Raptors with +/- $300 budget

[Herrterror]

I have a roughly $300 budget for new drives to use as primary operating drives (I already have my raw storage drives). Should I choose...

3x Raptor 36gb (RAID 5)
2x Raptor 74gb (RAID 0 or 1, or other RAID options...)
1x Raptor 150gb (No RAID options, and don't necessarily need the space as it's only for OS/Apps)

 

[acole1]

SCSI and 2x15k rpm 73gb... might run about $400 though.

 

[Bobthelost]

1 raptor 150

If you want i can find a head to head comparison of it and 2x74 and 4x74 RAID0

Also buying a $400 SCSI setup would be ******, the only SCSI drives that are faster than the Raptor 150 are 15K 147gb drives and they cost a fortune.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
1 raptor 150

If you want i can find a head to head comparison of it and 2x74 and 4x74 RAID0

Also buying a $400 SCSI setup would be ******, the only SCSI drives that are faster than the Raptor 150 are 15K 147gb drives and they cost a fortune.

I don't remember the details but I know the article Bobthelost is talking about. There's definitely no need to stripe your array. If you wanted to mirror for fault tolerance that would make sense but striping is just a waste of $$$. SCSI isn't going to give you a big benefit unless you've got a ton of disk access at the same time (as in a server).

 

[acole1]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
1 raptor 150

If you want i can find a head to head comparison of it and 2x74 and 4x74 RAID0

Also buying a $400 SCSI setup would be ******, the only SCSI drives that are faster than the Raptor 150 are 15K 147gb drives and they cost a fortune.

thats why i said get the 2x 15k drives.. and you can get 73gb ones for ~$150 a piece

i would never get SCSI's or a RAID setup though... its all a waist of money IMO, just like SLI.

 

[foodfightr]

Originally posted by: Herrterror
I have a roughly $300 budget for new drives to use as primary operating drives (I already have my raw storage drives). Should I choose...

3x Raptor 36gb (RAID 5)
2x Raptor 74gb (RAID 0 or 1, or other RAID options...)
1x Raptor 150gb (No RAID options, and don't necessarily need the space as it's only for OS/Apps)

1x Raptor 150GB..... it is 68% faster than raptor 36GB. Transfer rate won't add much performance so I'd just get one and be done with it!

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: acole1

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
1 raptor 150

If you want i can find a head to head comparison of it and 2x74 and 4x74 RAID0

Also buying a $400 SCSI setup would be ******, the only SCSI drives that are faster than the Raptor 150 are 15K 147gb drives and they cost a fortune.

thats why i said get the 2x 15k drives.. and you can get 73gb ones for ~$150 a piece

i would never get SCSI's or a RAID setup though... its all a waist of money IMO, just like SLI.

Generally taking two slower drive and sticking them in RAID does not get the same speed increase and performance increase that a single faster drive offers, with the exception of sustained read/write speeds which are rather irrelevant for gaming (but very relevant for video editing).

I would like to see a comparison though if you know of one.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

1xRaptor 150

It's about as fast as the fastest 15K drive now. If you look at this you will see that the raptor takes 3 ot of 5 single-user tests. And it's quieter and cooler to boot.

 

[One43637]

1x150

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: acole1

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
1 raptor 150

If you want i can find a head to head comparison of it and 2x74 and 4x74 RAID0

Also buying a $400 SCSI setup would be ******, the only SCSI drives that are faster than the Raptor 150 are 15K 147gb drives and they cost a fortune.

thats why i said get the 2x 15k drives.. and you can get 73gb ones for ~$150 a piece

i would never get SCSI's or a RAID setup though... its all a waist of money IMO, just like SLI.

post link to scsi hdds please. i have been looking to upgrade my 10k scsi to 15K....

 

[foodfightr]

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat
1xRaptor 150

It's about as fast as the fastest 15K drive now. If you look at this you will see that the raptor takes 3 ot of 5 single-user tests. And it's quieter and cooler to boot.

QFT........ thank you for saying it so beautifully.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: foodfightr

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat
1xRaptor 150

It's about as fast as the fastest 15K drive now. If you look at this you will see that the raptor takes 3 ot of 5 single-user tests. And it's quieter and cooler to boot.

QFT........ thank you for saying it so beautifully.

QFT again... but for gaming performance, another 7800GT would be by FAR a better buy. Blowing $300 on a 'fast hard drive' doesn't make sense if you're using it for gaming.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: foodfightr

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat
1xRaptor 150

It's about as fast as the fastest 15K drive now. If you look at this you will see that the raptor takes 3 ot of 5 single-user tests. And it's quieter and cooler to boot.

