Old WD VelociRaptor compared to recent hard drives

[GeezerMan]

I have 3 of the old western digital WD1600HLFS drives sitting in a box. I want to set up a not very important HTPC with either these old WD drives ( free ) as a boot drive or one of my other more recent hard drives. Yes, I know about SSD, I use them in my main rigs.

This HTPC build is not very important. So, my question is does the real world performance of more modern hard drives, with better density, etc. exceed the performance of the old VelociRaptor ?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yes and no.

Newer HDDs tend to have faster sequential speeds (more MB/sec) because they have much higher platter densities. (About double the MB/sec.)

Newer HDDs are still 7200 rpm, usually, which means the access speed and latency is still much higher than the Velociraptors. (10-12ms vs. 6-8 ms average.)

And as you're aware, SSDs are much faster in both respects.

My recommendation would be against using the Velociraptor in an HTPC, since it will be loud and annoying.

 

[GeezerMan]

these old raptors are actually quiet enough for this purpose

 

[dave_the_nerd]

these old raptors are actually quiet enough for this purpose

*shudder* If you say so. To thine own self be true.

 

[GeezerMan]

it's like 15 feet away and with the speakers playing, no problems for us old geezers

 

[Smoblikat]

IIRC the 160gb ones are the weird ones, the 150gb ones are normal drives, but somthing in the back of my mind is telling me the 160gb series is some weird OEM only or refurb stock. Ive owned every size raptor up to the 600gb models, and I can tell you from experience the 160gb drives specifically go bad the fastest. Theyre not exactly quiet, but theyre nothing like an old 20gb IDE HDD. If youve never run all 3 in a RAID0 config before I say just do it for the experience, but dont expect to be blown away. Itll be fast sure, but even a cheapo 120gb SSD would feel snappier.

 

[GeezerMan]

they are drives with 5 years on them. hard disk sentinel still reports them at 100%

 

[GeezerMan]

WD1600HLFS was the HP and Dell exclusive model..

 

[VirtualLarry]

My recommendation would be against using the Velociraptor in an HTPC, since it will be loud and annoying.

This. 10K RPM high-performance server-oriented HDD is not "silent for HTPC".

See if you can buy a 60GB SSD, for $30-36. (Newegg on ebay has some for that price, I believe, if they're still in stock.)

Or, go with the HDD, and live with the noise, your choice. 😛

 

[cdoublejj]

the ssd would be cheaper because if i had 3 of those drives i'd get a raid card and raid them for fun but, i have spare raid cards lying around. plus that would end up being about 200 gb. that or i'd use it as storage for frequently accessed stuff like music ora few select games. or i'd sell them along with all my other retro gear and hardware. cool drives to have though.