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Mini-review of my new Raptor

P

pelikan

Diamond Member
The high-pitched buzz was definately noticeable with my case open- a little louder than a WD JB. But fortunately I can't hear it with the case closed. I only use panaflo L1A's for case fans and cpu hsf so there's not much sound to cover it up. The seek and write sounds are low pitched and I can hear them for sure, but they don't bother me. I could not hear the seeks and writes of my WD JB.
XP installed very quickly, as did my programs. I was quite impressed. In fact, the smile on my face just got bigger as I went along installing everything. And now when I start up a game it loads faster than with my old drive, but not jaw-droppingly so. Norton virus scan seems to go twice as fast. I may put my old drive back in and time everything so I can report some numbers.
I'm happy with the purchase.
Anyone know a good and free benchmark program so I can test this thing?
And anyone know how to get rid of the boot screen that says "press F4 to load raid drivers?"
 
For hard drive access time / data throughput testing I would recommend HDTach. That software is used by most reviewers of hard drives. Not sure if it is free or not, but if it isnt you can always try SiSoft Sandra, which basically has the capability of testing everything.
 
Thanks. Can you use HDTach for XP? I checked it out and it looks like you can't but I could be wrong.
 
If you want a good benchmark:

  • install your JB as a secondary drive
  • defrag both drives
  • copy large amounts of data into a folder on one drive, then copy the folder to the other drive. Several gigabytes of data, perhaps the contents of about five game CDs, would be good. You want lots of files, not just one or two huge files.
  • defrag them both again
  • time how long each drive takes to do a virus scan on this folder you made

Nothing like real-world benchies to evaluate these new goodies! 😎
 
I just got my Raptor this week too, and installing Windows XP in 15 minutes made me happy, let alone the performance. Can't wait for the money to get another and set up a RAID0...
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
If you want a good benchmark:

  • install your JB as a secondary drive
  • defrag both drives
  • copy large amounts of data into a folder on one drive, then copy the folder to the other drive. Several gigabytes of data, perhaps the contents of about five game CDs, would be good. You want lots of files, not just one or two huge files.
  • defrag them both again
  • time how long each drive takes to do a virus scan on this folder you made

Nothing like real-world benchies to evaluate these new goodies! 😎
Click to expand...

That sounds solid. I'll try it.
 
Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
I just got my Raptor this week too, and installing Windows XP in 15 minutes made me happy, let alone the performance. Can't wait for the money to get another and set up a RAID0...
Click to expand...

Less than 10 min start to finish in RAID 0. It was truely astounding.
 
and everyone called me crazy when i spoke of the highpitch sound. glad to see other people are having problems with it so i am not insane, no offense, i am sorry your HD is loud but at least im not crazy.
 
Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
and everyone called me crazy when i spoke of the highpitch sound. glad to see other people are having problems with it so i am not insane, no offense, i am sorry your HD is loud but at least im not crazy.
Click to expand...

Hopefully mine will not start to sound like that.
 
Took 30 years for car companies to figure out how to make a small engine almost silent at 4000rpm. Why you kids are expecting WD to do it in months is beyond me. Guess I'm old fashioned.
 
Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
and everyone called me crazy when i spoke of the highpitch sound. glad to see other people are having problems with it so i am not insane, no offense, i am sorry your HD is loud but at least im not crazy.
Click to expand...

I remember your post. I think you were right when you said that some people can't hear that high frequency sound, whether its their ears or a lot of ambient sound covering it up. I also think that some drives have it worse than others. Fortunately I can only hear mine with the case open, and I always keep it closed.
 
I've got 4 of these, and the sound isn't an issue. It may be because of the air conditioner on the other side of the room, though, heh.

Once you've played with raid 0 throughput, you'll never ever go back to dealing with a single spindle.
 
Virus scans, defragging, Adaware, installing software, and stuff like that are so much faster that I can really appreciate the difference with this Raptor. But the main reason I bought a Raptor was to load games faster, and it doesn't load games that much faster. I'd like to get another one now for raid 0.
 
Originally posted by: orion7144
Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
I just got my Raptor this week too, and installing Windows XP in 15 minutes made me happy, let alone the performance. Can't wait for the money to get another and set up a RAID0...
Click to expand...

Less than 10 min start to finish in RAID 0. It was truely astounding.
Click to expand...

Oh, I am jealous!!!
 
Originally posted by: Duvie
Originally posted by: orion7144
Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
I just got my Raptor this week too, and installing Windows XP in 15 minutes made me happy, let alone the performance. Can't wait for the money to get another and set up a RAID0...
Click to expand...

Less than 10 min start to finish in RAID 0. It was truely astounding.
Click to expand...

Oh, I am jealous!!!
Click to expand...

Just imagine how fast it would have been had I disabled sound/nic/add in PCI RAID/and TV card. I'm guessing less than 8min.
 
I cant tell any difference between my raptor and IBM 180 GXP Bench about the same on my Nforce2 ,feel about the same. I had a 15k.3 Segate SCSI that was much faster than my Raptor by far.
 
Ok, I ran mechBgon's benchmark on my Raptor and 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 2MB cache on my A7N8X Deluxe, fully updated and patched WinXP Pro using a 13.5GB folder including mp3s, GTA Vice City and UT2K3 folders from program files, and a raw rip of The Matrix DVD. The Raptor clocked in at 42 seconds, while the Maxtor finished in 58 seconds.
 
Originally posted by: amdskip
I wonder if they will be more reliable than ide drives.
Click to expand...

The WD Raptor comes with a 5yr warrenty.

Koing

 
Just ordered one of these babies, I'm going from a seagate 40gb barracuda IV, so I think I will see a big performance increase, can't wait.
 
Originally posted by: orion7144
Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
I just got my Raptor this week too, and installing Windows XP in 15 minutes made me happy, let alone the performance. Can't wait for the money to get another and set up a RAID0...
Click to expand...

Less than 10 min start to finish in RAID 0. It was truely astounding.
Click to expand...

Thats about the speed it takes for my new Maxtor Atlas 10K IV.
 
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