted it is the one most popular; but it is generally for bragging rights only. There are no HUGE differences. You can say you have first hand experiences all you want, but the 390288128820138 different reviews on the net say differently.

-Kevin
 
Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
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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Some games? I think every game sees a few seconds faster loading time. Anand tested two.
 
Originally posted by: VTrider
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.
Click to expand...

I have all my drives RAIDed. I am speaking from experience here. Game loading performance is not affected by a RAID array.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=10

 
Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
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.
Click to expand...

You are improving theoretical transfer speed. Unless you have no memory in your computer and on an old HDD all it did was use gigs of swap file then it isn't going to be any faster.

Look at ANY benchmarks on the web. RAID 0 is not for the average consumer, granted it is the one most popular; but it is generally for bragging rights only. There are no HUGE differences. You can say you have first hand experiences all you want, but the 390288128820138 different reviews on the net say differently.

-Kevin
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You can ask any serious video editor is they think the time they save loading/transferring large files is 'theoretical' - I can tell you right now what they will say. This same principle will also apply (albeit not in all situations, but neverless it still does in some circumstances) when loading game levels. I can't see how anybody would argue against this fact?

I also read reviews, especially Anands which I give the utmost respect. Bottom line, I never said RAID is for 'average users', or 'will give you a HUGE improvement' - all I ever said (in all my posts on AT about RAID 0) is that RAID 0 has it's benefits depending on how you use it - little as they might be especially in regard/compared to todays fast SATA drives.

I by all means don't base my 'this is better than that' opinions on a mere few seconds in load times, but many uber-geeks here do - in their eyes it means all the difference in the world. This is where I defend RAID 0. I've said it before in many posts also, I would be happy running straight Raptors against a RAID 0 array - I probably (keyword: probably) wouldn't noticed 'any' difference at all.
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
Originally posted by: VTrider
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.
Click to expand...

I have all my drives RAIDed. I am speaking from experience here. Game loading performance is not affected by a RAID array.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=10
Click to expand...


Hey Amaroque, would you agree that:

#1: The reason RAID 0 is so overwhelmingly popular with video editors is because of the significant improvement in transfer rates of large video files?

#2: Certian games today (BF1942? for example?) have large files (maps) to load between levels?

Last time I checked, my RAID 0 array doesn't care if it's loading AVI files as opposed to .pak files - they load just as quick, even quicker than my non-raid systems.
 
Originally posted by: VTrider
Hey Amaroque, would you agree that:

#1: The reason RAID 0 is so overwhelmingly popular with video editors is because of the significant improvement in transfer rates of large video files?

#2: Certian games today (BF1942? for example?) have large files (maps) to load between levels?

Last time I checked, my RAID 0 array doesn't care if it's loading AVI files as opposed to .pak files - they load just as quick, even quicker than my non-raid systems.
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#1 Absolutely.

#2 It would probably help some with large maps (I haven't tested this theory). But as far as level loading, there are way too many small files for RAID to see any improvement.
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
Originally posted by: VTrider
Hey Amaroque, would you agree that:

#1: The reason RAID 0 is so overwhelmingly popular with video editors is because of the significant improvement in transfer rates of large video files?

#2: Certian games today (BF1942? for example?) have large files (maps) to load between levels?

Last time I checked, my RAID 0 array doesn't care if it's loading AVI files as opposed to .pak files - they load just as quick, even quicker than my non-raid systems.
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#1 Absolutely.

#2 It would probably help some with large maps (I haven't tested this theory). But as far as level loading, there are way too many small files for RAID to see any improvement.
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Agreed 🙂
 
Heh... wow this has turned into quite a debate. I think this needs to be stickied less this war start all over again hehe.
 
The thing that gets me is when people say with a RAID array "programs load faster" and "the computer boots faster" which is simply not true.

Just because Sandra says RAID is faster, they believe it's faster. It's a psychosomatic effect. If they believe it's faster, then it will most likely "feel" faster to them. They have no idea that Sandra (or any other HDD benchmark) is testing large contiguous file transfers.

It's quite funny to watch them argue their point, even when faced with the cold hard facts. :laugh:
 
Let me step in here. First of all, I don't know about the other people in this thread but I said the Raptor is faster than a regular hard drive. RAID, as anyone who read the AT article knows, gives no real world performance increase. My biggest issue is that this whole thread has turned into a discussion about RAID & stripes & stuff that has nothing to do with the original question.

Is the Raptor really worth it? Well there's too many informed gamers out there using Raptors for me to believe it isn't worth it. Will it turn your Cadillac into a Ferrari? Definitely not, but it will help to open up the biggest bottleneck in any modern computer.

My suggestion, which may or may not matter, is to get one Raptor for your OS & games. Then you should just use seperate 7200rpm drives for mass storage of media files or whatever else you need stored (I'm using my 200gb to store DVD's). Anyways, that's what I did, hope this helps.
 
The thing that gets me is when people say with a RAID array "programs load faster" and "the computer boots faster" which is simply not true.
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I have been arguing that point the entire thread 😛 ... just no one seems to listen to me.

