Poor Man's Raptor?

[mshan]

$32 after Google Checkout: http://www.buy.com/retail/computers/product.asp?loc=692&sku=202920343&wl=1

160 GB platter


What do you guys think?

 

[Blain]

I don't think it's a "Poor Man's Raptor"...
It's an 80GB, 7200rpm SATA drive. That's about it.

 

[AznSensation]

that ain't ballin' for me.

To make it a "poor man's raptor" out of that hdd, you have to sprinkle some diamonds.

 

[mshan]

160 GB platter density doesn't make it competitive?

 

[trOver]

raptor ur talking 10 grand rpm...

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: mshan
160 GB platter density doesn't make it competitive?

Eh... short-stroked drives are overrated IMO. Rotational speed has a pretty significant impact on seek time.

You can get the same effect by getting a single-platter 160GB drive and just creating a single 80GB partition on it at the 'beginning' of the drive...

...or is there something more to this drive? Only thing I can find on it that seems unusual is that it is very low-power (~6W).

 

[Smartazz]

lol, how is that like a raptor at all? Raptors are 10k hdds and are relatively small.

 

[bob4432]

you would be much better off getting a old 10-15k rpm scsi hdd - 18-36GB

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: bob4432
you would be much better off getting a old 10-15k rpm scsi hdd - 18-36GB

those still seem like a waste to me specially since you'll probably end up getting a scsi controller a long with one as I remember those don't come cheap.

 

[Phoenix97]

It's not difficult to find a used 29160 or something on eBay for under $50. Windows 2000 (and probably XP) will know what it is right off the bat.
And then you can find yourself some cheap 10 or 15K drives (40-odd dollars for a 36GB MAS or a 73GB MAT if you know where to look), then find a working 80->68 pin adapter, ensure enough power's getting to the drive, find a working U160/U320 cable, ensure the bus is terminated properly, elminate conflicting SCSI IDs, all this even before discussing RAID.
It's cheaper than a Raptor, only if your time is worthless.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: w00t

Originally posted by: bob4432
you would be much better off getting a old 10-15k rpm scsi hdd - 18-36GB

those still seem like a waste to me specially since you'll probably end up getting a scsi controller a long with one as I remember those don't come cheap.

u160 scsi controller = used ~$20 (adaptec 19160, 29160, 39160 or lsiu160) - you can use the u160 stuff for a single drive (or even a couple as long as yo don't move data from more than 1 drive to another drive off the card at the same time, then you will saturate the bus) because the u160 (160MB/s) has a higher str than the 32bit pci (133MB/s) slot you are more than likely putting it into. plus until now the drives have a str of ~85MB/s, with the newest seagate (15k.5) has perpendicular recording and it maxes over 100MB/s, in fact with mine the burst speed and the str are =

also a u160/u320 ribbon cable with terminator = ~$10, a 80->68pin adapter if you pick up a sca drive - ~$8

the way i look at it is that although my usage patterns are not server like, the extremely low seek times help me out regardless. when i load up a program, it calls all kinds of other files, so those need to get loaded to. imho, these 15k drives, especiallly the fujitsu 15k drives (my favorite, just looking for a max series for cheap) make for a very responsive machine. you click and things just happen.

 

[jose]

That's not a poor man's raptor, just a poor man's hd.