New Western Digital Raptor 74GB for $99 w/free shipping

[Woofmeister]

Not a refurb, it's brand new. It's only SATA 1.5, but it will still smoke any other non-Raptor HD.

Free shipping seals the deal.

Run your OS and Apps on this drive and use the Samsung HD103UJ 1TB SATA2 posted here as your Data drive and you're going to fly.

 

[cubeless]

hmmm... this or a 60gb ocz ssd for $112 ar shipped at amazon... prices are converging...

 

[Wedge1]

Originally posted by: cubeless
hmmm... this or a 60gb ocz ssd for $112 ar shipped at amazon... prices are converging...

Yes but are the SSD drives problem-free? I haven't read much on them lately, but I remember reading newegg reviews about 4 months ago on the early OCZ SSD drives that had issues left and right. Or does it depend on whether you are running Vista vs XP maybe?

 

[jlin101]

why would anyone want a Raptor 74 gb now? It was state of the art when it came out years ago, but it's fallen behind. Mine gave me nothing but frequent crashes until I RMA'd it. Even so, compared to the more contemporay SATA 3.0 drives such as Seagate 7200.10 320 gb or WD's own 640 gb, it's louder and actually slower in performance. Don't bother with OCZ 60 gb SSD, either -- I've got the 64 gb version, not worth the trouble.

 

[Insomniator]

Originally posted by: jlin101
why would anyone want a Raptor 74 gb now? It was state of the art when it came out years ago, but it's fallen behind. Mine gave me nothing but frequent crashes until I RMA'd it. Even so, compared to the more contemporay SATA 3.0 drives such as Seagate 7200.10 320 gb or WD's own 640 gb, it's louder and actually slower in performance. Don't bother with OCZ 60 gb SSD, either -- I've got the 64 gb version, not worth the trouble.

The 74 and 150 raptors I believe have gone through a few revisions over the years that have increased their performance, still not sure how they compare to drives today but old launch benchmarks don't show the true performance of these drives.

 

[CRXican]

For that price it's not hot at all. There's some 150GB Raptors for sale, lightly used in the FS/FT forums going for less than $99.

 

[kimchee411]

Originally posted by: jlin101
why would anyone want a Raptor 74 gb now? It was state of the art when it came out years ago, but it's fallen behind. Mine gave me nothing but frequent crashes until I RMA'd it. Even so, compared to the more contemporay SATA 3.0 drives such as Seagate 7200.10 320 gb or WD's own 640 gb, it's louder and actually slower in performance. Don't bother with OCZ 60 gb SSD, either -- I've got the 64 gb version, not worth the trouble.

In my experience the 74 GB Raptor is considerably faster than the 7200.11. SATA 2/3, etc or not, 10k > 7.2k in the real world. I went from a 74 GB Raptor to a 160 GB. When my 160 GB died and I was using my 7200.11 backup disk and it was pretty painful until I got another 150 GB.

$99 isn't bad for a new 74 GB Raptor, but there is a huge second hand market for these. You can get a 150/160 GB for a little more. Just be sure to get a 74 GB or 150 GB (retail) and not an 80 GB or 160 GB (OEM) so you have a warranty. I learned the hard way.

 

[VooDooAddict]

This is great for a small DB or as a separate spindle for SQL TempDB in a dev/test workstation. Or for additional drives for those already running Raptor 74GB arrays.



Not for a main OS drive anymore as denser 1TB drives are at the same price point. The higher density has enabled these drives to close the performance gap between 7.5k and 10k for desktop use. DON'T be tempted to grab a pair of these and RAID 0 for desktop use. Seriously, your money will be better spent getting a pair of 1TB drives (except the WD Green series)** and use RAID 1. With a good controller you'll get near RAID 0 read speeds. Write speeds won't be as nice, but you'll still get a more responsive/faster booting system.


** The Green series alternating spindle speed 5k-7k leads to unstable seek times between drives in a RAID set. This can cause less then desirable read latencies.

 

[daveybrat]

Data transfer rates on the newer hard drives are catching up to the Raptor's but the seek times are still much lower on the Raptor's than any 7200RPM drive can boast.

 

[kimchee411]

Originally posted by: daveybrat
Data transfer rates on the newer hard drives are catching up to the Raptor's but the seek times are still much lower on the Raptor's than any 7200RPM drive can boast.

Exactly. Lower seek time makes your system "zippy", e.g. SSD

 

[DaveSimmons]

Old tech, no longer worth it.

Get a WD 640GB for capacity and sustained transfer, or give up capacity and get the eleventy-billion RPM equivalent seek speed of a SSD.

 

[Insomniator]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Old tech, no longer worth it.

Get a WD 640GB for capacity and sustained transfer, or give up capacity and get the eleventy-billion RPM equivalent seek speed of a SSD.

Ever use a raptor?

 

[jlee]

Originally posted by: Insomniator

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Old tech, no longer worth it.

Get a WD 640GB for capacity and sustained transfer, or give up capacity and get the eleventy-billion RPM equivalent seek speed of a SSD.

Ever use a raptor?

This guy has.

I recently replaced my 74gb Raptors with some 640gb AALS's.
Feels about the same performance wise but the AALS's offer more storage space and are much quieter.
In theory they also have faster read/write and, when capacity is equal, lower average access times.

 

[VirtualLarry]

OOS already?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Insomniator

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Old tech, no longer worth it.

Get a WD 640GB for capacity and sustained transfer, or give up capacity and get the eleventy-billion RPM equivalent seek speed of a SSD.

Ever use a raptor?

I put the 150 GB version in my 2006 gaming PC, back when it still made sense. I put the WD 640GB in my 2008 PC instead.

 

[Zap]

I recently replaced my 74gb Raptors with some 640gb AALS's.
Feels about the same performance wise but the AALS's offer more storage space and are much quieter.

His 74GB Raptors may have been first or second generation.

My VelociRaptor holds 300GB, is pretty darn near silent (and I'm a reformed quiet freak) and is faster than any current 7200RPM drive.

If anyone is considering two of these 74GB Raptors in RAID, I'd suggest considering a 300GB VelociRaptor for just a few bucks more.

 

[VooDooAddict]

Originally posted by: Zap
...
If anyone is considering two of these 74GB Raptors in RAID, I'd suggest considering a 300GB VelociRaptor for just a few bucks more.

:thumbsup:

I used to have a few RAID sets with the old 36G Raptors and one with the first gen 74's, they were great but i was always running out of space, so these days I'm partial to the RAIDing the 1TB drives. With all that density it's actually faster for my purposes then the 1st gen raptors.

But if you need that 10k seek time... the 300 VelociRaptor sounds like a great alternative.

 

[Staples]

I bought this drive two years ago at Best Buy for $130.

I have a WD 640GB and I swear it is almost as fast (seems even faster for loading Windows) and it was cheaper, silent and like 9 times the capacity. I would go for the WD 640GB whatever.