QFT........ thank you for saying it so beautifully.

QFT again... but for gaming performance, another 7800GT would be by FAR a better buy. Blowing $300 on a 'fast hard drive' doesn't make sense if you're using it for gaming.

Good point... I'll take a huge increase in frame rate over a few seconds spent waiting while a level loads.

 

[Herrterror]

I'm satisfied with the gaming performance already, just want to improve general responsiveness. I just put the machine together and it performs/reacts only slightly better than my old Athlon XP 2500 system (except for greatly improved gaming), and everything is running at proper speeds, so it would seem that the RAM and HDD that I transplanted from the old system are the bottleneck. I want to get a fast operating drive, then worry about the RAM. I'm not going to bother with scsi. I only have room for PCI card solutions, not PCIe, so I think 10k rpm SATA is more cost effective for the performance jump.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Herrterror
I'm satisfied with the gaming performance already, just want to improve general responsiveness. I just put the machine together and it performs/reacts only slightly better than my old Athlon XP 2500 system (except for greatly improved gaming), and everything is running at proper speeds, so it would seem that the RAM and HDD that I transplanted from the old system are the bottleneck. I want to get a fast operating drive, then worry about the RAM. I'm not going to bother with scsi. I only have room for PCI card solutions, not PCIe, so I think 10k rpm SATA is more cost effective for the performance jump.

Get a single 74GB Raptor and sort out your RAM then, it would be a much better solution IMO.

 

[imported_rod]

1x Raptor 74gb, and save the rest of the money for new RAM.

But of the options you outlined, it would have to be 1x Raptor 150gb.

RoD

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Actually, the performance of 2x74 in RAID 0 is arguably better than a simple 1x150 setup. However, 1x150 consumes less power and is cheaper. Moreover, when it comes time to upgrade, 2x150 makes more sense than 4x74.

My vote goes for 1x150.

Although personally I think it's a silly choice. Just get a pair of 7200s.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Herrterror
I'm satisfied with the gaming performance already, just want to improve general responsiveness. I just put the machine together and it performs/reacts only slightly better than my old Athlon XP 2500 system (except for greatly improved gaming), and everything is running at proper speeds, so it would seem that the RAM and HDD that I transplanted from the old system are the bottleneck. I want to get a fast operating drive, then worry about the RAM. I'm not going to bother with scsi. I only have room for PCI card solutions, not PCIe, so I think 10k rpm SATA is more cost effective for the performance jump.

your ram will help a little, but the main gain you will see is from the hdd. many people o/c their optys and run memory dividers giving them the same basic equation that you have with htt/ram ratio.

in all honesty, the machines we build today aren't going to be much more responsive over 2-3yr old machines for normal every day stuff like word processing or web browsing. i just go rid of a 1GHz / 7.2k 9GB hdd / 384MB RAM and there was a difference but not huge between my machine and it for everyday stuff because hardly any computing power is needed for everyday items, most of the responsiveness was from my hdd. now if i throw a game on or do some ps, illustrator, premiere work or do some audio/video encoding that is another story. hell, put a 10k scsi hdd in a 1GHz machine and you will be amazed at the responsiveness

normally i would recommend scsi - a u160 card and a 10k u320 hdd, because you can always upgrade scsi to 15K, but for ease of implementation and the fact that the 74GB raptors will probably be coming down in price due to the raptor150, i would go that route.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: hurtstotalktoyou
Actually, the performance of 2x74 in RAID 0 is arguably better than a simple 1x150 setup. However, 1x150 consumes less power and is cheaper. Moreover, when it comes time to upgrade, 2x150 makes more sense than 4x74.

My vote goes for 1x150.

Although personally I think it's a silly choice. Just get a pair of 7200s.

SR has an upcoming article with RAID benchmarks. They posted one set of benchmarks that shows that four x74GB was slower than 1 x 150GB in 4 out of the 5 single user tests and tied it in the 5th. RAID does almost nothing to improve performance for home users. You might as well flush your money down the toilet if you're looking to boost system performance by adding a second drive for RAID 0.

Anway, if money isn't an issue, the 150GB Raptor is definitely the way to go for any home user looking for the best overall performance.

 

[Gaffney982]

I've run mine in raid 0 and regular setup and i've seen no difference. Stick with what works, just get the 1x150