As for a Raptor. Raptor is meant to bridge the gap between ATA and SCSI. It is an ATA interface and is limited by the technology of ATA. THe only instances you will notice running a raptor over another drive (NCQ or not) is when transferring enormous files, in which the 10,000RPM spindle speed helps. Granted there is ~2-3 second drop in loading times, but other than that there is nothing else out there aside from bragging rights.

Look at any trusted reviewer on the web. Although theoretical performance gains look very impressive real world performance gains are virtually non-existant. Save your money and get a larger IDE drive with NCQ, or wait until drives come out the support SATAII (No idea how performance will be, probably nothing better). If you are willing to spend that much money on a drive with very little performance difference; you might as well go to SCSI, which you WILL notice performance gains, but it will cost you a little more.

-Kevin
 
Originally posted by: Amaroque
The thing that gets me is when people say with a RAID array "programs load faster" and "the computer boots faster" which is simply not true.
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I agree that programs won't load any faster (some game maps do though), but my computer definately boots faster with a RAID 0 array.

StorageReview.com agrees with me also. (and this site has traditionally been anti-raid biased)

"if the primary purpose of one's machine is to start Windows XP, RAID 0 offers a noteable decrease in boot time"

According to Tweakers.net in this review they state:

"The RAID 0 arrays perform significantly better than the single drive configurations, resulting in 31 to 37 percent lower boot times."

and also in PCstats.com, they conclude:

"The results of the tests speak like this, for the "XP Startup" tests RAID of any sort seems to be an advantage"


It's quite funny to watch them argue their point, even when faced with the cold hard facts. :laugh:
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:roll:

I've just listed some 'cold hard facts', but I didn't need benchmarks or reviews to tell me that RAID 0 improved my OS boot time - it was the first thing I realized after building it. With all due respect to the op, my intention was never to hijack this thread and turn it into a RAID debate. I'll stop posting. The links to reviews above contain some interesting benchies on raptor performance though.
 
Who cares if your computer boots faster? How many times a day do you reboot? If I boot more than 2 or 3 times a month, that's a lot, and when I do, I don't sit there and watch the screen. If my computer took 20 minutes to boot, I could see the problem, but an additional 3-4 seconds every 2 weeks or so, does nothing to ruin my computing experience. I don't understand the obsession with boot times. How it performs once it is in Windows is of significantly more importance to me.

Gamingphreek, though your viewpoint may be sound (though not inarguable), your reasoning most certainly isn't. The Raptor has little advantage when transferring large files as its STR is not much faster than standard 7200RPM drives. In fact, if you compare the STR at the 72GB spot on current 250GB+ drives, it's most likely higher than it is at the end of the 72GB Raptor. The places that the Raptor will shine the most is when reading a whole lot of small files, or random reads/writes, or multiple application requests due to the significantly faster access time (over 60% faster than typical 7200RM).

NCQ does pretty much nothing for home users because access patterns of home users are practically all sequential which NCQ will do nothing for. The only time NCQ would typically benefit a home user is if they never defrag their drive which would place data randomly split up all over the platters. Of course that's a pretty stupid strategy to try and gain benefits from a technology, when defragging your drive will result in significantly better performance than a heavily fragmented drive benefiting from NCQ.

Will the Raptor perform better in Windows and give a more responsive system? Absolutely. It's the fastest ATA drive available in the vast majority of situations. Is it worth it to everyone? No, and no one can tell you definitively whether it is worth to you. The only way to determine that yourself is to buy the drive and try it out for yourself.
 
i'd say, if you have a top of the line computer, might as well get a top of the line hd. if not, then it shouldn't matter as much.
 
Originally posted by: MysticX23
i'd say, if you have a top of the line computer, might as well get a top of the line hd. if not, then it shouldn't matter as much.
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For Real! :laugh:
If they need/want a fast non-SCSI HD, the Raptor is the way to go. :thumbsup:
If they are pinching their pennies, they need to stay away from the Raptors and get a cheapie AR HD. :roll:


 
Originally posted by: Pariah
Who cares if your computer boots faster? How many times a day do you reboot? If I boot more than 2 or 3 times a month, that's a lot, and when I do, I don't sit there and watch the screen. If my computer took 20 minutes to boot, I could see the problem, but an additional 3-4 seconds every 2 weeks or so, does nothing to ruin my computing experience. I don't understand the obsession with boot times. How it performs once it is in Windows is of significantly more importance to me.
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:thumbsup:

Unless you are using your computer for the types of things I mentioned previously in this thread, don't waste your money.
 
Quoted from: Finesse Versus Force : DiamondMax 10 Takes On The Raptor
"Once in the OS, Intel's Application Accelerator software must be installed to install the AHCI driver. IAA 4.5 will also give you an overview of your storage system to let you know which drives are NCQ enabled and which are not. While our Maxtor DiamondMax 10 drives showed up with NCQ enabled from the get-go, we could not get our Western Digital Raptor drives to run in NCQ mode. While Western Digital states that their drives support Command Queuing, they do not specifically say Native Command Queuing.
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